Austin is A Poseur

There is an F1 track in the works south of Austin. WAY South, like an hour away. Today, the ray-dee-oh news people said that there is a plan for dealing with the spectator traffic to and from the race. There are 17,000 parking spots at the track. The other 80,000 people will be

wait for it

riding a shuttle bus from Austin.

So let me get this straight: In a city without enough hotel capacity to support this mass of humanity, you have tens of thousands of people coming to see a race with no place to stay. Then you expect them to ride the bus? I did the math. IF you only wanted some of them to be milling around for an entire HOUR before the race begins, give them an hour to shuttle the people to the track on buses. Call it 80 to a bus. 1,000 bus trips. In an hour. From two points of origin. That makes

1000 trips/2 locations = 500/location
500 trips/hour = 50 trips in 6 minutes = 8.3 buses leaving every minute.
= 17 buses dropping off a full load of people at the track every minute.

The ONLY way to get this done in an hour is to herd the people like livestock. In two hours, even. Now bear in mind, these are people who are spending tens of thousands of dollars to go see a race featuring $14M (each) cars. These are people flying in on private jets, taking limos . . . to a bus station? You really expect these richass rich people to be satisfied waiting an hour to get on a bus, riding an hour to get to the track down a TWO LANE road, and then milling about waiting for the show to start? There better be some serious entertainment going on or there won't be a second annual race, people.

But then, Austin likes to put on airs o' being bigger than their britches. Witness the current idea of an urban rail system including some subterranean sections "just like the really big cities!!!"

To illustrate how silly this place is, let's have another city nearby, planned for the traffic. Start in the middle of BFE, Texas and build a 12 lane highway X through the middle, with three loops all the way round, then declare a tax holiday for 10 years for any company to go build there. And sit back and watch a REAL big city form.

Oh, and the track will have showers. For the people who "will" be sharing the two-lane road through cow country with a thousand buses coming and a thousand buses going, to get to the track WAY outside Austin.

Potentially huge Fail here, Austin. Way to go.