I don’t really have interest in debating that author’s facts and figures, but even he points out that public transit is only less green if green is the only thing we’re debating. If we have all the possible roads we could ever want with no traffic jams and the government subsidizes vehicles for the poor, then a transit system would be a horrible thing for the environment.

He points out that public transportation is almost always put into cities generally for reasons unrelated to the environment (relief of congestion, transportation for the poor, tourism), and that because very few of the transit systems run at full capacity there is almost always excess capacity. Using that excess capacity IS more green than putting another car on the road.

Light rail in Austin is pretty much exclusively being debated for tourism (getting tourists between hotels and the airport), and congestion relief (getting workers downtown and students to UT without them having to put a car on IH-35, which is nearly impossible to expand). If it is put in place for those reasons it will be more green to take light-rail than to put another car on the road.

Is green U.S. mass transit a big myth?
http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

I think all these green incentives would be fertile ground for study by the Freakonomics authors.

Not sure what will happen out there. The most likely site based on rough descriptions of “east of the airport”, and common sense, in in or near Elroy around FM 973. There isn’t much out there other than a few super cheap start home subdivisions and farm properties.

The venue will be built for F1, but perhaps used for other things such as concerts? I don’t know. Seems like if we’re going to build something that’s only going to be used 10 times, it ought to have some other possible purpose as well.

But to answer your question, I don’t know. This is the first F1 built from scratch in the US, so we’d have to find other similar attraction that draw large crowds infrequently to see what has happened in those areas and that might provide some clues.

Have a great 4th!
Steve

> The carbon footprint of F1 is huge, but it doesn’t matter what city they move to. Unless they ban auto racing altogether, we may as well get the revenue here, even though it will change our city.

But then that logic could be applied to anything, couldn’t it? My main point in the article was that if the City of Austin has a fundamental set of principles that guides its decisions, then those principles should be applied uniformly to all decisions. Not doing so is hypocritical and causes the city to lose credibility if it’s going to pick and choose when and where to be “green”.

Imagine someday, for example, that I pay an Austin “gas guzzler” surtax when filling the tank of my truck on the way to go see a F1 race. This is not at all beyond the realm of possible.

I’m not all bent out of shape about it. I just think it’s interesting and amusing.

Steve

The carbon footprint of F1 is huge, but it doesn’t matter what city they move to. Unless they ban auto racing altogether, we may as well get the revenue here, even though it will change our city.

Of course Leffingwell’s on board. What politician doesn’t want huge revenue from F1 coming in on his watch? He may as well have discovered oil under his swimming pool.

Along with tax dollars and revenue, F1 will bring traffic from Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and the rest of TX. It will bring to Austin the types of people that make the cause of Keeping Austin Weird more and more difficult. I’m talking about people whose favorite entertainment isn’t live music, theater, dance, or art–it’s watching others drive around in circles (as if there wasn’t enough of that in Houston).
As it grows in size but not in cultural merit, the live music capital of the world inches it’s way towards being just another Texas city.

“It’s ridiculous and insane for the city to require people to get energy audits to sell their homes before they address the baseline problems with the city’s own air, water and soil pollution” – Why? Shouldn’t they be doing both? I’d guess that on average the city’s much more green with regards to their buildings and landscaping than is the average city homeowner. And why shouldn’t it be a plan that we’re doing together. I’m also somewhat puzzled as to how you’re taking yourself out of the city. We are the city. There is a city government, but it’s there to provide services that the residents of the city want. Oddly enough this statute is pretty popular. Why? Because right now we have huge numbers of people migrating to Austin. Therefor we have more buyers than sellers, and buyers want an updated house. Homebuyers want a working AC and a fully insulated house.

“Fish from Town Lake anyone” – Why would you be fishing in town lake? The lake is a man-made lake. If you’d like to fish go upstream or downstream to one of the areas that is protected for fishing. That’s like complaining that you can’t go fishing in a rain-water retention pond.

While I think there are valid arguments to be made about whether the point of sale is the best time to require this, and what the responsibilities of the seller should be, I don’t think the valid argument is whether there is value in these upgrades. The majority of these upgrades are well thought out and give the most value for the least amount of money. I could understand your point if they were requiring solar panels to be installed, but blowing in more insulation saves money for the homeowner and Austin Energy (which saves taxpayers money) and helps the environment.

Back when I started eating organic food and filtering my drinking water to get rid of the fluoride and chlorine people that I was one of those “hippy weirdos”. People like to think a compact city is a great idea but they forget that you can’t grow food on concrete without expending a huge amount of money, resources and time to retrofit a grow zone (like those super hip rooftop gardens – check out THEIR carbon footprint).

It’s ridiculous and insane for the city to require people to get energy audits to sell their homes before they address the baseline problems with the city’s own air, water and soil pollution problems. Fish from Town Lake anyone? Not to mention the loss of trees and the pending oak wilt devastation due to the city blindly trimming limbs at any time of the year without properly protecting against it’s spread.

The racetrack WILL bring a lot of people, tourists, noise, traffic and all the trimmings with it. For better or worse.

But taxes are going up again.

Thanks for the laugh.

I do think it’s a great economic boon for Austin. My main point was the hypocrisy of our illustrious leaders and the fact that almost everything about our personal lives, right down to selling our homes and buying appliances, has to be judged and filtered through the the “environmental impact” filters of the City of Austin, but in bringing F1 racing to Austin, it’s conveniently ignored as a subject altogether.

I’d rather the Mayor come right out and say “look, we know this is bad for the environment, but it’s such a great economic opportunity for the city, and will bring us so many new visitors and additional exposure as an “it” city, that we’re not going to hold ourselves to any of the environment standards or considerations that we impose upon our own citizens and their homes”.

Steve

Many of the advances in automotive tech come straight from F1 – including improved fuel consumption. In fact they purposefully keep the engines very small (2.4 liters – about the same size as my hybrid) and they must reuse the cars for multiple races. It really is quite different from dragster racing, stock cars, etc. If you take a slightly deeper look, I think you’ll see a much more natural fit.