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Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

animatronic said:
Umm... it's not a binary choice between "city as a utility" and "Pan Am boondoggle". You're right that growth and progress cost big bucks, so don't waste it on unnecessary security costs, a bunch of events that are of limited interest and a handful of overpriced facilities that are of questionable value.
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It's only "unneccessary" and questionable if you remain uninvolved. Yesterday morning at 7:00 am I had a nice swim at the local, relatively new Regent Park Aquatic Centre.
Admission price: FREE for everyone! Free to swim, free lifeguards on duty, free lockers, free showers, free flutterboards, etc etc.

To someone like you, who does nothing but sit at home and complain, the cost of this facility is probably "of questionable value" too because of the "limited interest".
Most people in the city, in the ward, in the neighborhood, don't use it. For me, it is a fantastic addition to the area. And best of all, I swim there so that once the lake warms up, I can go down to the nicely-maintained Cherry Beach where there are lifeguards on duty. ALSO FREE TO USE!
So, yeah, for people who don't swim or go outdoors, this is money that could be spent on something animatronic personally thinks has value, but for me, it is a great feature of the city and should remain in the budget.
For someone like you who don't care about athletics, RPAC, soccer fields, cycling ovals, etc might seem of questionable value. But for thousands of other taxpayers and their families, and for the next few decades, these facilities and other Pan Am infrastructure projects are very valuable.

You say the money would be better spent on fixing the Gardiner and on transit. But to me, paying for those projects is a complete waste of money. I personally gain nothing from maintaining the Gardiner East extension.
And as we have seen and are seeing this week at city council and TTC board, the people making the decisions on transit have no idea what they're doing. The Scarboro subway is inevitably going to be a bottomless money pit that will never pay back the costs for building and running it. And all other transit will suffer for that money losing white elephant.
 
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The Golem said:
It's only "unneccessary" and questionable if you remain uninvolved. Yesterday morning at 7:00 am I had a nice swim at the local, relatively new Regent Park Aquatic Centre.
Admission price: FREE for everyone! Free to swim, free lifeguards on duty, free lockers, free showers, free flutterboards, etc etc.

To someone like you, who does nothing but sit at home and complain, the cost of this facility is probably "of questionable value" too because of the "limited interest".
Most people in the city, in the ward, in the neighborhood, don't use it. For me, it is a fantastic addition to the area. And best of all, I swim there so that once the lake warms up, I can go down to the nicely-maintained Cherry Beach where there are lifeguards on duty. ALSO FREE TO USE!
So, yeah, for people who don't swim or go outdoors, this is money that could be spent on something animatronic personally thinks has value, but for me, it is a great feature of the city and should remain in the budget.
For someone like you who don't care about athletics, RPAC, soccer fields, cycling ovals, etc might seem of questionable value. But for thousands of other taxpayers and their families, and for the next few decades, these facilities and other Pan Am infrastructure projects are very valuable.

You say the money would be better spent on fixing the Gardiner and on transit. But to me, paying for those projects is a complete waste of money. I personally gain nothing from maintaining the Gardiner East extension.
And as we have seen and are seeing this week at city council and TTC board, the people making the decisions on transit have no idea what they're doing. The Scarboro subway is inevitably going to be a bottomless money pit that will never pay back the costs for building and running it. And all other transit will suffer for that money losing white elephant.
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You're just reinforcing my argument. Regent Park was built for residents, which is a much better use of money than two weeks of security and a smaller number of overbuilt facilities. And the Scarborough subway is a stupid idea.

Everything you listed above would have been better executed without being wrapped in the Games or was built without Games involvement.

If you actually bothered to read what I wrote there is nothing that questions city building through better community assets. I'm just saying that the Games is an incredibly stupid and expensive and disruptive way to do it.
 
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It provides a very important thing: motivation. Most of us don't redecorate our homes until we have company coming over. Same dif'
 
animatronic said:
You're just reinforcing my argument. Regent Park was built for residents, which is a much better use of money than two weeks of security and a smaller number of overbuilt facilities. And the Scarborough subway is a stupid idea.

Everything you listed above would have been better executed without being wrapped in the Games or was built without Games involvement.

If you actually bothered to read what I wrote there is nothing that questions city building through better community assets. I'm just saying that the Games is an incredibly stupid and expensive and disruptive way to do it.
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Nothing would get done your way. There is always something better to spend money on, creating inaction in decision making. The argument about not spending any money on "non-essentials" until all the homeless in the city have been put into housing, and all the hungry have a fridge full of food, and until all the panhandlers have found gainful employment is just plain dumb.

Security costs what it costs, it's part of the budget.

Fortunately you are not involved in politics. The Pan Am/ Parapan Am games is a brilliant and necessary way to make things happen, and get things built, and upgrade facilities to make them all-accessible; and all the talk about "disruption" is ridiculous. The whole thing will be over in a couple of weeks, then people like you will go back to complaining about all the other disruptions that ruin their lives: rush hour congestion, condo development construction, road work, those pesky charity runs and bike rides which "shut down the entire city", subway closures, Caribana parade, Pride parade, etc.
 
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The Golem said:
Nothing would get done your way. There is always something better to spend money on, creating inaction in decision making. The argument about not spending any money on "non-essentials" until all the homeless in the city have been put into housing, and all the hungry have a fridge full of food, and until all the panhandlers have found gainful employment is just plain dumb.

Security costs what it costs, it's part of the budget.

Fortunately you are not involved in politics. The Pan Am/ Parapan Am games is a brilliant and necessary way to make things happen, and get things built, and upgrade facilities to make them all-accessible; and all the talk about "disruption" is ridiculous. The whole thing will be over in a couple of weeks, then people like you will go back to complaining about all the other disruptions that ruin their lives: rush hour congestion, condo development construction, road work, those pesky charity runs and bike rides which "shut down the entire city", subway closures, Caribana parade, Pride parade, etc.
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So basically we elect a bunch of useless politicians with no backbone, but rather than elect the right ones we just waste money on shiny events because that's the "only way" to get stuff done.

Your second paragraph is just silly. Pan Am is a horribly inefficient way to make things happen. You probably felt stupid typing that. And you need to understand that anti-Pan Am isn't anti-city building so stop trying to conflate the two issues.
 
Events like Pan-Am, inspire thousands of people to be fit, active, and push the limits of athletics. To me, that's worth it.
 
BlogTO article suggests Pan Am tickets not selling well, but events I tried to get tickets for were selling well. I live near the Markham Pan Am Centre, but badminton is already sold out and table tennis is selling well (not sure about water polo). Men’s basketball, especially games involving Canada or the US and the finals, are near sold-out. I managed to snag some last row seats to one of the Canada games. I was actually surprised the basketball tickets weren’t higher-priced given the relatively small size of the venue (Mattamy Athletic Centre). I think there’s still good availability for women’s basketball. I also think a lot of people will buy tickets on short notice once the hype of the games comes near. The excitement over the Women’s World Cup in June may also spur interest in sports.
 
canmark said:
BlogTO article suggests Pan Am tickets not selling well, but events I tried to get tickets for were selling well. I live near the Markham Pan Am Centre, but badminton is already sold out and table tennis is selling well (not sure about water polo). Men’s basketball, especially games involving Canada or the US and the finals, are near sold-out. I managed to snag some last row seats to one of the Canada games. I was actually surprised the basketball tickets weren’t higher-priced given the relatively small size of the venue (Mattamy Athletic Centre). I think there’s still good availability for women’s basketball. I also think a lot of people will buy tickets on short notice once the hype of the games comes near. The excitement over the Women’s World Cup in June may also spur interest in sports.
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I was trying to find track cycling tickets the other day and could only find accessible seating available. I also have football tickets, and I believe that these sold relatively well.
 
canmark said:
BlogTO article suggests Pan Am tickets not selling well, but events I tried to get tickets for were selling well. I live near the Markham Pan Am Centre, but badminton is already sold out and table tennis is selling well (not sure about water polo). Men’s basketball, especially games involving Canada or the US and the finals, are near sold-out. I managed to snag some last row seats to one of the Canada games. I was actually surprised the basketball tickets weren’t higher-priced given the relatively small size of the venue (Mattamy Athletic Centre). I think there’s still good availability for women’s basketball. I also think a lot of people will buy tickets on short notice once the hype of the games comes near. The excitement over the Women’s World Cup in June may also spur interest in sports.
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wopchop said:
I was trying to find track cycling tickets the other day and could only find accessible seating available. I also have football tickets, and I believe that these sold relatively well.
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There is nothing particularly unusual about the ticket sales and it is something that most all hosts of multi-sport events see......some events sell really well but some not so well.....and you are left with a dichotomy that allows people from both angles to use ticket sales to get their point across....those wanting to paint a positive picture can say Basketball and cycling are sold out...soccer is selling very well ...etc. Those wanting to paint the games as a failure early on can say of the the 1.4 million tickets only 400k are sold.
 
wopchop said:
Events like Pan-Am, inspire thousands of people to be fit, active, and push the limits of athletics. To me, that's worth it.
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animatronic response: Pan Am games are a stupid and horribly inefficient way to promote exercise. It would have been cheaper to buy a Goodlife Fitness membership for every Torontonian. Etc...
 
salsa said:
animatronic response: Pan Am games are a stupid and horribly inefficient way to promote exercise. It would have been cheaper to buy a Goodlife Fitness membership for every Torontonian. Etc...
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Well, you would actually be correct. Any supposed goals of Pan Am could be done more cheaply and more effectively than running a mildly interesting multisport event. How about building three times as many smaller facilities in different neighbourhoods? How about subsidizing low income sports fees? How about an international marketing campaign for Toronto that actually works? All better than Pan Am.

By any metric the Pan Am games are a terrible investment. Anyone who actually cares about the city should be calling it out for what it is, so we don't make stupid decisions like this in the future.

Some of these arguments are so ridiculous I really hope you're getting paid to a astroturf.
 
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