jess

Exactly. The bit about the support from the shire and the vote is just false. Very worrying if he actually thinks that and if he knows it's shite then he's a cunt for lying through his teeth to the fans. Why believe the crap about 12,000 and so on when they tell such big porkies?

Millenials are conditioned to being able to do things straight away and having instant satisfaction, they've known nothing else. If people can't be fucked with this park and ride stuff now we quite possibly could have crowds of 2 or 3 thousand in 2040 with an average age of 55. Already people are finding streaming the game and cans at home better than being there. Add in this almighty bullshit, time and effort.

There's Hazlehead roundabout then one for those coming off Lang Stracht then the one for Kingswells?

They've taken into account all the available buses in the city with most of First's seemingly being at the park and rides. Maintaining basically 4 pitches and 2 synthetic pitches and the pavilion that size will surely cost a fortune or am I wrong? It's always been Milne proposing these. Sporting legacy the north east etc etc. Always the same community campus training academy. I acknowledge the upside which is it's easier to drive to from the shire. There's no future in that. The core walking and pub going support is gone. 500 from the Westhill area is not a base for a club this size.

There are 24 bus routes to the city centre yet only about 2000 fans use them. I really can't see where the buses are coming from for this to Kingsford for 6000 for one offs. The shuttle bus is from the city centre to the ground. Because clubs with 40,000 season ticket holders find it expensive. I'm basing it on what the club have submitted for a £50 million development and change of base. I'm not just going to hope! Aye a few, not over 6000. And the bar bus contribution would be in the low hundreds. Milne's brain has been stuck on an out of town joint stadium and humongous training facilities since the 90s which has caused us to have no training facilities and a neglected stadium in 2017. I don't think he's best placed for anything.

My point was how long they've not done it. Also that the Kingsford site is 4 times the Links. I think the training plans are very excessive and we can't afford the build or upkeep. My stance is this is not an improvement in many areas and not the right improvement.

The edge of the city 55% goes out to Bridge of Don, Bucksburn, Cults and Cove. Harder would be Northfield and Garthdee. If you've never met people who go out in the city before football then I don't even know. Over half do. Dropping off because the transport options are very poor and very limited for 3 times as many people. Why don't you get a bus to games to Union Street? Why do you think folk will do this to out there?

The average is 1.7-1.8 which would be 5100-5400. At least 4 of those areas which are large percentages don't count in the city half (and 2 are a lot harder). The people that want to be in the city before the match what about them? 3000 dropping off for whatever reason would be replaced by who? Are there Aberdeen fans all over Aberdeenshire desperate to go to Westhill instead of Aberdeen? You'd rather they did what they've done and waited 20 years bussing them to random places and half pitches than have built football pitches and a pavilion.

If the updated transport information confirms anything other than the current bus and price arrangements as now I'll accept I'm being blind to a business case here. The point of training facilities is they don't have guaranteed pitches to use at the moment. I've not seen McInnes or anyone complain about anything else. Just having a pitch and pavilion is the case all over the world.

Surely you're more concerned about it being harder for a huge percentage of current crowds and season ticket holders or what's the thinking there? For you not being in the city is a good thing and for over half it's part of the day.

What is the other option for the buses? They're not sending them on routes they're not required on and in the time available. Furthest stagecoach return in the city is £3.25. The places they've used for years are barely professional either and what I'm basing on what I can't believe we can't have done in years out in the sticks. What are we looking at for this?

I don't believe they did or could offer extra bus routes because I don't think it's feasible. Sending new buses to a location away from everything, stopping for hours and sending them back isn't what public ones can do and the TA says those limited plans already account for all public buses available. By significant cost I mean it's about £6. Over a season is huge. Football pitches - are there really any planning concerns for just pitches? What stops someone owning land growing grass in the shape of a pitch with white paint on it? I don't know The parking has all been counted as 3 to a car next to the ground, in the park and ride and business parks which has obviously blown it apart, with only about 3000 total spaces.

Well, I agree there.

The other transport assessment points this out because if people do this and union street is still a meeting point the number of buses required from the city centre is beyond belief. It would also be adding a significant extra cost and is not a good experience. I don't think so or the bus companies would have proposed it when the club discussed it with them. It appears to be unsustainable in terms of number of buses required to go to an out of town location. There's a 50 club lounge, match sponsor's lounge and 4 hospitality suites. There's probably just more floor space than the RDS but so much of it is taken up with other things. No it's blanked out of the business case. The golf centre's last available turnover is £1.5m and profit around £100,000. How much is the land at Kingsford and how much to maintain? Auchenhowie costs nearly £2m a year. Why we haven't at least just bought land in the middle of nowhere for football pitches I don't know unless someone can explain. That's the number required for the parking spaces available firstly. And what ACC said would have to be enforced if they want to get away with using those numbers at the ground. One empties on the way. It takes about 35 minutes from union street to the dual carriageway.

Aye but will 4 times as much in such a supposedly great location cost the same? I don't know I'm asking.

I don't understand this either from a bus or other modes perspective. Just now I usually get a bus in and meet people who have walked and bussed from all over at whatever venue of choice and then work our way down to the game via various bars, shops and bookies. Can't even work out what we're meant to do for Kingsford or what the day would be.

The X40 goes from the park and ride to Merkland Road and has 21 cars parked at it during a game. It was replying to the cost of buying the land.

Anyone that lives in or near those areas and drives to Pittodrie, why aren't they taking the bus or driving to a park and ride and taking the bus? For the same reason, nobody is going to do the equivalent to westhill and it's pie in the sky. Relying on 6000 to 10000 doing that is madness and not a small change to get used to. Regarding attitudes towards bus travel, I do it all the time and hate it because it's uncomfortable. Someone sitting next to you on a Stagecoach is very uncomfortable. Buses at full capacity going from Union Street up Queen's Road (...) is horrendous.

The last survey put over half going to bars or restaurants before a game and I've not seen how this is accounted for or replaced at Kingsford. And we're talking 4000 more taking a bus with walkers turning to bus, bus to mostly two buses and driving to a bus. It's all unattractive stuff. The ghost town park and rides show that anyone with a car isn't going to do this or why aren't those in westhill and kingswells etc doing this now when the option is there. Anyone on a bus only would want it from basically their street to the ground as there is now, which is very underused as it is. As far as I can see it would make it way harder for a lot more people except those driving to and parking in the small number of spaces next to the ground. I was surprised there's only 20 ten people boxes in the plans when the RDS and main have a lot more and all the lounge and seat options. I was really expecting them to go most of the way around or two levels with skyboxes and the like that other stadiums of the same cost have and what I assumed Milne was most impressed by at Groningen. The land at kingsford is 4 times the size of the golf centre and cricket pitch. Regarding the TA there's 12 bus services dispersing in all directions on King Street and Golf Road according to the Pittodrie houses application. There are walking links and then buses to every corner of the world from union street which is half the distance of to Kingswells park and ride. Got the train as well. It passes every part of sustainability. The AWPR is also supposed to take heaps of traffic out of the city centre. And I think if there was a proper stadium at Pittodrie there would be much higher attendances.

Over driving range and cricket pitch is the identified spot. Access road to beach rerouted and us compensating for or relocating the driving range. Might cost £4 million more but what's that in the scheme of the next 100 years, highly preferred fans choice and home and no risk to attendances - almost certainly increase and permanently - plus the transport costs all over the place associated with Kingsford.

Yes many do but nearly just as many don't and changing habits so drastically from a day out in the city, pub and walking to Pittodrie is such a huge gamble on habits and affinity it would need to be a much better and at least as easy option. By much better I mean something special and a wide consensus online is people don't like it especially compared to the Gent and Euro stadions that were hinted at. I've also not seen anything about how this would increase revenue or attendances, indeed the naming rights and sponsorship would just contribute minimally towards it being built and we'd be paying it back for decades I imagine. Regarding walking distance that figure would drop substantially and is a guaranteed negative. Football specials is what's being torn apart the most. For some reason the club has counted 3/5 of football specials being from Kingswells as not driving by car. (Are there enough buses?) The only other locations are direct from the city centre and Dyce. The cost of making this as accessible as the city centre with private hire coaches in whatever shape would be relatively enormous to the club or fans who it would probably be passed on to. Stagecoach would only be able to increase by 10 buses an hour across the X17 and X18 and First Bus would be doing the shuttles. This would hammer crowds. Don't think you've got the percentage logic right. The modal split puts number of fans on buses at 42.5% and just under 6000. They've planned for buses at 100% capacity. As for tons of parking I don't know where you're thinking of because they've already accounted for all that they can use with Kingswells and Arnhall and that's at an extremely unrealistic average of 3 people per car when it could be as low as 1.5. And the stadium wouldn't be on the golf course! I don't think I'm overreacting. The club isn't prepared for a gamble this size and I can see no evidence to back it up and hoping everything falls into place and will be alright. If 12,000 are turning up for Hearts at home when we're as good as we've been in decades at Pittodrie what would we have got next to Westhill?

Great post and exactly what I can see and can't for the life of me understand Aberdeen fans supporting unless they only drive to games and go home. The idea that Kingsford is 'in Aberdeen' is amazing. Can you walk to it? No. Can you bus to it from all over? No. Are there any other options other than driving? No. Because it's not Aberdeen and would finish the club. The Fairhurst transport assessment really is a joke. The NKS one that was lampooned for costing a fortune rips it to shreds and it will never be passed by the council. They demonstrate it's unworkable in every way. 6000 fans on fucking 100% capacity buses for an average game to a place that buses don't go. When folk get sick of being herded on shambolic sardine tin buses what they going to do? Drive if they can and want to to where there already is no parking? They know Kingsford is mince that they can't work out. They even wrote this in the Loirston one Also noticed the approved Pittodrie houses application builds onto Pittodrie Street and right next to golf club etc with a redesigning of the road. If you can fit around 500 seats per row allowing for stairways and guidelines in 3 stands does anyone actually believe we could only fit 12 rows in? I'd rather a new build on Kings Links but a Pittodrie rebuild would do. Yes I know the emergency stuff. Yes it could be worked around and would cost the club less in the long run than a stadium not in Aberdeen for however many years.