Proposed Hartford, CT-Springfield, MA NBA team

[Sykotyk]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

 

I'm not sure if I heard that or not before, but it's not something I would recall, and it definitely makes sense.

 

With no traffic, it's a 90-minute drive from Hartford to Providence. The distance as the crow flies is 65 miles. That probably shouldn't be considering Hartford to Worcester at 56 miles apart can be done in an hour flat. But that's also taking 84 virtually the whole way, which just about runs in a straight line between the two cities.

I completely agree with you about people getting married to road numbers theory, especially with older drivers. I have an Aunt who still insists that 95 is the fastest way to get from New York to Boston, even though it is neither the fastest nor the shortest way to go. It's simply the easiest in terms of following directions.

 

 

That would be far better than what they have now, and it wouldn't take any less driving time, but as you said, NIMBYs made sure that didn't happen. Not much else I can add to that. Very comprehensive post on the subject.

Yeah. It's funny that when the interstate system was being planned, there was discussion on which segments should be built first. Remember, originally rural interstates (think Montana, Wyoming, etc) would just be two lanes unless needed to expand (but with the land/bridges/etc ready to go for such expansion) and the thought was, if you finish the cities first, there won't be any support to complete interstates in the middle of nowhere. So, money and funding went quickly to the 'between' stretches first. Hoping that when city dwellers traveled out of town and got to ride these new freeways they'd help support them back home in their cities where it was far more difficult/costly to build them (not to even get into the issues with predominantly going after black and other minority neighborhoods).

 

But that lag caused them to get the 'basics' inside cities first. Connecting east to west, north to south inside cities as they started more suburban/urban routes there was much more push back as they had seen what had been done elsewhere in the city. Honestly, freeways should've gone between cities until they hit the 'circle bypass' of a city and essentially stop. Maybe a spur toward downtown but the downtown be freeway-free. Shunting all through traffic around the city to keep on non-stop roads.

 

Cleveland has several lost segments. I-90's dead man's elbow is testament to dropped plans. Or the fact I-490 never got finished.

[tBBP]

Interestingly enough, the first segment of "official" interstate highway to be constructed was...I-70 between St. Louis and Kansas City. (Not all of it, just the part in the middle, closer to Columbia.) For those who wonder why that freeway curves as severely as it does, and why dome of those grades are as...sudden as they are that's why. Of course, the PA Turnpike was the first of its kind in the country, and that was well before the interstate act was signed. (It's also since been blasted and expanded about a dozenteen times since then so it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be...still not a road you want to be caught on during winter, however. That or I-80 further north.)

 

Having passed through Hartford about a million and one times over the years, both ways across the 84 and the 91...and the times I took the CT-9/3/2 "bypasses" around downtown to avoid the inevitable messes...something never sat right with those road alignments to me (and don't get me started with that CT-2/CT-15/I-84 triangle thing). But all that time I never realized I-91 ran alongside the Connecticut River. Then again, I was more concerned with not getting hit by wayward non-driving four-wheelers than actually noticing a river even ran through Hartford in the first place.  But that's a relic of old-time city planning when rivers were primary access points for ships, barges and other water passage (which is why so many industrial areas sit, or sat, right alongside rivers to this day). Back then, riverfronts weren't really seen as parks and greenways the way they are now, and thus too many times, freeways cut cities--and especially downtowns--off from their riverfronts. (Take a good look at Sioux City Iowa if you want a good example of this.) 

 

And as for interstates running right through downtowns, and often through areas where people couldn’t afford to fight the construction...great point. That can be attributed to one man: ROBERT MOSES. At the time he was the foremost "expert" on city planning...and quite possibly one of the most racist men to walk the planet. It's a story all too familiar around the country of how interstates razed right through urban poor (read: BIPOC) communities. Just about every major urban center in the country has experienced that. And if you really want to see just how severely that thinking has impacted cities, do a little reading up on I-630 here in Little Rock. The after-effects of "The Line" is still felt to this day. 

 

Anyway, fascinating little detour from the main topic. And...I didn't realize Hartford proper was so small in population. (You telling me it's only about half the size of Little Rock here??) But the metro numbers up there more than make up for it.

[Ben5]

On 5/28/2024 at 8:05 PM, pmoehrin said:

 

The I-84/I-91 interchange absolutely massacred that city beyond repair. What people think of as "downtown Hartford" is basically a three-by-four city block partition of land. Venture any further, and you're either walking on the highway or into someone's living room. It is the single most boring city of 100k+ residents I've ever been to.

 

If you're from out of town, there's no point in even leaving the hotel after eight o'clock because there is literally nothing to do after the sun goes down. You don't have a choice of downtown bars to go to. You have the downtown bar. That's it. Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much. Anyone living nearby goes to their local watering hole down the street. Nobody in their right mind would ever go to Hartford for a night on the town.

 

Hartford's only protections from becoming a ghost town are its status as an insurance hub and being the state capital. Beyond that, it's basically a giant suburb sandwiched between New York and Boston.

 

When I was 23, my friends and I decided to go out in Hartford. We had a couple drinks in my buddy's loft before we called taxis and rode downtown.

 

My girlfriend (at the time) was next to me in the back seat of the cab, and she threw up on my shoulder on the way there. We got to the bar, and she couldn't stand up. I had to flag down another cab and get us a ride back. I carried her over my shoulder to my car so I could get us to my basement apartment in Storrs. I put her in the shower to wash the vomit off of her before I put her to bed. She pooped in the shower.  I broke up with her a week later.

 

I lived in Connecticut for three more years, and the only other time I "went out" in Hartford was to see a Wolfpack game.

[Digby]

Never forget.

 

 

[FiddySicks]

Oh awesome, Springfield is getting the Isotopes back. 

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, Ben5 said:

My girlfriend (at the time) was next to me in the back seat of the cab, and she threw up on my shoulder on the way there. We got to the bar, and she couldn't stand up. I had to flag down another cab and get us a ride back. I carried her over my shoulder to my car so I could get us to my basement apartment in Storrs. I put her in the shower to wash the vomit off of her before I put her to bed. She pooped in the shower.  I broke up with her a week later.

 

god forbid women have hobbies

[pmoehrin]

5 hours ago, Digby said:

Never forget.

 

 

 

Oh, that would have been an absolute nightmare.

 

The stretch of I-90 and I-84 that leads from Boston to Hartford is bad enough with nothing going on. But a Pats game? You would be looking at 3+ hours getting home if you live anywhere around Boston.

For a Monday Night game, you'd have to leave by two in the hopes of getting there by five; otherwise, you could be over an hour just getting out of Boston.

 

And forget about parking. They'd probably have to shuttle people off-site to and from the stadium. I don't know how else you would do it. There's enough parking downtown for a 15k+ seat arena but not a 60K+ seat football stadium.

 

Not that Foxboro is the most accessible place in the world, but once you get to 95, the hard part is usually over. This would have been pure hell the whole way there and back.

[The_Admiral]

an NBA team in Hartford, an NFL team in Hartford, an NHL team in Raleigh, just dumb ideas all around.

[Digby]

37 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

 

Oh, that would have been an absolute nightmare.

 

The stretch of I-90 and I-84 that leads from Boston to Hartford is bad enough with nothing going on. But a Pats game? You would be looking at 3+ hours getting home if you live anywhere around Boston.

For a Monday Night game, you'd have to leave by two in the hopes of getting there by five; otherwise, you could be over an hour just getting out of Boston.

 

And forget about parking. They'd probably have to shuttle people off-site to and from the stadium. I don't know how else you would do it. There's enough parking downtown for a 15k+ seat arena but not a 60K+ seat football stadium.

 

Not that Foxboro is the most accessible place in the world, but once you get to 95, the hard part is usually over. This would have been pure hell the whole way there and back.

 

I've hit 1.75 hours back to Boston from Gillette, even with tailgating for an hour afterward to let the first wave of traffic escape the lots... but I am an effete soccer fan so the full-stadium experience is, fortunately, a rare event for me. I don't know how the Patriots crowd does it 8-11 (well, now 8 ) times a year.

 

That seems like a big tell that the Hartford stadium proposal was never made in fully good faith. Was the plan to siphon off Giants/Jets fans between New Haven and Port Chester? IDK. I'm sure they get a decent number of STH's from Connecticut now, but used to get more when the Patriots were bad and they were more overtly the team of the New England exurbs, so I guess that's why the Hartford plan seemed less laughable at the time.

[The_Admiral]

Weren't there a lot of Giants fans hanging on in New England from the pre-merger days when they were the northeasternmost NFL team? I remember that being one of those NFL fandom-geography quirks like the Packers fans on the south side of Chicago who couldn't reconcile the Bears with their Wrigley Field days so they moved from the Cardinals to the Bears' rival.

 

Anyway, that Hartford stadium was never going to make any sense.

[Sykotyk]

3 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Weren't there a lot of Giants fans hanging on in New England from the pre-merger days when they were the northeasternmost NFL team? I remember that being one of those NFL fandom-geography quirks like the Packers fans on the south side of Chicago who couldn't reconcile the Bears with their Wrigley Field days so they moved from the Cardinals to the Bears' rival.

 

Anyway, that Hartford stadium was never going to make any sense.

Was that why there was a good mix of Notre Dame/Packers fans in nw Indiana at one time? 

[The_Admiral]

Could be a factor, yeah. Gotta admire the stubbornness on some level. The Packers also have a little more of a foothold in Minnesota than one would expect, which is even more impressive considering the Vikings have spent almost their entire existence being Not Bad. (The platonic ideal of a Minnesota Vikings season is going 11-5 but losing in the playoffs on a pick-six that bounced off the intended receiver's head.)

[Sykotyk]

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

Could be a factor, yeah. Gotta admire the stubbornness on some level. The Packers also have a little more of a foothold in Minnesota than one would expect, which is even more impressive considering the Vikings have spent almost their entire existence being Not Bad. (The platonic ideal of a Minnesota Vikings season is going 11-5 but losing in the playoffs on a pick-six that bounced off the intended receiver's head.)

I saw that in western NY. Sure, Buffalo is the default team of Rochester and Syracuse, but the number of Jets or Giants fans is oddly noticeable. Is it just being the 'anti-team' to the local team, disdain for the 'big brother city' Buffalo having a team and Rochester or Syracuse don't have a team. Just like there's a lot of U-Mich fans in Cincinnati simply because they're Ohio State's rival.

[FiddySicks]

6 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

 

god forbid women have hobbies

I was gong to ask him what it was like dating Diana Taurasi, but this is better. 

[Digby]

4 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Weren't there a lot of Giants fans hanging on in New England from the pre-merger days when they were the northeasternmost NFL team? I remember that being one of those NFL fandom-geography quirks like the Packers fans on the south side of Chicago who couldn't reconcile the Bears with their Wrigley Field days so they moved from the Cardinals to the Bears' rival.

 

 

Yeah, that's what the history says. Shaughnessy wrote a whole thing about it a few years back. I grew up in a family of Patriots fans and never really encountered that personally, so I've figured that's largely died out with generations who grew up post-merger. Though nowadays of course you have the Patriots/Yankees fan specimen popular in contested areas of Connecticut. (Actually, another piece to the Giants thing is that they used to do training camp at UVM in Burlington pre-merger, so maybe that fandom is still holding on more strongly in Vermont, which is semi-contested territory anyway.)

[pmoehrin]

5 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Weren't there a lot of Giants fans hanging on in New England from the pre-merger days when they were the northeasternmost NFL team? I remember that being one of those NFL fandom-geography quirks like the Packers fans on the south side of Chicago who couldn't reconcile the Bears with their Wrigley Field days so they moved from the Cardinals to the Bears' rival.

 

A direct result of the NFL's local blackout rules until 1973.

 

It was common for Giants fans to rent hotel rooms in New Haven to watch games because that was the closest you could get outside the NY Media Market.

 

I'm sure other teams, like the Bears and Packers, have similar stories.

[Sykotyk]

2 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

 

A direct result of the NFL's local blackout rules until 1973.

 

It was common for Giants fans to rent hotel rooms in New Haven to watch games because that was the closest you could get outside the NY Media Market.

 

I'm sure other teams, like the Bears and Packers, have similar stories.

In 73 and 74 the Giants played at the Yale Bowl. That could've helped too. Patriots were nothing back then by comparison. 

[MDGP]

On 5/30/2024 at 11:49 PM, pmoehrin said:

 

A direct result of the NFL's local blackout rules until 1973.

 

It was common for Giants fans to rent hotel rooms in New Haven to watch games because that was the closest you could get outside the NY Media Market.

 

I'm sure other teams, like the Bears and Packers, have similar stories.

 

On 5/31/2024 at 2:08 AM, Sykotyk said:

In 73 and 74 the Giants played at the Yale Bowl. That could've helped too. Patriots were nothing back then by comparison. 

 

Eh, Western Connecticut is well known as being basically New York territory, the Patriots could've been around since 1930 and they'd still root for the Giants just due to geography.

 

The old Giants fandom has been pretty much dead on the eastern part of New England, and basically anyone who still did was in my grandparents generation. For younger generations you're more likely to find random contrarian rooting interests than the Giants these days.

[Brass]

On 5/30/2024 at 4:13 PM, pmoehrin said:

And forget about parking. They'd probably have to shuttle people off-site to and from the stadium. I don't know how else you would do it. There's enough parking downtown for a 15k+ seat arena but not a 60K+ seat football stadium.

 

They wanted to build a huge parking garage next to the stadium for the Patriots, which begs the question; where would one tailgate? Off-site? Okay, now there is going to be even more traffic heading to the games.

 

Also, throwing it back to the 91/84 talk, that merger from 91 to 84 is an absolute death trap. I take an alternative route that adds 15-20 minutes whenever I have to travel that way, just to avoid having to get on 84.

[throwuascenario]

On 5/30/2024 at 3:33 AM, Sykotyk said:

But that lag caused them to get the 'basics' inside cities first. Connecting east to west, north to south inside cities as they started more suburban/urban routes there was much more push back as they had seen what had been done elsewhere in the city. Honestly, freeways should've gone between cities until they hit the 'circle bypass' of a city and essentially stop. Maybe a spur toward downtown but the downtown be freeway-free. Shunting all through traffic around the city to keep on non-stop roads.

 

 

This sounds like it would be beneficial to the city, but is pretty much be a death sentence to a downtown core.  In a city where cars are the primary mode of transportation (so almost all US cities), the downtown core needs to be at least almost as easy to get to as anywhere else or else no one will go there, live there, or put offices there. Almost every small to medium sized city with an interstate going through it has a downtown in a much better spot now than just before the highway was built.

 

A perfect example of this is comparing Raleigh to Charlotte in NC. Charlotte has easy interstate access to downtown, while Raleigh pretty much bypasses it like you mentioned. Both metros are growing rapidly. But Charlotte has had explosive growth in and and just outside "uptown", while practically all of Raleigh's growth has been suburban. There are huge office buildings, apartment buildings, and attractions in Uptown Charlotte because it is easy to get to. On the other hand, why put an office building in downtown Raleigh when you could just put it right off the highway in Cary or North Raleigh, in a place that's easy for everyone to get to? Look up the shopping center / development North Hills in northern Raleigh. It is almost its own skyline of office / apartment/ retail development that was not put downtown, but instead put right off of I-440. If the interstate goes through downtown, all of that development probably goes with it.

 

On 5/30/2024 at 9:59 AM, tBBP said:

And as for interstates running right through downtowns, and often through areas where people couldn’t afford to fight the construction...great point. That can be attributed to one man: ROBERT MOSES. At the time he was the foremost "expert" on city planning...and quite possibly one of the most racist men to walk the planet. It's a story all too familiar around the country of how interstates razed right through urban poor (read: BIPOC) communities. Just about every major urban center in the country has experienced that. And if you really want to see just how severely that thinking has impacted cities, do a little reading up on I-630 here in Little Rock. The after-effects of "The Line" is still felt to this day. 

 

 

There was a theory to it beyond "black people bad". The theory was that they could get rid of the most rundown / poorest parts of cities by paving over them and replacing them with new "veins" to pump people in and out of both the revitalized core and the new developments that would inevitably be built further out from the city along the new highways.

 

You can agree or disagree with that premise, but the thinking was that they could reduce poverty by reducing the amount of impoverished area. It just so happens that a large number of people in these impoverished areas were minorities, but that's another discussion for another day and goes well beyond the scope of where to put highways.