49ers propose site across the street from California's Great America

Are you kidding me? They object to a five minute walk? Have they been to Cleveland? You get that walk then you get to be outside while the wind off Laker Erie beats the crap out of you. Frankly I think the average football fan could use the exercise.

These are Californians, Jeff. They don't walk anywhere.

I had always assumed this very famous photo was Californian in nature:
http://www.goodexperience.com/broken/i/04/02/america-fitness-s.jpg

Anyway, so it's five minutes' walk from a light rail station. How does the rail line run with regard to the stadium site and Great America? There's no rule that says the rail station can't be moved up or down the line...I'm not familiar with the area, but looking at the Google Map, if the site in question is where I think it is, it's still on the light rail line and actually closer to the Amtrak station anyway. Unless I am looking in the wrong place...is the new site the parking lot to the East of the main lot, bounded by Tasman and Centennial?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Classic photo, Dave. Well done!

Unless you're really early or really lucky, you typically have more than a five minute walk from your parking space to the entrance of most pro or college stadiums anyway. Who of us hasn't had to walk 1/4 mile across the parking lot of a park to get to the entrance?

Maybe CF has an extra tram they can sell them.

That's hilarious Dave. As soon as I read the first post I thought of that picture, then you linked to it. Priceless.

A five-minute walk? Are you kidding me? Once inside the average NFL stadium, it's usually a five-minute walk to your seat! Like Jeff said, the average sports fan needs the walk anyway. Place the parking lot on the other side of town at the very least.

Hey, maybe we found the perfect use for Villan and Raging Wolf Bobs from Geauga lake. Just straighten the track out and use them as a tram system.

All right here comes the local talking about Great America again.

I don't know what light rail station they are talking about and I used to work 5 block from Great America. There are three light rail stations by the park and Niner headquarters, all of which are within a 5-15 minute walk. Plus the a cal-tran station is within a couple of blocks. There is plenty of public transportation available for both the park and the stadium. And if one of the stations needs to be moved I imagine they will move it.

Now can Cedar Fair just agree to the proposal and start offering Niners tickets at a discount for park season pass holders. (I can dream, can't I) ;)

---

Cedar Fair can't understand why they didn't propose this before.

---

All I have to say is... Priceless. :)

Here is the original pic they released a month or so ago.

In this pic I made an X. Is that the overflow lot? If it is, it doesn't seem like enough room. Unless there is adjoining proporty that can also buy.

<edit> link fixed </edit>
*** This post was edited by Jason Hammond 11/9/2007 5:43:15 PM ***

Your second link doesn't work. But, if your X is where I think it is, I don't see a problem there. The parking lot isn't much smaller than the CGA lot. Plus, the stadium and park were supposed to park in the balance of the lot after the stadium went in. So, if the stadium takes up the new lot, parking still needs to be somewhere else (or in the CGA lot).

It just doesn't make sense to me why they'd even attempt to squeeze the stadium in such close proximity to the park in the first place.

You can't squeeze 5 gallons of water in to a 1 gallon bucket. Move on.

Well, "sharing" parking with a theme park is most likely a good idea. Having monstrous parking lots sit idle the majority of the time for sport facilities isn't just a waste of space, it's ugly and can cause big problems with flooding and runoff.

I'm also guessing the city of Santa Clara is giving them some kind of deal to move to the city. The article also says the location is good for the stadium because it has good parking and transportation infrastructure.

Just because the overflow parking lot is only a certain size now, doesn't mean there isn't land directly surrounding it that can also be taken by (or already owned by) the city.

That site looks like it'd be dreadful for a stadium. There are roads with intersections all around it- no highways with flowing interchanges. Fill them with thousands upon thousands of cars at the same time going to and from the same place and you've got a disaster.

You would think sharing parking lots would be a good idea since a stadium would use the lots a lot less often than an amusement park but remember what happened with Astroworld? Even now, the rodeo and Texans are fighting a proposed hotel taking over the old Astrodome. I would hope there is extra land nearby they could build more parking. Unless the parking lot is a lot larger than what it looks like in that picture, it looks like there is not enough room for both a stadium and amusement park to share on a Sunday.

It may be a bad location of a stadium, but many teams are going back to having their games played within the city. For example Cleveland put Jacob's Field and Quicken Loans Arena (formerly Gund Arena) downtown, a few blocks from I-90, and they placed these next to each other. There is the rare occasion where the Cavaliers and Indians play games at the same time and while it can be crazy traffic-wise, there hasn't been that much of an issue. I think the local businesses like it when there are actually people in Cleveland!

A bad location? Yeah I could agree with you on that. A disaster? I don't really see it that way. If this is just for the 49ers and some other events here and there, the only tug of war for parking we'd see would be September and October.

~Rob Willi

Actually the site is within relatively short distance to two freeways and alot of public transportation is available by it. This is much the same as the Giant's stadium in San Francisco. Not sure if that overflow lot is big enough for a stadium, but I'm willing to wait and see.

As far as I know the city of Santa Clara has not offered to help fund the stadium yet and have not given the Niners any incentives to move to Santa Clara. The move to Santa Clara has more to do with not being able to find a good site in San Francisco.