PANAM games

[terrym]

Well it is getting close to the start of the games. Last I heard the tickets were less than half sold. If this continues then the cost of these games will blow through the roof. Doesn't matter if the events are half empty the same police overtime and staff costs will accumulate. The diversion of OPP staff alone ticks me off. All that expensive manpower wasted on giving tickets to people trying to get to work to earn a living to cover taxes and Hydro bills. The Sunshine list in the GTA will swell big time this year. Can anybody even tell who held the last games or will hold the next ones without Googling it?

[trimmer21]

The PanAm games has only had a very lukewarm response,so far. It doesn't matter whether there's any tickets sold because the entire cost of this fiasco of corruption,budget over runs and mismanagement will never be recouped except by massive infusions of tax dollars. these people couldn't organize a one-car funeral.

[FishingMonkey]

Do people really even care about the Pan-Am games? Other than those who are directly involved. It's also seemed like a very niche thing to me.

[terrym]

It seems we see more marketing for the CNE at the end of summer than we do for these games? When you tally up the disruption to everyday life/business and the enormous tax burden and likely fraud and scandals that will eventually surface ( although Wynne is rapidly getting rid of Ombudsman and Auditor oversite) this will go down in history as a whopper.

[MarkB]

The HOV lane idea in my prediction will be a flop.
They believe it will alleviate traffic by encouraging more car pooling?
Or do they want a clear access for busses going to venues?

I don't get it, but I don't think the benefits will outweigh the consequences.

We all know the infrastructure of Toronto cannot cope with a big event such as this
without congestion. So why do something that will under-utilize the existing infrastructure.
If those HOV lanes are more than 20% utilized, I'd be surprised.

[terrym]

Car pool lanes are nothing more than incremental attacks on cars by the left. They do not save fuel or emissions. All they do is cause congestion and add wasted costs to the economy. Car pooling is virtually impossible for most people in these times. Do any of your coworkers live in your neighborhood? The days of 4 guys with lunch pales jumping into a stationwagon and driving to the plant went out in the 50's. There is so much congestion now that making a couple of side drop offs to accommodate carpool passengers makes no sense at all. What you end up with is a transit asset that has been paid for by 100% of taxpayers only being accessible by maybe 5% of drivers. Most places you can't "add" another lane to create an HOV lane. They take it out of what's there and already over burdened.

[Dythbringer]

The December 2010 audit of the Vancouver Winter Olympics' final operating costs to be $1.84 billion and it broke even. Anyone think the final operating costs of this fiasco will be under that? Winter Olympics: 82 countries competing, PanAm: 41. I know people will say "well it is expensive to build in Toronto" or "you don't put on events like this to make money". To those people I say, Vancouver is way more expensive to build than Toronto and while you don't put on events like this to make money, events like this aren't a blank cheque to burn through our tax money either.

Dyth

[werner.reiche]

I'm guessing we will never actually see an honest cost for the games calculated, we will never know how badly we got screwed.

[DGearyFTE]

I'm guessing we will never actually see an honest cost for the games calculated, we will never know how badly we got screwed.

<<<< Most valid statement yet!

[Bluebulldog]

I'm guessing we will never actually see an honest cost for the games calculated, we will never know how badly we got screwed.

^^^^^^

This, right there...

+1