Transportation reality check...

3 weeks ago, the PDCVB made its best effort to have shuttle service run in a 1/4 mile loop between 4 hotel properties and the Dutch Wonderland parking lot. Needless to say, after considerable effort, the best they could find were 2 Friendly Taxi vans which were totally unable to deal with the crowd and provide reasonable service. A service loop less than HALF A MILE.

Last weekend, the PDCVB, facilitated a very large religious gathering at the Host and had 2 Shultz school buses ferrying people around. I have nothing against the fine folks at Shultz, they drive my daughter daily, but I hardly think that school buses are synonymous with the first class facility that we are building. This time the service loop was larger, 2 miles.

How in the HE%L are going to move people from all corners of the County into downtown and back again?

Mayor Gray proves he is stupider and stupider when he makes ridiculous comments like he did about plenty of parking and no "no vacancy" signs at our garages... The Convention Center will never have enough occupancy to support a free standing garage. That being the case, the garages must have a steady enough stream of "regular"/contract and day parkers to support their operations.

The problem is that when you do actually draw a huge crowd there is not enough parking leftover. Since the Jacob Javitz Convention Center was built in NYC, also to promote neighborhood revitalization, only one thing has changed in that neighborhood...the parking lots in the area that typically charge $20-$30/day, charge $60 flat, paid in advance, for 10 minutes or 10 hours, when the lights are on in the center.