A stellar stadium needs good roads

Richard DePaso, Henderson

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | 2:02 a.m.

I’ve read many articles about proposed stadiums and have seen many of the pluses of such plans, but none of the articles seems to address one of the key issues: How do you get 20,000-50,000 people to a stadium and get them out with the clogged roads and no viable mass transit?

A recent article looked at Dodger Stadium comparisons and made it sound like a stadium downtown should be something people can walk to. Who are the people and where are they going to walk from? You need parking or mass transportation. Other articles talk about opportunities for sports teams and events that certainly will bring in money; however, trying to shoehorn something into space that has poor access in exchange for political gain, money or an ego boost is extremely shortsighted and poorly planned.

Las Vegas seems to have an attitude of: Just build it and we’ll worry about the details or we’ll fix it later. Try bringing 20,000 people to the same place at the same time using the systems and infrastructure we have and you can guarantee a disaster. Before we go too far with any of these stadium plans, it’s time we see from the developers what the plans are for infrastructure to move people to and away from any of the proposed stadiums. The public should demand it.