Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

[isaidso]

There is no doubt that the event needs to be better marketed up here, especially in the U.S.

Canada and the US have historically ignored the rest of America. Our focus has been Europe and now the Far East as well. It shouldn't be this way, but as latin America develops and grows wealthier and more competitive, people in Canada and the US will start paying more attention.

Mexico is far more central to Canada than its ever been. We signed a trade deal with Chile, Canadian banks are investing heavily there, and Brazil is an emerging economic and athletic power. This continental competition should be a bigger deal here, but it's not yet. That will probably change for the better over the coming decades.

The biggest obstacle for the Pan American games is the athletic dominance of the United States. Only the Asian games suffers from a similar problem where China has emerged as the overwhelming dominant athletic nation on that continent.

 

[Disparishun]

Canada and the US have historically ignored the rest of America. Our focus has been Europe and now the Far East as well. It shouldn't be this way, but as latin America develops and grows wealthier and more competitive, people in Canada and the US will start paying more attention.

I pretty much agree, although I think you're overstating things slightly. (In English we usually say "the Americas" -- by "America" we usually mean the U.S.)

Mexico is far more central to Canada than its ever been. We signed a trade deal with Chile, Canadian banks are investing heavily there, and Brazil is an emerging economic and athletic power. This continental competition should be a bigger deal here, but it's not yet. That will probably change for the better over the coming decades.

And this is what we need to kick-start the process. I envision Luminato having an Americas theme and TIFF's "City to City" program featuring Rio de Janeiro or Guadalajara that year (i.e. one of the last two Pan Am hosts), if we do get the Games.

Don't forget the Caribbean -- a major Toronto demographic source, major tourist event that would inevitably be drawn into our PanAm Summer, and important place of business for Canadian financial institutions. (The three largest Caribbean banks are Canadian.)

 

[Mystic Point]

lol..your posts are quite amusing. It's not going to be a disaster. I doubt a Pan Am Games will bring Chaos. They're not on the same scale of an Olympic games.

If the way Miller and company run Toronto is any indication, we're looking at chaos. The multiple challenges in planning and construction alone, will fry the few remaining working circuits at City Hall.

And when you toss McGinty into the stew, you need only look at how he handled the OLC or the E-Health debacle, to get a taste of what's in store.

So obviously, I beg to differ Tofurumer, with these bumbling hillbillies involved, it's a recipe for disaster. ( On that note, thank God Bob Rae moved to Ottawa. )

Invariably, the Pan Am Games Toronto Chapter Glee Club, rabbit on about " infrastructure. "

Toronto doesn't need more infrastructure. It's needs better planning and better design.

If even a quarter of the effort being put into this non-televised event were put into getting a more demanding and sophisticated planning and design department for Toronto, we'd be getting somewhere.

If this event happens, in haste, the boneheads behind it, will approve approve all manner of garbage.

You will bare witness to a new series of buildings and roads even more hideous than what we currently have.

Imagine the hundreds of shabby new buildings -- " future slums " as they like to call them in the Planning Dept -- that will go up overnight. Using the cheapest materials and the worst designs possible, it'll make the new Corus Entertainment Headquarters look as inspired as Rockefeller Center.

The Terrorists know one thing.

They don't have attack Toronto.

Through neglect, civic apathy and total political dysfunction, the city is actually destroying, itself limb by limb.

A friend from New York commented on his trip to Toronto this summer,

" This city looks like Queens. But not in a good way. Are there no standards of design? Do they not practice urban planning here? "

Sadly I had to tell him no on both counts.

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[adma]

Misspelling "McGuinty" looks more galling in a fancy font.

 

[Mystic Point]

Screwing up on McGuinty is a small price to pay for the thrill of experimenting with the font system on UT. The things I do for King and country.

 

[EnviroTO]

You are repeating yourself. We get it... you think it will be a disaster. Putting your nonsense in a larger font doesn't change the quality of your post nor its influence. In that whole post the only point of substance is that you don't like the look of the Corus building. Maybe you can post some pictures that show how Toronto is Queens.

I don't think it will be a disaster and think the games will go off without a hitch, however I am not a big supporter of the Pan Am Games because it really will not do much for the city. First, almost nobody travels to or watches the Pan Am Games. Second, building an atheletes village in the West Don Lands with public money may turn West Don Lands into a public housing development thus lowering the potential of the new neighbourhood. Lastly, unlike the Olympic 2008 bid the Pan Am bid has venues strewn all across the Golden Horseshoe thus making any future Olympic bid less attractive to the IOC because we will likely re-use the distant Pan Am facilities in future bids.

 

[jn_12]

They'll be designating lanes on the highway for Pan-Am use only if I recall correctly. This would speed things up considerably.

 

[adma]

Screwing up on McGuinty is a small price to pay for the thrill of experimenting with the font system on UT. The things I do for King and country.

If you gotta use fancy fonts in this thread, better it be this one

 

[GenerationW]

unlike the Olympic 2008 bid the Pan Am bid has venues strewn all across the Golden Horseshoe thus making any future Olympic bid less attractive to the IOC because we will likely re-use the distant Pan Am facilities in future bids.

I certainly hope so. Getting transit and other projects fast-tracked is not worth the incredible expense and waste of a Summer Olympics.

 

[nfitz]

maybe they will speed up construction of high speed rail? Not sure if the blue 22 will be done for 2015. I think it would be under 30 min for blue 22.

When they announced the new EA earlier this year, they were talking about 2009 construction start. I can't see why it wouldn't be usable by 2015. If it's 22 minutes from Pearson to Union ... then surely if they just run to a temporary station at Cherry, near the village, it would only be 25 minutes if they ran non-stop.

 

[EnviroTO]

I certainly hope so. Getting transit and other projects fast-tracked is not worth the incredible expense and waste of a Summer Olympics.

The benefits are significant. Economic boom prior to the olympics. Long lasting tourism impacts. The addition of the city to the list of cities where world championships for different sports are frequently held. Accellerated completion of numerous projects across the city due to federal funding and provincial funding that would normally not arrive. The sheer number of people that will arrive means that simple stop gap measures to deal with transit expansion will not work and a planned approach is required. Increased tax revenues during construction, during the Olympics, and after the Olympics.

When you look at the transportation system that exists in Montreal and Vancouver for cities much smaller than Toronto it is important to realize that Expo and Olympics played a big part in that.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Did you just cite the Montreal Olympics as a positive?

The benefits are significant. Economic boom prior to the olympics. Long lasting tourism impacts. The addition of the city to the list of cities where world championships for different sports are frequently held. Accellerated completion of numerous projects across the city due to federal funding and provincial funding that would normally not arrive. The sheer number of people that will arrive means that simple stop gap measures to deal with transit expansion will not work and a planned approach is required. Increased tax revenues during construction, during the Olympics, and after the Olympics.

When you look at the transportation system that exists in Montreal and Vancouver for cities much smaller than Toronto it is important to realize that Expo and Olympics played a big part in that.

Wow.
Vancouver's use of the False Creek sight to kick-start a new urban neighbourhood was a stroke of brilliance, I admit. But, since we already did that with the same developer on the CN rail lands, do we really need to have an Olympics in order to do that?

 

[AKS]

Wow.
Vancouver's use of the False Creek sight to kick-start a new urban neighbourhood was a stroke of brilliance, I admit. But, since we already did that with the same developer on the CN rail lands, do we really need to have an Olympics in order to do that?

The Olympics village would be on East Donlands. So you need Olympics or sports games to spurr East Donlands Development. If the government isn't pressured, they will slowly do it. If there is a reason, they will do it faster. Either way the area has to be developed and the transit added. It's just now or within the next decade. As costs will keep increasing as time passes, it might be an idea to just get it done and over with for current costs now than double the cost 5-10 years from now. And if we get the games, the added advantage would be getting advertising and promoting tourism while building East Donlands which we have to do down the road anyway. It's not like if we don't get PAN AM games, we won't be revitalizing East Donlands or building transit along the area.

 

[Torontovibe]

The benefits are significant. Economic boom prior to the olympics. Long lasting tourism impacts. The addition of the city to the list of cities where world championships for different sports are frequently held. Accellerated completion of numerous projects across the city due to federal funding and provincial funding that would normally not arrive. The sheer number of people that will arrive means that simple stop gap measures to deal with transit expansion will not work and a planned approach is required. Increased tax revenues during construction, during the Olympics, and after the Olympics.

When you look at the transportation system that exists in Montreal and Vancouver for cities much smaller than Toronto it is important to realize that Expo and Olympics played a big part in that.

Do the Olympics really help tourism? From everything I've read it's quite the opposite. Do you have any facts to back up that claim? From what I've heard about Sydney, Atlanta and Beijing, tourism went down. Maybe you've read something I didn't. Care to share your sources?

 

[jn_12]

I've done some research on the role of the olympics in helping tourism since I'm doing my masters in tourism planning.

Olympics can have a positive impact on tourism if used properly. In terms of creating a brand, enhancing a product and improving amenities they can go a long way. Sydney, Seoul and Barcelona are strong examples of that. Places like Beijing, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Lillehammer did very little and just expected people to come because they held the Olympics. It's not that simple.
here's a good article describing the difference between Sydney and Beijing's approaches: http://www.travelwires.com/wp/2009/02/will-2010-tourism-succeed-like-sydney-or-flop-like-beijing/

It's also difficult to measure the impact of the Olympics on tourism for places like Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake and Athens because of 9/11. Global travel fell around the world. It's also impossible to measure profits and losses with Olympics. Anyone that tries to talk about that stuff has no clue and for me it raises a flag. The intangibles are impossible to measure.

My own theory is that cities that have been off the radar can benefit significantly by putting itself on the map (provided they use the olympics properly). I think Toronto would fall into this category because it is similar to Sydney and Barcelona in size and international presence. However, places like London, Beijing and LA, which already have an established world renown tourism product are likely to see little improvement because they already have an international presence and anyone who wanted to go there probably has (easy access, high frequency of flights, etc) and its doubtful anyone would be seeing the products these cities possess for the first time during the Olympics.

Ultimately, I think it's impossible to tell if an Olympics is a good or bad thing. Every Olympics seems to be different and have a different effect on their city. I think it ultimately comes down to management and taking advantage of the opportunity. If you fail there, you're going to fail to see an after-glow.

Unfortunately, the Pan-Am games won't have an after glow. We'll have a spike in tourism during the games and then it will return to normal. Which is still great. Anytime you have a spike, it means money is being made, and heaven knows our tourism sector could use an infusion of cash. And yes we will have tourists during the games. Even the athletes are tourists.