I am not dismissing the difficulties of getting to and from Adams Park and I know I’m in the minority on this, but I believe this issue is exaggerated as a reason why attendances aren’t higher. I have been to 90 of the 92 grounds in the PL and EFL and I can’t think of many where you can get away quickly immediately after a game. With almost everyone having access to a car these days it’s just a fact of life that our road system can’t cope when thousands of vehicles are leaving the same venue at the same time.
I think I'm tending to agree with @glasshalffull. I don't remember ingress and egress being as much of a problem in the St Martin years, and the crowds were bigger. And, if I'm remembering correctly, we didn't have the world famous field car park back then either.
To echo @glasshalffull words, even outside of football, I don’t think there’s any event more than 5000 people turn that’s not a complete pain in the backside to leave from if the primary mode of transport is cars.
Yes another road will help, but I don’t expect it to change much - especially for me as the new road will be going in completely the wrong direction and add ten mins to my journey home even with light traffic. Getting through the thin streets of West Wycombe will be the next nightmare. It’ll Just move the problem to the next bottle neck imho - and one the club can’t do much about. (Separately, it wouldn’t surprise me if this is the main thing holding this project up).
I think a lot more can be done with the help of local services (buses etc) to/from town but it will mostly require a complete change of attitude in wanting that getting a quick get away after the game and the majority wanting to drive.
Where ever any stadium is, unless its purpose built,miles away from anywhere with specifically built transport links designed to easily handle 10k people once a week, is going to have access issues. And to build that would be, for the most part. prohibitively expensive just to get through planning.
The KaspiDome is a few years away but in the meantime, if the club wants more bums on seats, the team will have to win a lot of games by scoring lots of goals with exciting players.
Our 'hardcore' support is small but, as visits to Wembley show, we have a huge standing army of 'plastics' who will turn up if the football is shiny.
Totally agreed, I have been to most league 1 and 2 grounds plus a fair few Championship and Premier League club grounds and I have encountered much more hassle getting away from near the grounds than ours.
Examples are Oxford, Walsall, Reading and many of the older city/town centre grounds don’t even have their own car parks.
I feel that the parking and new exit road discussions are wide of the mark and are not reasons why people don’t come to the games.
If we are competing at the top of the league this season our gates will rise accordingly.
For existing supporters they know the ways to get away quickly. It has never taken me more than 20 mins to get to Handy Cross or the A404M at Marlow on my way back to Reading but I have to walk 10 minutes to my car from the Frank Adams.
But new supporters or occasional supporters will have issues.
I might be wrong, but I think a lot more of the factories etc were open for parking back then.
We used to park in the school playground by the Hour Glass! That's not open anymore
But, and this is purely anecdotal of course, when I speak to mates by far the most common reason they give for not going is the hassle of having to get there early to park, and it taking ages to get home again afterwards. The second reason is they don't think the football is very good.
I would agree with those 2 reasons but I'd say that the main issue is people don't care, they already support another club and they've passed that down to their kids who don't care enough either - think it sort of shows that of the 15,000 at Wembley very few thought they'd have another look against Derby County the following week, it was 85% about going to Wembley not supporting Wycombe for many.
Whilst I agree parking is not ideal I think we unfairly get a bad rap. Go to any sporting event and you are in for a struggle for parking. Reading is a nightmare, Oxford ditto, try anything in Birmingham or London (I passed Twickenham at the weekend - good luck there). As football fans I don't understand the demand for a game to finish and you be in your car and fleeing on empty roads within moments. The reality is that a lot of people are trying to make the same journey as you in a road that is not designed to do that. Even at the Etihad with a modest crowd with we attended it was congested on departure and these guys have had the opportunity of almost having a blank piece of paper and chequebook when it comes to transport infrastructure.
Don't forget how much more traffic there is on our roads now, compared with when AP first opened. According to these stats from the DfT, we're collectively driving 29% more miles a year than we did back in the early days of AP https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/summary
And that's not taking into account the bloated size of today's cars, taking up more space in the car parks and increasing the length of queues that block other junctions, slowing things down further.
Said it before and usually get plenty of thumbs down but I'm amazed there is no incentivised push to encourage more cycling and walking to the ground - even if it's just for the last mile or two. It's not for everyone of course, but there seems to be about 10 bikes chained up under the away stand on matchday, which is pitiful considering around 4 - 5,000 are in attendance.
But to be fair I do notice on my visits that cycling infrastructure in Wycombe generally is poor to non-existent. Perhaps Gasroom favourite, Jeremy Vine could pop down and do a video?
I should have consulted mrs micra who hails from the Emerald Isle. However, unless she succumbs to the attractability (?) of our interim chairman in the same way as @HolmerBlue’s wife apparently has, it’s safe to say that her interest in football is minimal.
Not really. Parked in that car park about 4 or 5 seasons ago and I was still in there 90 minutes after getting back to the car. Since then we have driven past the ground and parked on the main road about half a mile away.
The thing that makes an absolutely huge difference with other grounds is the availibility of street parking nearby and / or functioning public transport. Anyone who wants to park at any ground's car park is going to face a bit of a queue to get away, but from recent memory (away games I've been to), I've been at my car within five to ten minutes walk, and fairly on my way soon after at: Chesterfield, Burton, Northampton, Shewsbury, Oxford, Peterborough, Blackpool, Cambridge, and Cheltenham. And I was on a train within 10 minutes going to Charlton. Our main issue (in my opinion) is that if you don't park at the ground, it's at least a 15 minute walk (more like 25 if you're accompanied by a small person or someone who can't walk easily), often uphill, and with little garuntee of being able to find a spot. And if it's cold, wet, and you're not in great form then that's quite a hard sell to anyone with kids.
It does depend on being keen to get going on the final whistle, maybe a little jog etc. Appreciate not everyone is able or wanting to get straight away like that.
Stevenage always felt slightly similar. If you could get going quickly you'd be right in the flow to get out and away quickly.
Cheltenham was always my favourite to park and get away from. You could literally park across a field from the ground, perhaps 200m away and get away instantly.
I'd echo those thoughts @Glenny. The lack of a reasonable amount of parking within a short (5-10 minute) walk of Adam's Park is a real issue.
Yes we have some parking at AP and in the factories on Hillbottom Road - much less than in the MO'N days though as the first 1 or 2 factories on each side no longer allow match day parking.
Thus the options become either a long walk - not great for children - back to the car or getting caught up in the waiting on Hillbottom Road. I understand, and agree with the comments, that this is typical if you park close to a major sports venue. But for a venue that attracts only 6500, there ought to be more options that can get you in a car and moving quicker.
Luckily for me I'm happy to stay in the Vere Suite and have a drink until closer to 6pm. But in a couple of years I'll be wanting to take my young grandsons along and they'll only tolerate so much. Unless the parking can be improved it will become a factor in my decisions as to coming to matches.
For @glasshalffull and others to say it isn't a factor in people's thoughts is just plain wrong.
We really do need to find a solution that combines a short walk (or bus) with a largish car park that gets you moving quickly once there. I was very surprised that the park and ride introduced by RC wasn't better utilised.
From where I currently live, I have got from the following grounds back inside my door after a game in less than an hour, which is pretty much how long it takes to get away from parking fairly near to Adams Park back to Wycombe Railway station on a Saturday:
Doncaster, Rotherham (both stadiums), Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday, Scunthorpe (when I've parked AT the ground but not when I've parked at the nearby car park), Mansfield, Chesterfield, York (old ground), Lincoln (just) and Grimsby*. With all of them (apart from Scunthorpe) the availability of street parking within 10 minutes walk makes a big difference.
I do think though it is a little over-egged as being the reason why our crowds haven't grown like others though and I don't believe adding the light and dark blue brick road over the hill will make that much of a difference (unless it is a 'festival road' and we use it purely for Park and Ride buses).
The Chairboy's Chair lift obviously would...
*No honestly officer, I kept to the speed limit on the M180 all the way....
The reason park & ride options don’t work is because the buses end up stuck in the same queue as those self-important car drivers sitting grim-faced in their chariots, harassing pedestrians by driving at them after the match.
I don't know why it hasn't been suggested to widen Hillbottom Road to three lanes (to separate right & left turns coming out) and add temporary traffic lights at the roundabout with Lane End Road for use on match day.
Maybe even add an extra lane on Lane End Road between the roundabout and the A4010 junction at The Hour Glass.
Has to be a cheaper option than a new road - and much more likely to be possible.
Doesn't add the extra car parking spaces needed within a 5-10 minute walk but it might help egress from the existing parking closer to the ground.
There's surely not enough room for another lane as it is?
Let alone when you factor in massive lorries ignoring double yellow lines, numerous drivers idiotically driving towards the ground, 1000s of pedestrians and the stream of cars out of the ground.
Comments
I am not dismissing the difficulties of getting to and from Adams Park and I know I’m in the minority on this, but I believe this issue is exaggerated as a reason why attendances aren’t higher. I have been to 90 of the 92 grounds in the PL and EFL and I can’t think of many where you can get away quickly immediately after a game. With almost everyone having access to a car these days it’s just a fact of life that our road system can’t cope when thousands of vehicles are leaving the same venue at the same time.
I think I'm tending to agree with @glasshalffull. I don't remember ingress and egress being as much of a problem in the St Martin years, and the crowds were bigger. And, if I'm remembering correctly, we didn't have the world famous
fieldcar park back then either.To echo @glasshalffull words, even outside of football, I don’t think there’s any event more than 5000 people turn that’s not a complete pain in the backside to leave from if the primary mode of transport is cars.
Yes another road will help, but I don’t expect it to change much - especially for me as the new road will be going in completely the wrong direction and add ten mins to my journey home even with light traffic. Getting through the thin streets of West Wycombe will be the next nightmare. It’ll Just move the problem to the next bottle neck imho - and one the club can’t do much about. (Separately, it wouldn’t surprise me if this is the main thing holding this project up).
I think a lot more can be done with the help of local services (buses etc) to/from town but it will mostly require a complete change of attitude in wanting that getting a quick get away after the game and the majority wanting to drive.
Where ever any stadium is, unless its purpose built,miles away from anywhere with specifically built transport links designed to easily handle 10k people once a week, is going to have access issues. And to build that would be, for the most part. prohibitively expensive just to get through planning.
The KaspiDome is a few years away but in the meantime, if the club wants more bums on seats, the team will have to win a lot of games by scoring lots of goals with exciting players.
Our 'hardcore' support is small but, as visits to Wembley show, we have a huge standing army of 'plastics' who will turn up if the football is shiny.
Totally agreed, I have been to most league 1 and 2 grounds plus a fair few Championship and Premier League club grounds and I have encountered much more hassle getting away from near the grounds than ours.
Examples are Oxford, Walsall, Reading and many of the older city/town centre grounds don’t even have their own car parks.
I feel that the parking and new exit road discussions are wide of the mark and are not reasons why people don’t come to the games.
If we are competing at the top of the league this season our gates will rise accordingly.
For existing supporters they know the ways to get away quickly. It has never taken me more than 20 mins to get to Handy Cross or the A404M at Marlow on my way back to Reading but I have to walk 10 minutes to my car from the Frank Adams.
But new supporters or occasional supporters will have issues.
I might be wrong, but I think a lot more of the factories etc were open for parking back then.
We used to park in the school playground by the Hour Glass! That's not open anymore
But, and this is purely anecdotal of course, when I speak to mates by far the most common reason they give for not going is the hassle of having to get there early to park, and it taking ages to get home again afterwards. The second reason is they don't think the football is very good.
which two grounds are you missing?
I would agree with those 2 reasons but I'd say that the main issue is people don't care, they already support another club and they've passed that down to their kids who don't care enough either - think it sort of shows that of the 15,000 at Wembley very few thought they'd have another look against Derby County the following week, it was 85% about going to Wembley not supporting Wycombe for many.
I'm sure you're right about the factories. I feel like a lot more people used to go by foot / bus too though but my memory is notoriously terrible.
Whilst I agree parking is not ideal I think we unfairly get a bad rap. Go to any sporting event and you are in for a struggle for parking. Reading is a nightmare, Oxford ditto, try anything in Birmingham or London (I passed Twickenham at the weekend - good luck there). As football fans I don't understand the demand for a game to finish and you be in your car and fleeing on empty roads within moments. The reality is that a lot of people are trying to make the same journey as you in a road that is not designed to do that. Even at the Etihad with a modest crowd with we attended it was congested on departure and these guys have had the opportunity of almost having a blank piece of paper and chequebook when it comes to transport infrastructure.
Salford and Harrogate but can’t remember if I ever went to Bromley in Wycombe’s non league days.
Maybe it's just me, but Oxford is very easy isn't it?
Free and plentiful parking. Other entertainment very close.
And a motivated exit sees you nicely in the queue to leave which quite quickly offers 2 directions to leave and quickly away.
At Wycombe you're parking on a slightly dodgy grass slant, paying plenty, which has to be done on advance.
Then you have the choice of miss some of the game to race back up there and get away, or face being locked up there for ages for a single file exit.
Don't forget how much more traffic there is on our roads now, compared with when AP first opened. According to these stats from the DfT, we're collectively driving 29% more miles a year than we did back in the early days of AP https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/summary
And that's not taking into account the bloated size of today's cars, taking up more space in the car parks and increasing the length of queues that block other junctions, slowing things down further.
Said it before and usually get plenty of thumbs down but I'm amazed there is no incentivised push to encourage more cycling and walking to the ground - even if it's just for the last mile or two. It's not for everyone of course, but there seems to be about 10 bikes chained up under the away stand on matchday, which is pitiful considering around 4 - 5,000 are in attendance.
But to be fair I do notice on my visits that cycling infrastructure in Wycombe generally is poor to non-existent. Perhaps Gasroom favourite, Jeremy Vine could pop down and do a video?
I should have consulted mrs micra who hails from the Emerald Isle. However, unless she succumbs to the attractability (?) of our interim chairman in the same way as @HolmerBlue’s wife apparently has, it’s safe to say that her interest in football is minimal.
Not really. Parked in that car park about 4 or 5 seasons ago and I was still in there 90 minutes after getting back to the car. Since then we have driven past the ground and parked on the main road about half a mile away.
I believe the terminology currently in vogue is ‘rizz’.
The thing that makes an absolutely huge difference with other grounds is the availibility of street parking nearby and / or functioning public transport. Anyone who wants to park at any ground's car park is going to face a bit of a queue to get away, but from recent memory (away games I've been to), I've been at my car within five to ten minutes walk, and fairly on my way soon after at: Chesterfield, Burton, Northampton, Shewsbury, Oxford, Peterborough, Blackpool, Cambridge, and Cheltenham. And I was on a train within 10 minutes going to Charlton. Our main issue (in my opinion) is that if you don't park at the ground, it's at least a 15 minute walk (more like 25 if you're accompanied by a small person or someone who can't walk easily), often uphill, and with little garuntee of being able to find a spot. And if it's cold, wet, and you're not in great form then that's quite a hard sell to anyone with kids.
It does depend on being keen to get going on the final whistle, maybe a little jog etc. Appreciate not everyone is able or wanting to get straight away like that.
Stevenage always felt slightly similar. If you could get going quickly you'd be right in the flow to get out and away quickly.
Cheltenham was always my favourite to park and get away from. You could literally park across a field from the ground, perhaps 200m away and get away instantly.
this has turned into Malone's dream thread
Maybe there should be a Greatest Car Parks vote thread.
The problem is that the best one would get certain buttocks a flapping
I'd echo those thoughts @Glenny. The lack of a reasonable amount of parking within a short (5-10 minute) walk of Adam's Park is a real issue.
Yes we have some parking at AP and in the factories on Hillbottom Road - much less than in the MO'N days though as the first 1 or 2 factories on each side no longer allow match day parking.
Thus the options become either a long walk - not great for children - back to the car or getting caught up in the waiting on Hillbottom Road. I understand, and agree with the comments, that this is typical if you park close to a major sports venue. But for a venue that attracts only 6500, there ought to be more options that can get you in a car and moving quicker.
Luckily for me I'm happy to stay in the Vere Suite and have a drink until closer to 6pm. But in a couple of years I'll be wanting to take my young grandsons along and they'll only tolerate so much. Unless the parking can be improved it will become a factor in my decisions as to coming to matches.
For @glasshalffull and others to say it isn't a factor in people's thoughts is just plain wrong.
We really do need to find a solution that combines a short walk (or bus) with a largish car park that gets you moving quickly once there. I was very surprised that the park and ride introduced by RC wasn't better utilised.
From where I currently live, I have got from the following grounds back inside my door after a game in less than an hour, which is pretty much how long it takes to get away from parking fairly near to Adams Park back to Wycombe Railway station on a Saturday:
Doncaster, Rotherham (both stadiums), Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday, Scunthorpe (when I've parked AT the ground but not when I've parked at the nearby car park), Mansfield, Chesterfield, York (old ground), Lincoln (just) and Grimsby*. With all of them (apart from Scunthorpe) the availability of street parking within 10 minutes walk makes a big difference.
I do think though it is a little over-egged as being the reason why our crowds haven't grown like others though and I don't believe adding the light and dark blue brick road over the hill will make that much of a difference (unless it is a 'festival road' and we use it purely for Park and Ride buses).
The Chairboy's Chair lift obviously would...
*No honestly officer, I kept to the speed limit on the M180 all the way....
The reason park & ride options don’t work is because the buses end up stuck in the same queue as those self-important car drivers sitting grim-faced in their chariots, harassing pedestrians by driving at them after the match.
Is there one of those e-scooter schemes in Wycombe?
MK Dons has been very easy to get away from everytime we've played against them. Might be because noone else was there!
I don't know why it hasn't been suggested to widen Hillbottom Road to three lanes (to separate right & left turns coming out) and add temporary traffic lights at the roundabout with Lane End Road for use on match day.
Maybe even add an extra lane on Lane End Road between the roundabout and the A4010 junction at The Hour Glass.
Has to be a cheaper option than a new road - and much more likely to be possible.
Doesn't add the extra car parking spaces needed within a 5-10 minute walk but it might help egress from the existing parking closer to the ground.
There's surely not enough room for another lane as it is?
Let alone when you factor in massive lorries ignoring double yellow lines, numerous drivers idiotically driving towards the ground, 1000s of pedestrians and the stream of cars out of the ground.