In a move that shouldn’t catch any plugged-in readers by surprise, the Golden State Warriors have officially pushed back the target date for opening their proposed Mission Bay Arena and office development by at least a year, conceding that the 2018-2019 NBA season will have to be played in Oakland or elsewhere if they can’t negotiate a lease extension for Oracle Arena.
While pending litigation is being fingered for the delay, according to San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection, the Warriors have yet to start the permitting process. As such, even if all pending and potential legal challenges were resolved tomorrow, by our accounting there was a less than 1 percent chance the Mission Bay Arena could have been ready in time for a tip-off in 2018. And in fact, a tip-off in 2019 isn’t guaranteed.
As predicted here in view of the uncertainties raised by the litigation meaning deferring ground breaking.
The pending litigation is being fingered, when it really should be getting fisted
Well done, sir or madam (especially if madam)
How bout never? Does never work for you?
when do the BARFers blame Peskin (and Jane Kim) for this?
What is a “BARfer?” Can we skip slang and just use English?
Also, while Peskin is worthless and so is Jane Kim (though, unlike Peskin, she is a very nice person whom I have met on a few occasions), they do not have anything to do with the lawsuits or delays.
The Warriors and their attorneys and advisers are not stupid. You cannot even build an outhouse in San Francisco without fending off a few lawsuits, and these lawsuits were never a surprise nor were they not factored into the costs and risks of planning to build an arena in SF. The thing will drag out for a few more years and the arena will get built. Even the Golden Gate Bridge was the subject of approximately 2,300 lawsuits (that makes these handful of lawsuits seem like nothing), and that thing has been sitting in the Bay since 1937.
A bunch of the BARFers live in in the East Bay and don’t want the Warriors to leave.
The “alliance” are bunch of spoilers and cowards. If they are so noble as to save us from the Warriors development, why won’t these obstructionist come out in the open? Something stinks…they muzzled their attack dog, Jack Davis because of the public blow back.
So who are these spoilers and cowards anyway?
Well, I’m one of them. And that was a very nice P.J. Johnston impersonation. Uncanny, really.
@Jennifer, since you’re willing to unveil yourself as a member of the alliance, it’d be great if you could give a little more depth publicly as to your issues with the arena. Given, as proposed, what it could provide beyond NBA basketball to a very large community including and beyond the bay area, I’d really like to hear your personal concerns.
I have a close family memeber undergoing stage 4 cancer surgery and chemotherapy at UCSF. Unless there is some kind of blocked off dedicated ingress and egress to the medical areas, the proposed arena is a disaster. We’re talking about life and death for thousands of patients.
Ironically, in talking to doctors and staff at UCSF, the only reason why anyone there is “officially” supporting the proposed arena location is that the same guy who sold the land that the Warriors (Benioff) also donated $100 million to UCSF – so UCSF cannot publicly oppose the location even though they despise the idea. Instead UCSF has to go through back channels to fight it.
Not only is Benioff the architect of this project, Ed Lee also made threats against UCSF if they failed to support it.
This is just scaremongering. Hospitals are often located in cities. Cities have traffic. If we stifle development around every hospital in the city we wouldn’t have a city. Any hospital in a dense urban environmental has to deal with traffic. UCSF has endorsed the planned Warriors stadium location after reaching agreement on how to protect patient safety by managing traffic and facilitating access to the hospital. Things like this just need to be thought through. People in this city are too reactionary – as soon as San Franciscans suspect there’s a problem, they take the most rash and extreme stance on it without trying to think it through.
Calling another person’s concerns “just scaremongering” and re-framing the issue as “stifle development around every hospital in the city” are very good examples of a “rash and extreme stance.” Thanks for the irony.
how do all those hospital in NYC manage to save patients lives with their traffic.? We are not the 1st city to deal with traffic near a hospital.
moto, the traffic around ATT Park is worse than the traffic around the major hospitals in Manhattan, including the three you mentioned. NYC also has the good sense to build their arenas and ballparks with subway stops or else put them in Jersey, which is the nearest thing in the NYC metro to our east bay.
The more constrained and geographically limited access in Boston to Mass General with TD Garden nearby might be a better comparison. Of course they also have heavy rail at the Garden.
It’s not that we don’t know how to move 15-20k people (Warriors) or even 40k people (Giants) in and out of a city block in an hour or so without creating gridlock in the neighborhood. We know how to do that. We just won’t spend the money to build a subway network to do it. Instead we rebuild a bus terminal above an empty train terminal a block or so away from the other subway stations. It may be an empty gesture, but at least it is a tall one.
Jake, Don’t you think that the central subway which will enable a dedicated line for the T and the ability to run double trains is a step in the right direction? Also there will be a larger loading dock in front of the new Arena similar to the one in front of AT&T. Have you ever been to the Verizon Center in DC? There is very little parking anywhere so you pretty much have to walk or take Public Transportation and it seems to work fine. I would think people will learn to take the T or Caltrain to get to the Arena especially if parking is scarce or super expensive.
Sure, the increased capacity of the central subway including some extra trains for the arena and widening the above ground platforms in the middle of 3rd st is where much of the $55+ million will be spent by SFMTA before the arena opens. The Warriors/SFMTA traffic plan depends on this extra capacity as well as dedicating extra MUNI trains and buses, and people directing traffic, at least for major events.
Still gonna overload the local stations/routes and rob some from other routes, just like for Giants games.
Some folks will ride Caltrain, but the location of the arena is nearly ideal for people driving up 280. The bigger problem is going to be the folks that drive in from the east bay, get off at 8th and flood through Showplace Sq to get to 16th. Along with the additional 4-5000 housing units being added in the same area, the PM commute home for residents will overlap with these folks and they will all want to avoid everything from 6th St east which is already heavily congested during the 5-7PM drive time that the Warriors forecast.
As for the parking, well there is free parking within walking distance. At least there will be until the residents of Dogpatch, Potrero, and Showplace give up and allow SFPark to install meters. And then they will be priced to be rented up to 90% of capacity, not overpriced to be vacant. Commercial garage operators run a business, not some city congestion management charity. Around ATT Park many of them charge double the daily rate for event parking. Currently, UCSF garages don’t know if you are parking to use their facilities or not, though they could make them smarter about that. Don’t count on the parking being scarce compared to the number of cars (~4-5K), except on the 10-20 days/year overlapping events with ATT Park.
The Verizon Center in DC has a Metro station directly underneath where three different subway lines connect and there are four more Metro stations in walking distance. (For those who don’t know, the DC Metro is comparable to BART not MUNI.) It also has a parking garage onsite, more than a dozen within a quarter mile and another 15-20 within another quarter mile. There is also free parking within a 10 minute walk, if you don’t mind Shaw. DC has a tremendous amount of parking, even though they don’t let you park within 25 feet of an intersection.
But yeah, after our grandchildren build a BART or MUNI station under the arena with 3 intersecting subway lines they should see a drop in the car/uber/taxi traffic.
@Jake, I’m willing to bet that the uninitiated and unaware driving in from the east bay will also peel off the bridge at Harrison/Fremont and try to take 2nd to King to 3rd, which previously was a route used by 49er fans getting to/leaving Candlestick and trying to avoid the freeway traffic until they had to – kind of reminds me of an ant path…
Of course, by then 2nd will be the two-lane traffic calmed “lane,” which will just gum up the works in South Beach, some distance away from the arena. The veteran arena goers from the east bay will learn not to take this route, but I’m sure there’s always going to be those who will, just like they did for the 49er games and backed up the multi-laned 2nd street a few years ago.
I can’t remember off-hand, but isn’t there a plan to drop in a temporary CalTrain stop at 16th street? That should also help a little bit as well I would hope.
Jake, Wouldn’t you think that people coming from the East Bay would opt to take public transportation if the traffic is going to be as bad as you expect? SF/Oak has the 2nd most transit trips per capita behind NY, why would we not have higher than average ridership going to the arena?
JJC, sure, many from the east bay will take BART as the Warriors EIR forecasts. But for many others from the east bay the roundtrip from work to the Warriors Arena to home will almost surely be faster in their car than using BART + car. Bigger issue is how many people from the east bay will either give up or get outbid for their tickets by people that live and work in SF. Weekend games may see more east bay fans and will certainly see more cars, just like the Giants.
CToCN, they would do better to take Harrison to Embarcadero to 3rd to Lot A, at least if there isn’t a Giants game. The Warriors expect/encourage them to take the 5th St exit, but the 8th St exit is only ~20 seconds further on, avoids the morass of central SoMa and provides a route to 16th or 7th. But, yeah, some people will try anything. Besides they are only expecting 1000-2000 cars from the east bay for a weekday Warriors game. Just about the right number when added to the existing flow to backup the freeway exit ramps onto the freeway itself. If we all go together, surely we can achieve gridlock from the Ferry Building to Bottom of the Hill.
Actually, for someone from the Eastbay, it would really be more like Car+BART+Shuttle (or a two mile hike). But as was shown on one of the (many) other Arena threads substitution of SF fans for Eastbay fans – on pretty much a one-for-one basis – is one of the major premises of this project; and most of the more vocal posters here don’t seem upset by that…in fact I think they like the idea.
Here’s the bottom line…the building of an arena at Mission Bay is not going to cost thousands of patients lives.
Last season when the Warriors won the Finals that lasted until Mid-June if they played in San Francisco at the proposed site according to schedule only 4 games would’ve been played the same time the Giants were playing a home game down the street.
I don’t hear anyone complaining about access to getting across Market Street during the Gay Parade or the Folsom Street Parade which completely paralyzed traffic downtown for two days during each event. How about the Blue Angels?
The Warriors games in Oakland are attended by 20,000 fans of which 40 percent of fans take Bart to go to the game. The 18,000 seat arena will have little affect on the area even if they are playing the same time as the Giants. All that is there now is a sparsely used parking area, there will be public transportation to the games as well. The Taxi/Bus lanes seem to work downtown.
Would everyone be happy if the Warriors moved to Seattle or Spokane or San Jose?
Craig, no one has tried to gauge the number of patient lives that would be “lost” if this arena were built, except for you AFAIK. Most Market St closure events are held on weekends, not during the business PM commute. The events you listed do not “completely paralyzed traffic downtown for two days during each event.” Nevertheless, people do complain every year about the traffic impacts of those events. If a person complains and Craig doesn’t hear it, do they make a sound?
The Warriors EIR disagrees with you about the number of major events that will overlap with the Giants, about the traffic impact of those events, and about the efficacy of the planned traffic mitigation measures. Most of those overlapping major events (15k+ attendees) would be non-basketball games, fwiw. Most of the events at the arena will be non-basketball games as well. Unlike Oracle Arena, the Warriors expect this arena in SF to be used ~200 events/year.
I would be happy if everyone would just bother to read the Warrior’s own EIR before they posted statements dismissing problems even the Warriors forecast. That would be a good top line or sanity check.
The traffic issue has gotten the most traction, but I am equally concerned about quality of life for families spending weeks or months in the hospital. One of the design features of the hospital is that there is a lot of outdoor space, which has been shown to be beneficial for healing. Right now, that outdoor space is very peaceful and quiet. That will no longer be so with an arena next door.
Here’s an Op-Ed I wrote about it for the Examiner a couple of months ago.
Hey, socketsite, I don’t mind that you edited my comment to add a hyperlink, but don’t you think you should note it when you edit someone’s comments? You also switched the order of the two paragraphs.
You can’t be serious! This old traffic canard. Really? The real concern of the MBA is that there is an overriding priority that this property be reserved for med-bio uses of UCSF and related entities. Okay, argue the merits of your true concern rather than a pretense.
It really doesn’t add up for you that I would care more about my child’s access to healthcare than about biotech companies?
Jennifer, can you give us an example of a life or death medical emergency that was worsened by traffic access to a hospital in a major metropolitan U.S. city?
Sure, it’s easy to find examples on Google!
Of course, you won’t be able to find an example exactly like the proposed arena because nobody has ever built a sports arena across the street from an emergency hospital before, at least not in the U.S.
@ Jennifer – Sorry, I don’t think it’s relevant to compare the closing of the GWB bridge to the traffic around an arena.
How do hospitals in crowded urban centers deal with the problem of traffic and access?
@Jennifer, doing a quick search, I found that according to the American Hospital Association (AHA), they count 3,003 urban community hospitals; by comparison they count 1,971 rural community hospitals. I would think that if there were serious issues for whatever reasons with hospitals being located in urban areas, we would never see this many built in such locations.
If these communities can make it work, I don’t see why San Francisco can’t. Also, while its somewhat apples to oranges, Kesar Stadium, the then home of the San Francisco 49ers was located a few blocks from UCSF/Parnassus. I wasn’t around when the team played there, but it seems they somehow made it work.
I have a really hard time believing this is a back and white, hard yes or no situation.
They “deal” with it like everyone else: with added costs, degraded service, and heightened risks due to the increased and erratic queue wait times. The Warriors EIR forecasts that their pre-event traffic will cause much worse congestion along the main approach routes to the hospital. There is no escaping that it will negatively affect patients. The issues are whether it will be more than is “acceptable” and how much of this should be assessed to the Warriors vs the rest of the overbuilding nearby.
FWIW, most emergency room patients arrive by private vehicle, not ambulance. The additional traffic control staff the warriors+city claim will ensure adequate ambulance access to the hospital may not be able to help most of them.
If you want an example of how well SF transport planning “deals” with events, then watch what happens next week.
A quick google search found several examples of stadiums next to Hospitals, Here is a 60k capacity stadium next to a huge medical campus. If they can make it work why can’t we?
Many very significant differences between your example of a college football stadium used ~10 Saturdays/year, located towards the edge of a smallish, low-density city (Jackson, MS) and this arena to be used ~200 days/year in SF. FWIW, Google maps shows that the typical traffic around that area is far less than the area of SF most affected by this arena. Try picking an actual NBA arena in an urban neighborhood without much mass transit that has traffic congestion comparable to what the Warriors EIR forecasts.
Besides, we could “make it work” if we were willing to spend the money needed to improve the mass transit infrastructure. The $55+ million SFMTA will spend upfront, before the arena opens, plus the additional $10+ million per year will only mitigate a small part of the added traffic.
Whether that is enough to “make it work” may depend on how you measure it. It should be enough to allow the Warriors to get ~2 million/year customers into their arena and $$$$, but it may not be enough to satisfy the other people caught in the much worse traffic for the 5-10+ blocks in all directions that the Warriors EIR forecasts
pull in the sick child argument. gets em every time
Since most events will be starting around 7:30-8 how does that impact the outdoor space behind the hospital which I assume wouldn’t be used by sick kids at night?
You have obviously never spent serious time in a hospital! Circadian rhythms go right out the window when you have vitals checks every 4 hours. Not to mention that a large number of the patients there are newborns, who are not exactly known for their respect for bedtimes. Some are teenagers, who are obviously going to be awake at that time.
I talked to one mom whose baby was at UCSF for 7 months. At one point, he was on ECMO for 4 days, which is basically life support. Very dangerous and scary. She told me that she did not sleep the entire 4 days, and the only thing that kept her sane was taking walks on the hospital’s rooftop garden.
If this is the case, why did they build so close to AT&T park which hosts twice as many sporting events and holds 2.5 times as many people? Not to mention it is also an outdoor stadium which generates a lot more noise than an enclosed arena.
If you must know I spent a better part of my childhood driving from the Sunset to St. Luke’s hospital to be with my sick father and as expected in the city traffic was totally unpredictable. What will be predictable though is the starting time of any events at the new arena and because of this, efforts can be made to mitigate the impact to people getting to the hospital.
It’s obvious to me that you haven’t spent much time going to Oracle arena because if you had you would know that you can’t hear anything from the outside and the nearby traffic impact is minimal compared to a Giants game at AT&T park. I would suggest going to a Warriors game because it might help calm some of your concerns about noise/traffic.
Please understand Jennifer that as someone who lives about 5 blocks from the proposed Arena, if I believed what the MBA was selling I would be against this project also but I simply do not. They are not a neighborhood organization and it is pretty obvious that they are using fear tactics to get support for what is really an attempted land grab. I understand you have legitimate concerns but I find what the MBA is doing as deplorable and dishonest.
AT&T Park is a mile away. The new arena would be across the street. That’s a big difference. I definitely agree that Giants traffic does affect hospital access, and had my son been born before the decision was made to build the hospital at that site I would have opposed it. Given the sometimes already heavy traffic in the area and the very limited number of access points to Mission Bay, I don’t believe it’s possible to meaningfully mitigate traffic from an arena at that site. And I’ve read all 141 pages of the traffic plan, and it is woefully inadequate. There is NO traffic management whatsoever planned on 16th or Mariposa Streets west of 7th Street! The “dedicated ambulance lanes” only exist in a radius of 1–4 blocks around the hospital. It is absurd to suggest that this is the radius of traffic that will be affected.
As to the noise issue, do you really think that thousands of people entering and (especially) exiting the arena can do so silently? The Warriors also refused UCSF’s request to ban amplified music in the outdoor plaza during certain hours, so you can bet that they’ll be doing that, as well.
As to the land grab allegations, they seem to me to be a very successful tactic by the Warriors’ P.R. team. The Warriors owners have made it clear that they intend to keep and develop the land as biotech offices if the Arena plan is shot down, and UCSF had the opportunity to buy the land in the past.
Of course it is not going to be completely silent but to expect that anytime in a city is unrealistic. I also think that if you did go to a game at Oracle you might be pleasantly surprised as to just how quiet it is when people are leaving the arena and how quickly it clears out. It’s not like people are running out of the arena banging drums and screaming through megaphones
I base the land grab allegations off of quotes like this, “There absolutely is a subset with the alliance who feel this land, this 12 acres, should be land banked and made available to UCSF for clinical and expansion,” Spaulding said.
It’s clear that we aren’t going to agree, I just hope that when this is all said and done that the illness your family is currently dealing with will be a thing of the past, and if not you will be pleasantly surprised that the impact of the arena does not turn out to be as bad as you thought.
It’s totally realistic for that area to continue to be quiet if you put more biotech offices there. And I don’t think it’s appropriate to base the noise impact of the crowds off of what happens at Oracle Arena, given that Oracle has almost 10,000 on-site parking spaces. People get in their cars and go home. Contrast that with this proposed arena which will have around 1,000 spaces. That means that thousands of fired-up people will be standing around waiting for public transit or rides.
You won’t be able to hear the noise from inside of the hospital. I don’t understand the noise aspect of your complaint, at all.
jennifer, i dont think you ahve to worry about the arena being shot down and biotech offices being put in.. the arena will definitely go through.
Columbia, Mt Sinai and MSK are more polluted and loud than the area around UCSF post-warriors arena. How do the kids and families survive?
Oh, I see now. Here I thought one of the principals of the MBA had actually emerged and, instead, they sent out their figurine. Nice, guys!
Nobody sent me. The principals are the board, who vote to make all the decisions. The board is Bill Rutter, Sam Barondes, Richard Snyder, Jeanne Robertson, and Bruce Spaulding. It says so on their website and has for months.
you want peace and quiet outside of a hospital in the 2nd densest city in America? seriously? then maybe UCSF shouldnt have put the children’s hospital in the city and instead put it in Yosemite
What a waste of a waterfront. It seems America’s answer to “revitalize” any urban area is to drop a huge new sports venue in the middle of it. Thank God the Marina does not need to be “revitalized” with this arena!
In Europe they would put an incredible pedestrian waterfront walkway, extensive landscaping with public art, and perhaps a museum or cultural performance space instead. If Europe is too far for inspiration, what about Chicago which has perhaps America’s most stunning urban waterfront.
Let’s indeed consider Chicago with its wonderful citywall of highrise residential buildings on the landward side of Lakeshore Dr. Can we not emulate it with similar development on the inland, west side of the Embarcadero beginning with tear down of the Delancey Street shantytown?
Agreed the Delancey St complex is perhaps not the best use of that valuable land, but it is certainly not in need of imminent redevelopment. The buildings are reasonably attractive and the grounds are immaculately kept. The residents sweep the sidewalks daily and maintain the gardens.
I’d certainly rather spend time around the Delancey St complex than around the high-rise residential buildings around the Emb north of the Bay Bridge and around Rincon hill. Devoid of street life except for homeless campers.
So Rincon Park doesn’t count?
Of all the possible ugly scenes in San Francisco and you include the Delancey Street Foundation? You’re silly.
We’re talking about the Embarcadero. Aside from some embarrassing parking lots, can you name a more inappropriate use for its site than DS?
Aside from the public parks and essential public (port/bridge/MUNI) facilities, I can’t think of a better or more appropriate use of any site on the Embarcadero than the Delancy Street Foundation. What you call a “shantytown” is actually an award winning facility, both for architecture and for their contribution to the community and larger society. I’ve been a neighbor for more than 20 years and never heard anyone describe them with the disdain and disrespect that you have here. I can only wonder if you have any idea what you are talking about. They anchored South Beach when there were a lot more “embarrassing parking lots” all around the neighborhood.
I have no “disdain” whatsoever for the Foundation. I very much appreciate their good work.
I also understand that they were pioneers in developing what was a very disused part of town when they built down there. But the time has come to further evolve what should be a very desirable location.
Architectural merit? Maybe as a motor court on the highway out of Napa on the way to Yountville. It’s ridiculous on the waterfront compared to what could replace it.
And, of course, I understand that the Foundation would be paid an extremely handsome sum for the property which they could put to better use elsewhere.
The Port of San Francisco owns the parcel. Delancey Street has a long term lease. That “shanytown” (as you call it) should be around for another 30+ years. Though, who knows, maybe by then it will have been awarded a historic designation, as it does have a storied history. You may want to recheck your “understandings,” maybe even evolve them to better fit the times and the place. Let us all know when you win an AIA award for Design Excellence. Perhaps less reliance on caricature and figurines and more on facts and figures would help.
Sorry to hear we are apparently saddled with that schlock in such a viital location indefinitely. You seen to seriously need an objectivity adjustment when it comes to this subject.
I offered my personal opinion of the content of the character of the foundation, not the architecture of their building. The AIA has given the building an award, whether you agree with them or not. Unless you would like to explain how your credentials as an architecture critic are superior to the AIA, we will have nothing more than your cunning turns of phrase to establish your “objectivity.”
Doing some Googling research does turn up that it was rewarded some “special recognition” award in 11/93 from which it is clear that the Foundation’s mission and the unique circumstances of its unskilled members actually building the facility had as much to do with the honor as architectural merit.
As to the architecture, it is interesting that its designer, Howard Backen, has been described as “Napa’s go-to architect.” In fact, in a 9/05/2010 article, Chronicle architecture critic John King draws a comparison between his Embarcadero Triangle project and his design for the Lakemead Winery off Hwy 29 near Calistoga.
Now, how did I so uncannily discern just exactly where the pile of dreck more properly belongs?
The architect’s site might help you to learn they have done many projects in SF, including other recent award winners.
Evidently your google skills are as refined and revealing as your arch critique.
Anyone can stand outside and take cheap shots. It is the people that go inside and what they do inside that make a building useful. In this particular case, among the finest and best uses of land on the Embarcadero.
I don’t at all deride the work of DSF, but hate the building as ill-suited and inappropriate for its location, and have since Day-one. I recall my delight to learn that they were adding to the development of the area and my dismay when I first saw what they had built. To say my criticism of its architecture is a “cheap shot” is a cheap shot.
Ironically, very recently I wrote here about my wish that the north side Fulton be upzoned to allow for midrise residential the length of the park. Their former HQ there at Eighth Ave. was one of the few buildings even closely representative of such an urban plan. Too bad they didn’t remain there and expand to their needs serving as a prototype rather than blighting the waterfront with their faux Italian village.
Just today, John King wrote in the Chronicle of the buildout of the Southern Waterfront with residential development. That would have been an excellent location for the Triangle building, especially if running from bay’s edge up a hillside. SF’s Embarcadero waterfront most certainly is not and I remain desirous of seeing it rid of that disaster no matter what might transpire inside. Lease-holds are valuable assets as well you know.
Some friendly advise I once heard was to never love anything that can’t love you back. Good advice wrt to hate too, I would think.
Some objects derive their aesthetic not from their skin and bones, but from their heart and soul. Some people too.
They and their building will most likely stay until their services are no longer needed. Would hope for sooner, would bet on later.
Hopefully, their need (and presence) will end ASAP.
Well Jennifer, by repsonding to a request to show yourself and not hide behind a screen name, the” build build build b-ball” fans are now raking you over the coals. They will nit pick your every comma.
Thank you for a decent explanation as to why one can be against something withourt being a “nimby” or other horrible type of person.
Thank you again.
agreed. Jennifer’s comments are a welcome relief from the endless banter around building ourselves into a extensive traffic mess. A little proper planning now will avoid massive traffic headaches later.
Jennifer, I appreciate your honesty and standing firm to your valid concerns. While I am not totally against development of the Warriors in SF, this site does pose potential problems. I agree with you this site cannot be compared to any other hospitals.
Having lived right across from the ball park for many years, I believe incoming traffic will be manageable since traffic trickles in. The true challenge as others have mentioned is when the Giants & Warriors off load thousands onto the street at the same time. Most, not all, hospital/stadium sites have north/south/east/west arteries to disperse traffic or may be sited couple blocks away from each other. The Mission Bay site has limited north/south/west arteries with the east being water. The west side will further be constrain to closure restricted to emergency service access and by the two bridges. This creates a traffic funnel which creates congestion. Traffic pattern may be more in kind (at worse case scenario) with how it was at Candlestick Park after a football game, which I confess was a bit miserable. However, MB is slates for improved public transits. The question lies will it be truly adequate, irregardless what all the traffic studies says as behavorial patterns of attendess are unpredictable.
I recall it was the UC Chancellor who supported the Warriors at MB. One cannot by default assume all of UC is on the bandwagon. A key part of the Chancellor’s duty is fund raising. I sometimes wonder, what savvy benevolent promise was made behind the doors to get the chancellor to say yes? I wonder sometime was it the discount sale of MB block 33 and 34 by Benioff to UCSF announced just before the Warrior move to Mission Bay? This all remains a mystery to me.
That being said, I appreciate the dialogue you started Jennifer and may we all keep it civil.
Well what if the Warriors move to San Jose then be the San Jose Warriors then everyone loses because of a bunch of bureaucracy. That way the city of San Jose can thumb their nose at everyone fighting about this or that. After nearly four years after the announcement they haven’t even broken ground. Forget it they’re not moving to San Francisco nor staying in Oakland in the ancient Oracle Arena. Personally I don’t want them to move to San Jose yet that’s where it’s heading.
UPDATE: Warriors Plan to Break Ground on New Arena in Early 2017