NeilYoungIsBack
Well-Known Member
10 trams an hour back into town carrying what 200 people a time, that's 2,000 people in an hour, and probably a lot less given that 20 minutes after the game is over, the place is emptying rapidly. This is a niche issue.
If you looked at the Etihad 30 minutes after the game ended. What would you find? 50,000 people well gone. There are probably some problems for drivers and tram users, but in terms of an obstacle to ground expansion, I don't think so.
We have an extant permission to expand the ground to 62,170 on matchdays and 63,834 for concerts, so transport infrastructure isn't an obstacle to expansion as such.
But poor transport accessibility will, in my view, increasingly become an deterrent to attracting the extra fans we need to fill the ground were it to be expanded, especially for evening and mid-week fixtures. I know people who already have stopped attending mid-week games because of difficulties in getting to and/or away from the ground, at least that is the reason they give.
We should also bear in mind that there is a lot of other development that the Council and its development partners are keen to see happen on sites within and next to the Sports City area. This could be up to 2 million sqft of commercial space, education facilities, student accommodation, sports technology businesses and a certain amount of retailing too. All of this will increase the amount of car traffic in the area and will create additional demands for public transport.
There's is now also the proposal for a >20,000 seat indoor arena in the area (as per the March 2019 regeneration framework). If this idea develops, proves viable and is built, we could be facing 20,000+ concert goers trying to get to/from the area on the same night as 54,000 football fans attending a PL or CL match.
Better transport management will certainly be needed to cope with all that. If only the stadium had been built sited a bit closer to a decent railway station...