Maze Stadium to get go ahead to-day

[nifan]

stew, you said it was beside the busiest road in the six, as though thats a good thing.
It is obvious most people going to the stadium are going to have to take the M1.
Adding the bulk of traffic going to the stadium to the busiest road in NI doesnt sound like the best solution to me.
Evening kickoffs will necessitate more traffic on the road during rush hour.

The railway is still pie in the sky stuff at the moment as far as anyone is aware.

[ziggysego]

stew, you said it was beside the busiest road in the six, as though thats a good thing.
It is obvious most people going to the stadium are going to have to take the M1.
Adding the bulk of traffic going to the stadium to the busiest road in NI doesnt sound like the best solution to me.
Evening kickoffs will necessitate more traffic on the road during rush hour.
The railway is still pie in the sky stuff at the moment as far as anyone is aware.

Surely it would be ten times worse trying to cross the busy city.

[SammyG]

Surely it would be ten times worse trying to cross the busy city.

There are 100's of roads in and around Belfast, plus bus and rail access. It also has hotels, bars etc so people can stagger their journey to the match. The Maze has one small side-road with no bus or train access and no other amenities (and no plans or budget to build any)

[his holiness nb]

Sammy must have the laptop in the pub as he is reading this thread!

On the contrary, maybe in his rush to get out to the pub he left his computer on at home with the GAA Board page open.

Correct, computer left on doing an update but sure it's easier to throw abuse about.

Abuse? Sammy if we wanted to abuse you we could do a lot better than that 

You made a post saying SF "coaxed / co-erced the GAA" on this issue.
When asked for proof you asked us to prove its not true, which is a ridiculous argument by any standards.


This is why you are recieving all these comments, Sammy, you have ducked and dived around admitting you have nothing to back this up, except maybe a hunch, and by refusing to admit this and take the statement back your credibility is taking a real bashing.

I'm not argueing with you over any other point, but you need to either take that back or back the claim up.

Sammy still waiting for you to do the decent thing here.
Its ok to admit you were wrong Sammy, not a sign of weakness.

Your silence here is damning.

[snatter]

Adding all the traffic for the stadium to the busiest highway in the six hardly seems like a good idea, for example for night games, or friday night concerts.

The railroad is one of the points of infrastructure that is the problem - there is no capacity, and no plans, to sort this out.
People keep telling us if the stadium is built it will definately be sorted out, but id like to see it before i believe it.

I certainly dont believe its bollocks, and nearly all the supporters I have talked to dont think its bollocks - including the people I know who work for the road service.

Ah, but you must remember that the vast majority of fans attending the Maze will be there to watch gaelic football, not soccer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7117820.stm

The GAA will commit to putting 150000 bums on seats per year, compared to the IFA's 40000 pa.

Most gaelic football fans will come from the west and south.

If you contend that it's a bad idea to have 15k cars making there way to the Maze from the south and west, then how much worse would it be if these GAA fans clogged up not only the rest of the M1 to the east, but Belfast City traffic as well?

[nifan]

That article says 80000 football fans and 40000 rugby fans, who also have nighttime weekday kickoffs to contend with as well.

[snatter]

That article says 80000 football fans and 40000 rugby fans, who also have nighttime weekday kickoffs to contend with as well.

Sorry, you're right I cut and pasted the IRFU figures by mistake.

The point I'm making remains the same however -
THE MAJORITY OF FANS USING ANY MULTI-SPORT STADIUM IN NI WILL BE GAELIC FOOTBALL FOLLWERS.
The GAA have committed to put 150000 bums on seats, versus 80000 for the IFA, and 40000 for the IRFU.

Imo, genuinely independent studies of transport patterns of ALL fans to any new stadium, based on likely attendances (say on 2005 figures) should have been done a long time ago.

I reckon that any study would show

   a. that nearly all fans would travel by car.
      Forget all the guff about multi-modal transport nodes that Belfast offers.
      It doesn't matter how many rail stations Belfast has, if there's not a train station in sight across south and west Ulster.

   b. i. given the above, overall congestion would be reduced by an out of town site.
      ii.Trying to bring 40k supports by road into an already congested city causes gridlock within the city and on the motorway that they're trying to exit.
      iii.Surely properly constructed carparks designed solely to take flow off the motorway to be parked will be more efficient than pre-existing city roads already congested trying to get traffic from a to b.

   c. Admittedly, mid-week soccer might give NI fans more hassle than they currently have.
      But
        i. If the Maze / M1 can take 40k coming from S/W Ulster, it could easily take 25k coming from Belfast.
        ii. The needs of 25k mid-week soccer fans has to be weighed against 40k gaa ones struggling to travel through Belfast (see above).
        iii. I do appreciate that, for Belfast based soccer fans, there will be more work involved in getting to midweek matches, and that their enjoyment will be curbed.

As always in this debate, what's your alternative? You either take the govt funding via the Maze, or have to go for a "yourselves alone" approach and raise funds yourselves (much like the GAA have done for 100 years).

[nifan]

THE MAJORITY OF FANS USING ANY MULTI-SPORT STADIUM IN NI WILL BE GAELIC FOOTBALL FOLLWERS.

Yes, youve said. 55% of the users will be gaelic fans. It isnt the "vast majority" you said.
If its a shared stadium there should be discourse as to all uses, not one side claiming as they are biggest they should dictate, which is your general argument.

Imo, genuinely independent studies of transport patterns of ALL fans to any new stadium, based on likely attendances (say on 2005 figures) should have been done a long time ago.

That i would agree with.
The problem here is that there has been nothing independant to date - the whole thing was selected by the SIB, half of whom also made up the Maze regeneration committee.

[snatter]

THE MAJORITY OF FANS USING ANY MULTI-SPORT STADIUM IN NI WILL BE GAELIC FOOTBALL FOLLWERS.

Yes, youve said. 55% of the users will be gaelic fans. It isnt the "vast majority" you said.
If its a shared stadium there should be discourse as to all uses, not one side claiming as they are biggest they should dictate, which is your general argument.

Well to my mind, the Maze is a good compromise re location.
Its only 10 miles from Belfast ffs.

If the GAA wasn't compromising, and was flexing its numeric/financial muscle, we'd have plumped for Dungannon or Armagh.

You guys need to take a few humility pills and realise that you'll make up less than a third of the total sports fans using the Maze.
Whilst everybody's views need to be taken into account, we can't let a militant minority dictate to everybody else.

In this whole saga, I haven't seen any recognition by NI fans of just how much they're the junior partners in all of this.
In their comments, I haven't seen one attempt to recognise, never mind cater for, the needs of the much larger numbers of gaelic football fans.
You'd almost think that they would never ever, under any circumstances want to share with us!

[snatter]

Imo, genuinely independent studies of transport patterns of ALL fans to any new stadium, based on likely attendances (say on 2005 figures) should have been done a long time ago.

That i would agree with.
The problem here is that there has been nothing independant to date - the whole thing was selected by the SIB, half of whom also made up the Maze regeneration committee.

I'd add that the UUJ / BCC report was absolutely shameful by claiming that Belfast was the optimal location without doing any geospatial analysis on likely users of the Maze (majority GAA fans), or on their likely travel mode and routes.

[nifan]

so we are agreed there should be independant study and that the whole thing has been horribly mismanaged to date.
At least thats something.

[snatter]

so we are agreed there should be independant study and that the whole thing has been horribly mismanaged to date.
At least thats something.

Purely to dispel the self centred propaganda coming from NI soccer fans, there should be an independent geospatial study to

1. confirm that the  majority of fands will be gaelic football ones coming from south / west Ulster.
2. determine fans' likely transport modes - vast majority for all sports will continue to use private cars because NI public transport is sh1t.
3. M1 access is preferable to bringing 40k gaa fans' cars into already congested city centre.

All of the above is pretty obvious to me already - very little to disagree with there surely.

In terms of misanagement, I do think that the key points re why the Maze is better for everybody (not just the one third NI fans) hasn't been delivered effectively.

I can understand why the Maze backers might want to pussy foot around NI fans, but imo taht's a big mistake because you lot are so blinkered to the bigger picture here.
We've had dysfunctional media coverage which has failed to reflect the reality which is that you guys are a militant minority, and that the whole project should be for all sports fans, not just yourselves.

[nifan]

your just trying to be insulting with this "militant minority" crap.

Im a fan whose main concern is for my organization. You are im sure the same - your disregard for the concerns of the NI/rugby fans based on your numerical superirity belies the fact that if the numbers where reversed your concern would still be for the GAA.

[snatter]

your just trying to be insulting with this "militant minority" crap.

Im a fan whose main concern is for my organization. You are im sure the same - your disregard for the concerns of the NI/rugby fans based on your numerical superirity belies the fact that if the numbers where reversed your concern would still be for the GAA.

I'm not insulting anybody here, just stating the facts:

In this whole saga, I haven't seen any recognition by NI fans of just how much they're the junior partners in all of this.
In their comments, I haven't seen one attempt to recognise, never mind cater for, the needs of the much larger numbers of gaelic football fans.

By contrast the GAA has compromised on location. As have the IFA and IRFU, it has to be said.
The only absolutist rejectionists here are the NI soccer fans who in their hyperactive media campaign have never ever considered the needs of gaelic football fans.

We have to ask why is it, when the GAA/IFA/IRFU can agree to the Maze, that you guys can't?
Why should the whole project be centred around the fact that you guys (I'll state again - a paltry one third of attendees) can't be arsed travelling 10 miles, while 40k gaa fans are expected to take the motorway further east and into Belfast's already congested streets.

Imo, your total lack of consideration for anyone but yourselves is the real insult here.
It's almost as if gaelic football fans don't exist, and that you guys are somehow to be the sole beneficiaries of this new stadium.
All the more galling considering that we'll be putting most bums of seats and by extension, paying most of the running costs.

Time you lot grew up and looked beyond your OWC blinkers.

[nifan]

can't be arsed travelling 10 miles

I didnt have ANY PROBLEM AT ALL travelling from derry to windsor park, so claiming i cant be arsed travelling 10 miles is rubbish.