Reply to Wizards and Caps could be moving to Potomac Yard

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.     [/quote]

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games. [/quote]

You aren't getting it. The reason people from all corners go to the games in DC is because DC is in the middle of the region with the transit hubs in the city. When you move attractions to one corner or another, it becomes at best inconvenient and at worse burdensome to untenable, to attend. So sure, you have people from western fairfax to Baltimore going to events in DC because it is DC. For people from Baltimore, it is an easy train ride to Union Station and then walk to the Arena or capital bike share to the arena or stadium. Really for people from upper NW DC and Montgomery County, adding an hour commute to attend games on a weeknight during rush hour (not an hour commute, ADDING an hour) is simply not an option for most people.[/quote]

I'm a different poster but I promise you the owner doesn't think this is an issue. People will absolutely come to these games. I live here and I can tell you that these politicians and business people are looking to redefine this area. A few years ago I went to a local meeting about Amazon HQ coming to Arlington and the leaders running the effort told us that their goal is to make this area (Crystal City/Pentagon City/Potomac Yard/beyond) less car dependent and more metro/bike dependent. They told us that they don't want people dependent on cars. They are trying to build a dynamic metro like city. I believe there will be even greater changes to come that have not been shared yet.[/quote]

+1. More people will attend the games if they are out of DC. DC is a PITA to get into and, to be frank, the majority of the areas population does not even live there. DC has 700K residents, NOVA has over 3M. NOVA alone could support the sports teams. Plus Baltimore is not coming to Caps/Wizard games - and they are def staying in Balt to support their NFL/MLB teams. NOVA is growing and at a considerably faster rate than DC. Moving the sports teams recognizes and reflects that trend. Glad to see it[/quote]

I hate to admit it, but this is correct. DC is awful, the parking, the traffic, the pot smoking, the homeless people/druggies strung out all over judiciary square towards Cap One, being scared your car will get broken into, not being able to get an uber after the game, not enough police, it sucks.  PY isn't perfect but I am willing to give it a chance over 20+ years of schlepping it out to Cap One. We are season ticket holders for the Nats and it also has become a hellish experience to get there and to get home, whether we drive or use metro. [/quote]

There are multiple ways in and out of Cap One. There is just one road for PY. One road that is already a huge mess. Before you add 30k workers and thousands of sports fans. [/quote]

There are multiple ways to get to PY. I’m not a fan of moving the teams bc I live in Alexandria and I am worried it will be a mess but suddenly acting like Gallery Place was smooth sailing is ridiculous and what got us to this point. I would rather deal with going to Cap One’s new music hall in Tyson’s (which is actually pretty nice) then deal with getting to Cap One or the Anthem if I had a choice.

Blame this on Bowser. [/quote]

There’s just Rt 1.

And Metro access is worse - only blue/yellow line.

Re: transportation, PY sucks. [/quote]

Where are you coming from? I’m being sincere in asking. [/quote]

I am not the person you are responding to, but I know the PY area pretty well and for pretty much anyone coming from west or north, by metro, it adds at leasst 35 minutes each way and by driving, who knows, because Route 1 is already a challenge, so adding, what 7,000 cars on a game night will make it impassable. The National Park Service is highly unlikely to allow for any alterations to the GW Parkway, so the planners are going to have to figure out how to manage those cars and metro passengers (into a new station that doesn't have the entry/escalator/infrastructure) to handle the types of crowds that the Navy Yard and Gallery Place stations are able to handle.[/quote]

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