Armour
Senior Member
How will the games make our public spaces cleaner in the long run?
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Toronto 2015 Pan American Games
- Thread starter FutureMayor
- Start date
BurlOak
Senior Member
I agree that Hazel McCallion would count as a celebrity since she has served for decades. I do not imagine that Ian Miller will be seen much in Toronto though - he will most likely hang out in Palgrave.
ChesterCopperpot
Senior Member
Archery/Field Hockey on the grounds of U of T?
animatronic
Senior Member
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.
junctionist
Senior Member
We've made significant improvements to our sports infrastructure, which means more opportunities for athletics for everyone and for training world-class athletes. That means a better quality of life is available to us. We wouldn't have made those improvements so quickly without the games--it might have taken at least a generation. Toronto may host the Olympics. Certainly, if we host the Pan Am Games successfully, we'll be a more credible candidate. Even if we host a scaled-down Olympic games in reaction to the trend of overspending, we'll still host something incredible that will further advance the city.
Regardless of whether the games are necessary, some have said the games were $200 per person down the drain, when most of that money was spent on useful projects. The West Don Lands revitalization is impressive. No one touched that area for decades. A previous government revitalization plan failed. It required government investment for the civil engineering infrastructure like the flood berm. The government didn't have to make that investment; it became more attractive because of the games. It represents a significant area in the city.
To clarify on the public spaces: many spaces have been renovated like Front Street at Union Station, Queens Quay and NPS. They're cleaner because renovated spaces mean no wear and tear is visible. That will last for at least a decade. My point isn't that we made all these improvements just because of the games. The games catalyzed a lot of investment that could have been delayed, cut back or put on the backburner. Ultimately, most of the money was spent on valuable projects.
Regardless of whether the games are necessary, some have said the games were $200 per person down the drain, when most of that money was spent on useful projects. The West Don Lands revitalization is impressive. No one touched that area for decades. A previous government revitalization plan failed. It required government investment for the civil engineering infrastructure like the flood berm. The government didn't have to make that investment; it became more attractive because of the games. It represents a significant area in the city.
To clarify on the public spaces: many spaces have been renovated like Front Street at Union Station, Queens Quay and NPS. They're cleaner because renovated spaces mean no wear and tear is visible. That will last for at least a decade. My point isn't that we made all these improvements just because of the games. The games catalyzed a lot of investment that could have been delayed, cut back or put on the backburner. Ultimately, most of the money was spent on valuable projects.
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animatronic
Senior Member
So in other words the Pan Am Games are municipal Viagra for a city with Obstructive Planning Disorder?
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Riverdale Rink Rat
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Looking at Street View, the field hockey pitch could be photographed with the Hart House Clock Tower in the background, or maybe Fort Book in the other direction.
Archery at Varsity Stadium gives the opportunity to take shots down Bloor -- Varsity, Royal College of Music, ROM.
Either of those venues would do well with a 90 second 'intro' piece following some backpacking students through Hart House/University College or down Bloor to Varsity. Either could be spectacular.
nrb
Active Member
And yet one of the key elements of the spending and bid was transit city, a plan that was basically torn up.
Riverdale Rink Rat
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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.
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Tuscani01
Senior Member
And yet Toronto 2015 has home page presence on every Latin American broadcaster's website that is broadcasting the games in their respective countries.
Yep, clearly nobody caring.
Brazil: http://esportes.r7.com/
Peru: http://www.latina.pe/deportes
And bonus:
A commercial from Mexico with some incredible images of Toronto and area:
https://vimeo.com/121167417
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animatronic
Senior Member
Chile - nope: http://www.tvn.cl/
Brasil - nope: http://rederecord.r7.com/
Peru - nope: http://www.latina.pe/
ChesterCopperpot
Senior Member
That Mexico video is brilliant
animatronic
Senior Member
Or just dump your partner before their inability to spend money wisely forces you into bankruptcy...
Ivor Wynne is a perfect example of the problem. Pan Am created a funding pool and an artificial deadline. So the new stadium got built, but time pressures forced a compromise on location over a number of superior options. The rush to get it done forced it to be built smaller than planned. We have now spent hundreds of millions of public dollars supporting a private organization (the Ti-Cats) to build a public stadium that can't be used for anything else other than high school sports because it is smack dab in the middle of a residential neighbourhood with no parking. Meanwhile the City of Toronto just finished upgrading the best soccer-specific stadium in the country... so they can use it for rugby sevens. What an utter fucking waste.
TOareaFan
Superstar
I believe it was always planned to be the size (+/-) it is.
It is used for more than high school sports...no? That same location, in that same neighbourhood has hosted (and will host) CFL for decades....including the occasional expansion of the facility to hold Grey Cups.
EDIT: and not to get too pedantic but "hundreds of millions" (as in multiple hundreds of millions) would be $200million plus....I think it was pointed out above the cost was $145million. Your opposition to/anger about these games is noted and a valid opinion but there is no need to make stuff up to make it seem more valid.
You do understand that there is a difference between the Rugby sevens tournament and the soccer tournament at the Pan Ams.....a difference so fundamental that it ruled out BMO as the soccer venue from the onset.....right?
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Tuscani01
Senior Member
Go to their sport sections... I provided the links.
Also, ESPN has already had some coverage of the games, and will be broadcasting them in the states.
The games have already had exposure to hundreds of millions of people, and they are still many weeks away. Expect to see coverage ramp up the week that athletes begin arriving (As is the case for most sporting events).