This Facebook post was shared by JJ_21564 on Twitter. It talks about how a Sixers arena on Market Street would negatively impact emergency medical services in Center City: 

It’s pointless to respond to the first two paragraphs before the city study comes out. That’s supposed to be made public sooner rather than later, so we’ll see what consultants learned about traffic flow, and street closures, and reasonable concerns about getting in and out of various places before, during, and after games.

What makes me laugh is the idea of “the absolute statistical likelihood” of Sixers fans needing to use the emergency room. Whomever wrote this is comparing a music festival to a basketball game, when, in reality, only one of those takes place outside, during the summer, and is attended mostly by younger adults and teenagers who can’t hold their alcohol and get completely sloshed. We’re talking two completely different demographics here, unless The Sixth Man is grabbing an Uber with Tom Kline to go check out Doja Cat’s headlining set.

According to the third paragraph in the letter above, the concern, I think, is that drunk Sixers fans will place unneeded stress on Jefferson Hospital, and clog up the system. The ER will not be able to handle citizens with true emergencies, because this time David Dodge didn’t fall asleep; but he fell down a flight of stairs and cracked his head open:

Right now, when a fan requires ER transportation from the Wells Fargo Center, they’re taken to Jefferson Methodist on South Broad or Jefferson in Center City, dependent on what actually happened. So the hospital in question is already in partial service to Sixers gameday crowds. Maybe Comcast and the Sixers have some recent data on how many fans have had to go directly from a game to either one of these places, but I can’t imagine it’s a large number. Arenas have medical services and staff on site, and defibrillators are all over the place now. We’ve had recent instances of Eagles fans suffering various cardiac issues at Lincoln Financial Field, but again – that’s much more similar to Made in America because we’re talking about much larger outdoor events in the heat where people are tailgating and day drinking. The Sixers and Flyers’ indoor scene really is not what people think it is, because – surprise! They don’t like sports, don’t watch sports, and don’t go to the games. They have no base of reference.

There are legitimate reasons to oppose the Sixers’ arena project. This is not one of them. This is like Howard Eskin lamenting the loss of tailgating, because we all know about the world-renown Sixers tailgating scene at The Wells Fargo Center.

What we need in Center City is another level 1 trauma center. That, and/or adding more bus-only lanes to cut down on congestion from all sources. This should be done whether the Sixers arena gets built or not, because the Convention Center is right around the corner and you’ve got a bazillion people converging on that area all the time. This feels like the opposition using an existing problem to leverage some sort of anti-arena argument, when the problem is already significant and needs fixing regardless.