An "Away" Game Close to Home
Jun. 23rd, 2008 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeThe Giants play the A's this weekend in Oakland, Friday-Sunday. There seem to be plenty of seats available, including excellent, in/close for under $40. I'm thinking of going to at least one of them. It would be the first time I've seen a game that counted at the Coliseum. I'd take BART, of course. There's a Capitol Corridor train that would get me to the game at a convenient time, and I have several unused Capitol tickets sitting here, but getting home would be a hassle and would require me to either have to walk the 6 km home from BART late at night (doable, but inconvenient) or take a taxi.
For the benefit of those who don't know the Bay Area geography, the A's play in a ball park that's closer to me than the Giants ("my" team). The A's park is adjacent to a BART station, one I go to fairly regularly because it's also the connection for Oakland Airport.
There's a proposal to move the A's down here to Fremont where I live. I'm opposed to it, not because the A's are the "other team" -- as they play in the Other League, I don't really care about them that much -- but because they want to put the park far away from public transit connections and rely on shuttle buses to get people to and from BART. Whoever dreamed up that idea is either "a knave or a fool." That is, they either know it's a dumb idea but have to try and cover things so they can pull off the move, or they really think people will be happy with queuing for buses and inching through the traffic jams around the ball park. I sometimes wonder if the people who cook up these ideas ever take transit to an event themselves.
Buses are not a substitute for high-capacity rail transit.
For the benefit of those who don't know the Bay Area geography, the A's play in a ball park that's closer to me than the Giants ("my" team). The A's park is adjacent to a BART station, one I go to fairly regularly because it's also the connection for Oakland Airport.
There's a proposal to move the A's down here to Fremont where I live. I'm opposed to it, not because the A's are the "other team" -- as they play in the Other League, I don't really care about them that much -- but because they want to put the park far away from public transit connections and rely on shuttle buses to get people to and from BART. Whoever dreamed up that idea is either "a knave or a fool." That is, they either know it's a dumb idea but have to try and cover things so they can pull off the move, or they really think people will be happy with queuing for buses and inching through the traffic jams around the ball park. I sometimes wonder if the people who cook up these ideas ever take transit to an event themselves.
Buses are not a substitute for high-capacity rail transit.
