A couple of points going way back in this thread. I don't have time to locate and quote the original posts as I have a training session to deliver at work soon and need to prepare for it, but the following IMO is worth stating.
First, Aston Villa aren't upgrading their local stations. They're currently in talks with the Mayor of the West Midlands and the local transport authority for this to be done, and are expecting the costs to be met by their local equivalent of TfGM. The fact that Villa have chosen to trumpet this in the press while City are quiet about their discussions along similar lines doesn't make Villa an exemplar for us, and there's no guarantee Villa will get what they're asking for.
Second, the alleged fact that there are few, if any, precedents for a football club to be asked to enter into a section 106 agreement to fund local transport infrastructure is irrelevant here. There are few, if any, precedents for a British football club to enter into an agreement with its local council to develop a 40-acre site next to its stadium and for the club's parent company to enter into a joint venture with a developer to site one of Europe's biggest indoor concert venues right next to its stadium.
Way back before even Thaksin arrived at City, there was an official website for Sportcity Manchester that claimed 4.5 million visitors annually to all the amenities around the stadium - the tennis centre, squash centre, athletics track and so on. About one million of that number will have been attributable to MCFC matches. Stadium expansion and the fact of a better team having more home games in cup competitions means that the latter figure will have increased a bit.
But Co-op Live will have 100 to 150 events per year, so let's hypothesise from that another 1.5 million visitors to the campus every year. The facilities within Co-op Live will be open outside concert times, while the club is building a hotel and offices as part of the new stand. Let's guess that this will add a further 0.5 million to the annual visitor number.
So you're now raising the number of visitors by over 50% from the number that the current transport infrastructure was designed to handle. At the same time, there are parking restrictions coming into force that will make visiting by car much more difficult during times when the Campus is in peak use. In these circumstances, a request to the developer for a significant section 106 contribution to support transport improvements seems entirely reasonable.
Unfortunately, and especially in the light of the parking issues, the mooted improvements discussed so far (walking routes, taxis and the like) seem wholly inadequate. Of course in these circumstances people will quite rightly discuss whether there might be other options, such as running shuttle buses or making use of the freight line running past the ground (as, in the latter case, TfGM did in the past have plans to do).
If people have some kind of specialist knowledge and can explain why any ideas put forward aren't workable, that's a welcome addition to any discussion. On the other hand, I find it somewhat tiresome when posters post trenchantly that "It'll never happen!" without further explanation. It adds nothing of value to the discussion, as far as I can see.
Nonetheless, I do concede we're generally better served by looking at TfGM's current plans and priorities to see what kind of ideas the best chance of flying. I've more to say about that, but I have stuff to do now so it will have to wait.
