1. Most of the venues are neither first-rate nor necessary - e.g., field hockey, bowling, Ivor Wynne
2. Of those venues that are needed (York track, UTS aquatics) they could have been built much more cheaply if they didn't need to be purpose-built for Pan Am
3. We could have just invested in the infrastructure and skipped the billion dollars of security and other event costs
4. The only real revitalization is the Lower Don and that could have been developed just as effectively using private money
5. "Cleaner public spaces" doesn't mean anything
6. Nobody outside Toronto gives a shit about Pan Am. We are not elevated in the eyes of Peruvians as a result of this hosting gig
7. Improved quality of life after the games is < than if we took the $1B+ we're flushing down the toilet and instead used it to fix the Gardiner or add an LRT line
8. On the off chance that we are stupid enough to bid on the Olympics none of the venues could be re-used
9. Toronto will never host the Olympics, and that's a good thing. The Olympics are a bloated corporate wasteland where cities go to die. The whole Olympic movement is going to collapse under its own weight and we need to stay the hell away when it happens. We are neither a tinpot dictatorship nor a developing country with delusions of grandeur, and we won't bribe anyone to win.
So in other words we've hijacked the municipal and provincial political agendas for the last six years and drained the public coffers to host a third-rate sporting event at horrendous cost, just so we can end up with a few overbuilt sports facilities and a non-existent shot at winning a Summer Olympics - which if we defied all logic and won would mean we'd have to do everything all over again but at ten times the cost. Oh goody.
Animatronic, if you go back through this thread, you'll see a ton of posts from me adamantly opposed to this event, and even more opposed to a Summer Olympics bid. But at this point in time, y'all need to let it go. You've got a few good points and a lot of histrionics, but, really, I'd say to a great extent the worries of those of us opposed to a big spend have been assuaged.
To your (10) points:
1. Well, they've built an artificial turf field at Hart House for field hockey, that will have temporary stands during the game. Some UofT types didn't like the lawn being taken out, but it'll be used by students after the games for the same intramurals it was used for beforehand. Planet Bowl will go back to being Planet Bowl after the games -- not certain what your beef is there. Ivor Wynne got its upgrade (after much to & froing where Hamilton's mayor tried to extract more cash for a boondoggle but failed) and that's been expensive. Hamilton Spectator: "The stadium is budgeted at $145.7 million. The city is contributing $54.3 million, the province is paying $22.3 million, and federal government the remaining $69.1 million." But, again, at this point it's spent. And at least the Tiger Cats will have a decent stadium after the games.
2. I'd actually disagree with you here -- I don't think a diving tank is ever necessary. But, at least they put the sports facilities at university campuses where they will be used continuously after the Games. Of course they're overbuilt -- but now they're there.
3. But we didn't. Let it go. This is the entire meaning of 'sunk costs'.
4. Actually, the WDL revitalization is spectacular and accelerated by the Pan Am games by 10-20 years. This was my greatest fear -- all of those condos being dumped on the market at the same time, particularly if Toronto's condo craze had ended. However, the deal with DundeeKilmer mitigated the risk to the government and the infrastructure build has been fantastic for the city. Eventually the condo craze in Toronto will hit a major bump in the road, but it looks like WDL will work out great. And the Cherry Street LRT would never have been built in this time frame without this games. I'm sorry that's true, but I think we can all acknowledge that's the case.
5. Agreed. So what?
6. Again -- so what? I'd say that it will be a fairly big shot in the arm for the local tourism industry this summer and that's about it. But you can't complain about the traffic and not acknowledge that
somebody thinks it's a big enough deal to come watch. Even if they're only GTAers and the athletes' families instead of some A-list celebrity or whatever 'gives a shit' is supposed to mean.
7. Sure. But a big, whacking chunk of that $1B+ is federal and provincial money that would otherwise have been allocated to improving Muskoka for the next G-20 summit. We don't need a Games, but don't pretend anyone was going to spend that money on QQE LRT instead. That wasn't the choice offered.
8. You didn't want to bid on the Olympics, and you're against the Pan Am games because the venues are not Olympic-sized? That's a bit of money they've saved and you're against that, too?
9. Agreed.
and 10. No municipal nor provincial political agendas have been 'hijacked' by the Pan Ams. The amount of money spent, by all levels of government, is less than the silliness of building a bloody subway to Scarborough.
I'm happy to agree with you that an Olympic bid is a boondoggle we should not, in any way, shape or form, countenance. But that's not an argument about enjoying or not enjoying the Pan Am games now that they're a couple of months away.
Think of it this way: your partner took the money you would have spent on a new addition to the kitchen and bought an SUV when you only needed a Civic. You might as well enjoy the SUV and drive it anyway, even if it is too expensive and not what you wanted.
7.