Parking is King

My guess is that the Sacramento Kings, if we are to have a professional team going forward, will find themselves at Cal Expo instead of the downtown railyards.

I am amazed, really, that the existing arena, built in 1988, is now unsuitable. Another example of how we build things that are not expected to last beyond thirty years. Apparently this arena is now unsuitable to even host a collegiate tournament. I wonder why. The thing seems plenty good to me, an observation from someone who's attended events there at least four dozen times. And with this last rejection by the NCAA, there isn't one concrete reason why this place is unsuitable listed in our local media, other than "it's the oldest in the NBA."

So we either have some bad reporting across the board or the reasons for unsuitability are utter bullshit. I'd take the latter. Let me guess, let me take a crack at some of the supposed reasons:

• The ramps leading up to the entrances aren't at the 4.8% grade now recommended by the ADA instead of the current 5.2%;
• The ratio between luxury suites and club seats is non-optimal;
• A luxury suite sitter has to pedestrianate through three sections of "the commoners" to reach the exits, a wholly non-luxurious condition;
• For that matter, a luxury suite attendee has to pedestrinate upwards of three hundred meters from the valet parking to his seat.
• The scoreboard isn't displayed in HD 1080p format.

Nope. It's not that beer is $8, or that a hot dog is $6, or that to park costs $12; no, these prices will only be raised at any new arena. It's not that it's the smallest venue in the NBA -- somebody has to be the smallest!

Regardless of the supposed faults with the arena, I think the Cal Expo site will be preferred by the owners over the railyards precisely because light rail has no plans to run anywhere near Cal Expo over the next two decades, while it might actually get built through the railyards. Think of all that lost private parking revenue for the owners if horrors! people chose to use public transit to get to a publically funded venue. Instead, place it a good mile and a half away from any rail options. I trust my own intuition that the maximization of private profit over the public benefits of a well-placed venue will reign true.