Perhaps agreements can be worked w/ business district to utilize unused parking structures on Saturday games, then utilize shuttles to campus.....not a great system for Thur/Fri games though
how many of those commuters go to school 5 days a week. they are never coming at the same time. a lot of commuters go 3 or even 2 days a week. UCLA offers classes from virtually 8am to 10pm, so 67,000 is not a very good comparison to game day when tens of thousands will all be transcending on campus a the exact same time.
In fact it would likely be far less. The total population on campus on a typical school day is about 80,000. Subtract the students who live within walking/biking/scootering distance and it's closer to 65,000 who travel to the campus each day. With a 50k on campus stadium, and presuming around 10-15k students attend (increased because of the ease of getting there), you're looking at 35-40k people getting to Westwood, so around a half to 2/3rds of the incoming traffic on a normal day. And games are almost always on Saturday so you can subtract much of the business traffic in and around Westwood and Wilshire as well. Also, many more people carpool to the Rose Bowl than do those who commute to campus for work or class. The campus has around 24k parking spots, so assuming each car averages 2 or more riders (and it's likely higher), that should be more than enough to handle 40k arrivals.
Add in that we are only talking about 6 days a year, and it's pretty clear that traffic for games is a challenging but easily managed issue.
There's no chance whatsoever that 65,000 students travel to campus each day. None.
Probably not even 20,000. I believe UCLA actually puts out official numbers on this. most commuters do not go to school 5 days a week. a lot of them go only 2 days a week, or 3. then factor in that classes are spread out from like 8am to 10 pm and the students who do attend 5 days a week only go for 3-4 hours a day. football game would be everyone at the exact same time.
Also, re the 24,000 parking spots, many of those are for residents.
Yes, it is only 6 Saturdays a year....but those 6 Saturdays would be an utter nightmare. Just look at what happens to Westwood when 9,000 people show up for a basketball game. holy smokes.
I know you hate dealing with facts but UCLA itself says 80,000 people are on campus every day, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors. I didn't say 65,000 students travel to campus. Read.
If it works like that every day of the academic year, it would be fine for roughly half of that to make it there on a Saturday.
The new metro line would be open by the time any hypothetical stadium was built, and as someone who took the train to the Colesium for the game last year, it was a very easy experience that I would highly recommend to people.
A return to the Coliseum is the feasible solution for UCLA and I have been pushing it for some time. I laid out an extensive plan to the athletic department for how this can be done and what obstacles must be overcome to make it happen.
First, the new Westwood subway terminal being built needs to be extended to directly connect to the campus of UCLA.
Second, the city must agree to provision a game day express line that runs directly, without any stops, from Westwood to the gates of the Coliseum and back. If possible, it would be preferrable to build a separate subway tunnel that breaks off from the purple line and travels in a straight line to the Coliseum, allowing the city to continue running its purple line on game days while having a dedicate tunnel for transporting students and fans to the Coliseum from Westwood. Right now, I anticipate the subway ride lasting no longer than 10 minutes but as technology advances, we should be able to speed it up even faster.
Third, for this plan to work, the campus of UCLA itself would need to be transformed into the primary epicenter of tailgating and gathering for fans. The whole purpose is to reinvigorate football into the campus culture of UCLA. Of course, for those fans who are closer to the Coliseum, they can go directly there but all fans will be welcome to travel through the gameday express subway. Thus, expanded parking is required and other expenses like perhaps subsidizing season ticket holders who use like Uber or Lyft etc to arrive at UCLA. Also, the school needs to plan for tailgating on campus. There is plenty of space from Drake Stadium up Bruin Walk, Bruin Bear Statue, courtyards around SAC, connecting to Wilson Plaza, Janss Steps, Kerkhoff courtyard area, up through Dickinson Plaza between Royce Hall and Powell to the flagpole and Dickinson Courts, dedicated to tailgating and pre-game football congregation.
Fourth, USC would have to agree to build dedicated locker rooms and facilities for the UCLA players, coaches, and staff. Most importantly, USC must agree to 50/50 operational management of the Coliseum with UCLA. The Bruins will not be second-class citizens in their own stadium. A new entity can be created by the schools for purpose of operating, management, and upkeep of the Coliseum. In time, I expect UCLA and USC agree to completely rebuild the Coliseum from scratch into a modern, state-of-the-art college football stadium that would be the envy of the college football world. Sharing the stadium with USC will also help keep costs down since all expenses will be divided between the schools. The new Coliseum will also be designed to easily transform the aesthetics, colors, and promotional material of the stadium between both schools with a switch of the button.
20 yrs left on RB lease....so if there was ever any serious thought for on-campus stadium, now is the time. The last serious plans were done in the 60's and much has changed. It will take years for a new feasibility study plus environmental impact studies, committee to study the studies, etc. With the right marketing, this is something much of the Bruin community would get behind, I believe. A consistently winning and contending team would go a long way in helping.
Not to wade in like the Old Codger I am, but to bring up some historical points and the typical old codger grumbling.
(1) Historical note: when I was a yute, we had to bus our [now prune-wrinkled] asses over to the Los Angeles Mausoleum for games. True, the fraternity buses had the requisite beer kegs and "tailgating" - as it were - consisted of 12 oz cups of Coors or Bud and liverwurst sammiches that Florida (our cook) prepared the day before. The obvious downside was the totally dreary atmosphere surrounding that decaying edifice. Tangential observation: can any of youse imagine what it was like to go to a round ball game over at the Sports Arena? That was before Pauley and it was miserable. There were only two times I recollect that the Sports Arena was joyous: once in 1972 when UCLA won its eighth NCAA title versus the FSU Semi-Noles. The other was in 1983 when my HS alma mater (a small prep school in Menlo Park) won the Division II CIF basketball championships. That was it!
(2) Historical note: in 1968, there was a referendum on the school ballot about re-purposing the soon-to-be Duck Drake track stadium (in its own right, a magnificent venue for that sport) as a "modest 20-25,000 on-campus football stadium. At the time a lot of the student body were protesting the war 'n stuff and, for one reason or another, they thought this was an off-shoot of Dow Chemical and the establishment poised to take over the Uni to turn it into one giant ROTC mill. (Or something.) There was even a big sign spray-painted on an apartment house midway up Strathmore saying "FREE THE UCLA 30,000". Those were trying times, brothers and sisters. The paranoia was rampant and scruffy haired agitators were walking around, whispering, "See the light stanchions? Their gonna turn them into supports for the second deck!"
(3) Hysterical note: having been to a few games in Pasadena, one wonders how much impetus the Big 10 had to invite UCLA and USC to join based on some of their members having dreams about a game or two out there instead of some arctic-shilled Midwestern brick charnel houses. (Think Northwestern's Dyche Stadium, South Bend or Lincoln, Nebraska, etc. Despite the tradition, late fall games are no fun.) Moreover, any number of young men play their hearts out to just to have ONE GAME in Pasadena. UCLA schedules four to six per year.
(4) Crowds: If you win, they will come. It goes unargued that over the last decade, Guerror eroded UCLA's athletic standing and prominence to the point where attendance dropped off due to inferior coaching choices as well as commensurate achievements. The new AD has taken steps to reverse this slide. Certainly the Basketball has regained some semblance of prominence but progress in football has been tenuous at best.
A stat that jumped up and bit my ample, more-than-middle-aged ass was that the victory over Washington was THE FIRST over a ranked opponent Kelly has had at UCLA -- or something like that.
Also, though I love him and he is a more-than-faithful UCLA alum, but I'd think a lot more of Troy Aikman had he scored on that fourth quarter drive against USC back in 1987. I mean, Rodney Peete had the flu, fer crissakes!
No, old sons of Westwood, we have a long road back and mile to go before we will have the stones to dictate terms to the Rose Bowl folks as to where we play home games.
While the Washington win was Kelly's first win at UCLA over a Top 15 opponent, LSU was ranked 16th when we beat them at the start of last season. Also, UCLA beat 19th ranked Washington State on the road and 24th ranked Arizona State in 2019.
So, Saturday wasn't his first win over a ranked school, but it was the highest ranked team we've beaten under him.
Now, we will really see how much progress we've really made when we host #11 Utah this Saturday as Kelly has never had to play Top 25 teams in back-to-back weeks, much less beaten them both.
Thank you, Joe. I snagged that comment off the post-game locker room report and had a feeling that Washington wasn't the ONLY team, etc. Appreciate your setting me straight.
And, yes indeed, we shall see how far The Chipster has come -- if at all -- this year. It will be interesting to see how the offensive line and defense plays this weekend. I was pleasantly impressed and surprised how long DTR had in the pocket on some plays in the first half and how the defense played against Penix.
All said and done, I admire DTR for his improvement and his taking advantage of the COVID fifth year to hone his skills. They sure showed up on the ESPN national broadcast last Friday!
I still like your/Dimitri's call of 9-3 with losses to the Utes, Oregon, and USC. (But hoping against hope they improve on that.)
I would imagine that if distance is an issue, it's more due to simply acquiring transportation. Students either have a ride or not, and I doubt the 15 mile trip to Sofi makes a big difference compared to the 26 mile trip to Pasadena.
it's not the distance to Pasadena, it's the time. It can take 2 hours from campus on a Saturday. I remember always having a bus available to the Rose Bowl but the 2 hour drive, especially for 1pm games, was always a huge deterrent. And then as far as non students, Sofi is a lot more central to LA than Pasadena.
I attended the CAL/Arizona game a few weeks ago. I entertained the thought of what it would be like to have a on campus stadium in Westwood. After driving around for thirty plus minutes looking for parking I realized UCLA would have the same issues. I ended up paying $40 for parking at a hotel right outside of the campus.
You bring up a very important but ultimately solvable issue. Selling season parking permits with specific parking destinations could account for many of the cars coming to campus. Then allocating specific public parking for non pre-permitted commuters would need to be very clearly advertised and signed and directed on game days. That could be a mix of relatively more expensive spots in various on-campus lots and more economical spots further from campus (e.g., Lot 32 in Westwood, the VA, and Park-and-Ride public transportation lots across the city) with buses to and from the stadium. These are just my spur of the moment ideas, and I'm sure we could get a host of ideas of things that do and don't work by looking at other venues and other cities.
You are correct. The parking issue is solvable. We have season tickets to the Cal games (Mr. Bruin Mom, Cal '86). The lots on campus are pretty much closed except for game day parking and are clearly marked as such. You have the option to purchase a pass at the beginning of the season or pay as you go. The area residents are very industrious and "sell" their spots too. If you are willing to make the walk, the local junior high sells every available inch on their campus, including the baseball field. It is staffed by the faculty who remain with the cars the entire time. The possibilities are endless...
Yeah I get it, Evan. I guess my point is that the parking on and around the Berkeley campus is terrible too. However they have been able to manage it. It isn't easy and. not always perfect, but it works for the most part.
I'm happy to see we aren't getting the usual comments from the close-minded easy-to-say-no people who trot out the same tired reasons why an on-campus stadium can't be done. Of course there are a lot of logistical and physical and economic and psychological roadblocks to such a dream, but each of those roadblocks has a variety of solutions. An on-campus stadium could absolutely be done if there were widespread support and adequate financial backing to make it happen, and it deserves a legitimate consideration.
If the costs are unaffordable or the disruption to campus is too great or the infrastructure can't support it or the overall desire just isn't there, then so be it. But we should find out those answers instead of summarily dismissing the idea, as many so easily do.
But seriously, wtf was Guerrero thinking when he negotiated that lease? Hey, let's sign a contract that totally handcuffs us from doing what we want with our football program and hampers us financially for the next 40 years! Good thing U.C.L.A. has an excellent Law School...
i don't think the issue is it can't be done. i just think most people don't want it. The Rose Bowl is iconic. The tail gating experience is almost unparalleled. What are we going to do, tail gate in one of the parking structures? For the same reasons tailgating sucks at Sofi, it would be even worse on campus. It's not impossible to build a stadium on campus, but it's impossible to replicate anything remotely resembling the Rose Bowl experience.
Completely agree on the Rose Bowl experience. I only addressed the parking but yes, the tailgating at Cal sucks and unless you are willing to lug your stuff to a vacant grass area on campus (and back) or you are one of the VERY few who have a reserved area on campus with an adjacent parking spot that has been in your family literally for generations, you are tailgating in a parking structure. We generally opt for the Faculty Club on campus near the stadium which sells burgers, hot dogs, etc. at reasonable prices, has a full bar (a bit pricey but they have to make money somehow LOL), giant screen TVs in every room, and super clean bathrooms. As weird as it sounds, we actually look forward to the game with Stanford when it's on The Farm because the tailgating is great (nothing beats the Rose Bowl though).
like honestly, if someone planned an on campus rally for an on campus stadium, would anyone show up? The people who would support it are probably not all that enthusiastic about it. If I were a student living on campus right now, I'd support it just for convenience (my frat would only get a bus to the Rose Bowl 1 saturday a year because it was so hard to get people to commit), but would still be happy to keep it at the Rose Bowl
The wealthy homeowners in the area would react the same as half a century ago. I remember that. I’m old. 😊 They bought off the politicians. It would be great to have an on campus stadium.
as a member of Bel Air CC, a big issue for us is that the only feasible location for a stadium, the current location of Drake, would inevitably interfere with our view of the skyline. Not to mention traffic on Sunset on Saturday's (busiest day at the Club).
Very interesting ideas proposed here. I like it. We need new creative thinking to get out of this mess known as the Rose Bowl. As someone who attended UCLA Law, I never felt the law school was really part of the fabric of UCLA's campus. We never really ventured off beyond the law building and we were almost always confined there. It actually became really exhausting and stale being surrounded by the same miserable people all day, every day. I even once proposed to the school we should have social functions with the other UCLA graduate schools like the medical students, dental students, MBA students. Honestly, if the law building left the campus, no one there would even notice them gone. While for me personally, it was important that the law school be on the UCLA campus for continuity to my undergraduate days, I would definitely kick them to the curb now in exchange for a football stadium on campus. They don't even promote or instill Bruin pride at the law school.
How would you address the issue of all of the new traffic into Westwood from game day with the surrounding neighborhoods?
Perhaps agreements can be worked w/ business district to utilize unused parking structures on Saturday games, then utilize shuttles to campus.....not a great system for Thur/Fri games though
It wouldn't be any more than the usual traffic UCLA would see during a weekday.
Yeah it’s pretty dead on Saturday.
how many of those commuters go to school 5 days a week. they are never coming at the same time. a lot of commuters go 3 or even 2 days a week. UCLA offers classes from virtually 8am to 10pm, so 67,000 is not a very good comparison to game day when tens of thousands will all be transcending on campus a the exact same time.
That’s for sure!
In fact it would likely be far less. The total population on campus on a typical school day is about 80,000. Subtract the students who live within walking/biking/scootering distance and it's closer to 65,000 who travel to the campus each day. With a 50k on campus stadium, and presuming around 10-15k students attend (increased because of the ease of getting there), you're looking at 35-40k people getting to Westwood, so around a half to 2/3rds of the incoming traffic on a normal day. And games are almost always on Saturday so you can subtract much of the business traffic in and around Westwood and Wilshire as well. Also, many more people carpool to the Rose Bowl than do those who commute to campus for work or class. The campus has around 24k parking spots, so assuming each car averages 2 or more riders (and it's likely higher), that should be more than enough to handle 40k arrivals.
Add in that we are only talking about 6 days a year, and it's pretty clear that traffic for games is a challenging but easily managed issue.
There's no chance whatsoever that 65,000 students travel to campus each day. None.
Probably not even 20,000. I believe UCLA actually puts out official numbers on this. most commuters do not go to school 5 days a week. a lot of them go only 2 days a week, or 3. then factor in that classes are spread out from like 8am to 10 pm and the students who do attend 5 days a week only go for 3-4 hours a day. football game would be everyone at the exact same time.
Also, re the 24,000 parking spots, many of those are for residents.
Yes, it is only 6 Saturdays a year....but those 6 Saturdays would be an utter nightmare. Just look at what happens to Westwood when 9,000 people show up for a basketball game. holy smokes.
I know you hate dealing with facts but UCLA itself says 80,000 people are on campus every day, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors. I didn't say 65,000 students travel to campus. Read.
If it works like that every day of the academic year, it would be fine for roughly half of that to make it there on a Saturday.
Just because you say it, does not make it so. You are DRAMATICALLY overestimating the amount of people on campus at any given time.
From U.C.L.A.: 67,000 daily commuters (pre-pandemic)
https://transportation.ucla.edu/blog/ucla-state-commute-details-how-campus-community-navigated-2020
Just as BruinGold linked above. It appears I actually underestimated by 2,000.
Capitalizing your feelings doesn't make them any less inacurate.
The new metro line would be open by the time any hypothetical stadium was built, and as someone who took the train to the Colesium for the game last year, it was a very easy experience that I would highly recommend to people.
A return to the Coliseum is the feasible solution for UCLA and I have been pushing it for some time. I laid out an extensive plan to the athletic department for how this can be done and what obstacles must be overcome to make it happen.
First, the new Westwood subway terminal being built needs to be extended to directly connect to the campus of UCLA.
Second, the city must agree to provision a game day express line that runs directly, without any stops, from Westwood to the gates of the Coliseum and back. If possible, it would be preferrable to build a separate subway tunnel that breaks off from the purple line and travels in a straight line to the Coliseum, allowing the city to continue running its purple line on game days while having a dedicate tunnel for transporting students and fans to the Coliseum from Westwood. Right now, I anticipate the subway ride lasting no longer than 10 minutes but as technology advances, we should be able to speed it up even faster.
Third, for this plan to work, the campus of UCLA itself would need to be transformed into the primary epicenter of tailgating and gathering for fans. The whole purpose is to reinvigorate football into the campus culture of UCLA. Of course, for those fans who are closer to the Coliseum, they can go directly there but all fans will be welcome to travel through the gameday express subway. Thus, expanded parking is required and other expenses like perhaps subsidizing season ticket holders who use like Uber or Lyft etc to arrive at UCLA. Also, the school needs to plan for tailgating on campus. There is plenty of space from Drake Stadium up Bruin Walk, Bruin Bear Statue, courtyards around SAC, connecting to Wilson Plaza, Janss Steps, Kerkhoff courtyard area, up through Dickinson Plaza between Royce Hall and Powell to the flagpole and Dickinson Courts, dedicated to tailgating and pre-game football congregation.
Fourth, USC would have to agree to build dedicated locker rooms and facilities for the UCLA players, coaches, and staff. Most importantly, USC must agree to 50/50 operational management of the Coliseum with UCLA. The Bruins will not be second-class citizens in their own stadium. A new entity can be created by the schools for purpose of operating, management, and upkeep of the Coliseum. In time, I expect UCLA and USC agree to completely rebuild the Coliseum from scratch into a modern, state-of-the-art college football stadium that would be the envy of the college football world. Sharing the stadium with USC will also help keep costs down since all expenses will be divided between the schools. The new Coliseum will also be designed to easily transform the aesthetics, colors, and promotional material of the stadium between both schools with a switch of the button.
Those are some very interesting ideas, Showtime. I appreciate the thought you put into this.
It’s a nice dream but that’s all it is.
20 yrs left on RB lease....so if there was ever any serious thought for on-campus stadium, now is the time. The last serious plans were done in the 60's and much has changed. It will take years for a new feasibility study plus environmental impact studies, committee to study the studies, etc. With the right marketing, this is something much of the Bruin community would get behind, I believe. A consistently winning and contending team would go a long way in helping.
Joe, et al..
Not to wade in like the Old Codger I am, but to bring up some historical points and the typical old codger grumbling.
(1) Historical note: when I was a yute, we had to bus our [now prune-wrinkled] asses over to the Los Angeles Mausoleum for games. True, the fraternity buses had the requisite beer kegs and "tailgating" - as it were - consisted of 12 oz cups of Coors or Bud and liverwurst sammiches that Florida (our cook) prepared the day before. The obvious downside was the totally dreary atmosphere surrounding that decaying edifice. Tangential observation: can any of youse imagine what it was like to go to a round ball game over at the Sports Arena? That was before Pauley and it was miserable. There were only two times I recollect that the Sports Arena was joyous: once in 1972 when UCLA won its eighth NCAA title versus the FSU Semi-Noles. The other was in 1983 when my HS alma mater (a small prep school in Menlo Park) won the Division II CIF basketball championships. That was it!
(2) Historical note: in 1968, there was a referendum on the school ballot about re-purposing the soon-to-be Duck Drake track stadium (in its own right, a magnificent venue for that sport) as a "modest 20-25,000 on-campus football stadium. At the time a lot of the student body were protesting the war 'n stuff and, for one reason or another, they thought this was an off-shoot of Dow Chemical and the establishment poised to take over the Uni to turn it into one giant ROTC mill. (Or something.) There was even a big sign spray-painted on an apartment house midway up Strathmore saying "FREE THE UCLA 30,000". Those were trying times, brothers and sisters. The paranoia was rampant and scruffy haired agitators were walking around, whispering, "See the light stanchions? Their gonna turn them into supports for the second deck!"
(3) Hysterical note: having been to a few games in Pasadena, one wonders how much impetus the Big 10 had to invite UCLA and USC to join based on some of their members having dreams about a game or two out there instead of some arctic-shilled Midwestern brick charnel houses. (Think Northwestern's Dyche Stadium, South Bend or Lincoln, Nebraska, etc. Despite the tradition, late fall games are no fun.) Moreover, any number of young men play their hearts out to just to have ONE GAME in Pasadena. UCLA schedules four to six per year.
(4) Crowds: If you win, they will come. It goes unargued that over the last decade, Guerror eroded UCLA's athletic standing and prominence to the point where attendance dropped off due to inferior coaching choices as well as commensurate achievements. The new AD has taken steps to reverse this slide. Certainly the Basketball has regained some semblance of prominence but progress in football has been tenuous at best.
A stat that jumped up and bit my ample, more-than-middle-aged ass was that the victory over Washington was THE FIRST over a ranked opponent Kelly has had at UCLA -- or something like that.
Also, though I love him and he is a more-than-faithful UCLA alum, but I'd think a lot more of Troy Aikman had he scored on that fourth quarter drive against USC back in 1987. I mean, Rodney Peete had the flu, fer crissakes!
No, old sons of Westwood, we have a long road back and mile to go before we will have the stones to dictate terms to the Rose Bowl folks as to where we play home games.
While the Washington win was Kelly's first win at UCLA over a Top 15 opponent, LSU was ranked 16th when we beat them at the start of last season. Also, UCLA beat 19th ranked Washington State on the road and 24th ranked Arizona State in 2019.
So, Saturday wasn't his first win over a ranked school, but it was the highest ranked team we've beaten under him.
Now, we will really see how much progress we've really made when we host #11 Utah this Saturday as Kelly has never had to play Top 25 teams in back-to-back weeks, much less beaten them both.
Thank you, Joe. I snagged that comment off the post-game locker room report and had a feeling that Washington wasn't the ONLY team, etc. Appreciate your setting me straight.
And, yes indeed, we shall see how far The Chipster has come -- if at all -- this year. It will be interesting to see how the offensive line and defense plays this weekend. I was pleasantly impressed and surprised how long DTR had in the pocket on some plays in the first half and how the defense played against Penix.
All said and done, I admire DTR for his improvement and his taking advantage of the COVID fifth year to hone his skills. They sure showed up on the ESPN national broadcast last Friday!
I still like your/Dimitri's call of 9-3 with losses to the Utes, Oregon, and USC. (But hoping against hope they improve on that.)
If they can win the next two, and that's a BIG IF, they may go into the game against Southern Cal undefeated.
Rodney had the measles, and Erik Afholter was out of bounds!! Gah that game still burns me.
If the distance is really the main issue (and it is), it would be much more easily solved by playing at Sofi. Should stay at Rose Bowl though.
I would imagine that if distance is an issue, it's more due to simply acquiring transportation. Students either have a ride or not, and I doubt the 15 mile trip to Sofi makes a big difference compared to the 26 mile trip to Pasadena.
it's not the distance to Pasadena, it's the time. It can take 2 hours from campus on a Saturday. I remember always having a bus available to the Rose Bowl but the 2 hour drive, especially for 1pm games, was always a huge deterrent. And then as far as non students, Sofi is a lot more central to LA than Pasadena.
So you are amending your post to mean time and not distance?
???? Wut?
I attended the CAL/Arizona game a few weeks ago. I entertained the thought of what it would be like to have a on campus stadium in Westwood. After driving around for thirty plus minutes looking for parking I realized UCLA would have the same issues. I ended up paying $40 for parking at a hotel right outside of the campus.
You bring up a very important but ultimately solvable issue. Selling season parking permits with specific parking destinations could account for many of the cars coming to campus. Then allocating specific public parking for non pre-permitted commuters would need to be very clearly advertised and signed and directed on game days. That could be a mix of relatively more expensive spots in various on-campus lots and more economical spots further from campus (e.g., Lot 32 in Westwood, the VA, and Park-and-Ride public transportation lots across the city) with buses to and from the stadium. These are just my spur of the moment ideas, and I'm sure we could get a host of ideas of things that do and don't work by looking at other venues and other cities.
You are correct. The parking issue is solvable. We have season tickets to the Cal games (Mr. Bruin Mom, Cal '86). The lots on campus are pretty much closed except for game day parking and are clearly marked as such. You have the option to purchase a pass at the beginning of the season or pay as you go. The area residents are very industrious and "sell" their spots too. If you are willing to make the walk, the local junior high sells every available inch on their campus, including the baseball field. It is staffed by the faculty who remain with the cars the entire time. The possibilities are endless...
"The parking issue is solvable" is not a phrase i thought I would ever hear with respect to UCLA.
Yeah I get it, Evan. I guess my point is that the parking on and around the Berkeley campus is terrible too. However they have been able to manage it. It isn't easy and. not always perfect, but it works for the most part.
I'm happy to see we aren't getting the usual comments from the close-minded easy-to-say-no people who trot out the same tired reasons why an on-campus stadium can't be done. Of course there are a lot of logistical and physical and economic and psychological roadblocks to such a dream, but each of those roadblocks has a variety of solutions. An on-campus stadium could absolutely be done if there were widespread support and adequate financial backing to make it happen, and it deserves a legitimate consideration.
If the costs are unaffordable or the disruption to campus is too great or the infrastructure can't support it or the overall desire just isn't there, then so be it. But we should find out those answers instead of summarily dismissing the idea, as many so easily do.
But seriously, wtf was Guerrero thinking when he negotiated that lease? Hey, let's sign a contract that totally handcuffs us from doing what we want with our football program and hampers us financially for the next 40 years! Good thing U.C.L.A. has an excellent Law School...
i don't think the issue is it can't be done. i just think most people don't want it. The Rose Bowl is iconic. The tail gating experience is almost unparalleled. What are we going to do, tail gate in one of the parking structures? For the same reasons tailgating sucks at Sofi, it would be even worse on campus. It's not impossible to build a stadium on campus, but it's impossible to replicate anything remotely resembling the Rose Bowl experience.
Completely agree on the Rose Bowl experience. I only addressed the parking but yes, the tailgating at Cal sucks and unless you are willing to lug your stuff to a vacant grass area on campus (and back) or you are one of the VERY few who have a reserved area on campus with an adjacent parking spot that has been in your family literally for generations, you are tailgating in a parking structure. We generally opt for the Faculty Club on campus near the stadium which sells burgers, hot dogs, etc. at reasonable prices, has a full bar (a bit pricey but they have to make money somehow LOL), giant screen TVs in every room, and super clean bathrooms. As weird as it sounds, we actually look forward to the game with Stanford when it's on The Farm because the tailgating is great (nothing beats the Rose Bowl though).
like honestly, if someone planned an on campus rally for an on campus stadium, would anyone show up? The people who would support it are probably not all that enthusiastic about it. If I were a student living on campus right now, I'd support it just for convenience (my frat would only get a bus to the Rose Bowl 1 saturday a year because it was so hard to get people to commit), but would still be happy to keep it at the Rose Bowl
The wealthy homeowners in the area would react the same as half a century ago. I remember that. I’m old. 😊 They bought off the politicians. It would be great to have an on campus stadium.
as a member of Bel Air CC, a big issue for us is that the only feasible location for a stadium, the current location of Drake, would inevitably interfere with our view of the skyline. Not to mention traffic on Sunset on Saturday's (busiest day at the Club).
There are already 50 foot high trees along Sunset. A stadium wouldn't disturb their precious views of nothing. Or Sproul.
That’s just not true. Great view of ucla from the first hole
You're actually serious about your view of the skyline from the golf course, aren't you?
very.
God forbid Bel Air CC members would be affected.
Very interesting ideas proposed here. I like it. We need new creative thinking to get out of this mess known as the Rose Bowl. As someone who attended UCLA Law, I never felt the law school was really part of the fabric of UCLA's campus. We never really ventured off beyond the law building and we were almost always confined there. It actually became really exhausting and stale being surrounded by the same miserable people all day, every day. I even once proposed to the school we should have social functions with the other UCLA graduate schools like the medical students, dental students, MBA students. Honestly, if the law building left the campus, no one there would even notice them gone. While for me personally, it was important that the law school be on the UCLA campus for continuity to my undergraduate days, I would definitely kick them to the curb now in exchange for a football stadium on campus. They don't even promote or instill Bruin pride at the law school.
With the University acquiring the property in Palos Verdes recently, there might be an opportunity to move some things, like the Law School.