1370 replies to this topic

[Brackets]

I love the idea of the railway. But it makes me think of the case of Charleroi Airport (10M passengers a week) was not big enough to justify a railway extension. 

 

So, yeah, a race track will never cut it. 

 

10M per year, and it being Belgium, there was a lot more at play there, but your general point still stands.

[Sterzo]

I imagine the chances of COTA investing any thing significant into solving this problem are pretty low

Indeed, they're struggling with the bit of roadway the cars race on, so revolutionising transport in Texas is probably beyond their budget.

[pup]

Obviously the way to fund light rail in Texas would be to propose a train that consists of a slew of private party cars for billionaires and corporations with just enough cattle cars tacked on the end to justify calling it mass transit. Take in whatever govt funding you can get, pocket the money, then at the end organize a convoy of busses you call ‘the train’ and have the state donate the highway patrol to escort it down the highway to the track.

Edited by pup, 07 February 2025 - 14:03.

[pup]

My understanding is that the problem of getting people to COTA isn’t in the getting there, but rather how to deal with all the people once they arrive. Right now, it’s loads of parking lots, which are so spread out that they need a whole system of shuttles to get people from the lots to the track and back. Sure there’s also a problem of not having a road system that can absorb all the people leaving at once in the end, but that’s universal, and largely solved by tricking people into not leaving by having entertainment afterwards.

What they probably really need is a better organized and permanent shuttle system (I assume the current system is ad hoc, leased from local bus companies per event), but I’m sure that’s hard to justify, given that it would sit unused 90% of the year. It’s not like Disney where it’s up and running 365 days a year.

So I get the parking garage idea. Sure it will actually make ingress and egress more difficult, but it gets people close enough to the track that they can walk, and you’ve eliminated shuttles for all but the largest event(s).

[BRG]

Obviously the way to fund light rail in Texas would be to propose a train that consists of a slew of private party cars for billionaires and corporations with just enough cattle cars tacked on the end to justify calling it mass transit.

Congratulations!  In this, the 200th anniversary of the first passenger railways, you have hit on the basic model that the Stockton and Darlington Railway used back in 1825.  Private coaches (literally, the horse drawn type placed on a rail car chassis) for the nobs and open trucks for the plebs.

Edited by BRG, 07 February 2025 - 16:10.

[pup]

Congratulations! In this, the 200th anniversary of the first passenger railways, you have hit on the basic model that the Stockton and Darlington Railway used back in 1825. Private coaches (literally, the horse drawn type placed on a rail car chassis) for the nobs and open trucks for the plebs.

I am a man behind my time.

[AustinF1]

I imagine the chances of COTA investing any thing significant into solving this problem are pretty low, and the chances of any public funding being available is even lower.  So no rail, tram, guided bus, flying car, helicopter, matter transmission or whatever, just the same old same old.

What BRG said. COTA does the bare minimum (and often times not even that) in terms of it's own on-site transportation infrastructure.The only roadway enhancements in that area have been paid for with tax money, despite clearly being done strictly to benefit COTA.

[jonpollak]

I enjoyed reading pup’s solutions.
He’s obviously worked in local government.

Jp

[ATM]

Obviously the way to fund light rail in Texas would be to propose a train that consists of a slew of private party cars for billionaires and corporations with just enough cattle cars tacked on the end to justify calling it mass transit. Take in whatever govt funding you can get, pocket the money, then at the end organize a convoy of busses you call ‘the train’ and have the state donate the highway patrol to escort it down the highway to the track.

This post is suspiciously similar to how our local authorities deal with "infrastructure investments" and squander our money for some bigwig's villa în the middle of nowhere. Or repairing underground passageways, only to realize that they forgot the minimum headway clearance and buses get stuck în them.

Back more on topic, would it not be possible to rent buses from more distant places and bring them by train to Austin on event days? Might not be the cheapest soluțion around , but still cheaper than having an underused local fleet rusting în the garage 300 days a year.

[AustinF1]

Back more on topic, would it not be possible to rent buses from more distant places and bring them by train to Austin on event days? Might not be the cheapest soluțion around , but still cheaper than having an underused local fleet rusting în the garage 300 days a year.

They already bring in buses from other areas (driven in). There's no shortage of buses. They're just notorious for not hiring enough of them, not hiring enough temporary staffing, etc..

[ATM]

Ah, my bad, seems I missed the penny-pinching part.

[FLB]

How COTA is pushing to make its Lone Star Le Mans a WEC marquee | RACER

[AustinF1]

How COTA is pushing to make its Lone Star Le Mans a WEC marquee | RACER

Thanks for posting, FLB. Man, I just don't know where to start. This article really is a great illustration of just how out of touch with reality COTA management is imho.

 

The article reads like COTA lobbying WEC to extend their contract, and the last couple of paragraphs just confirmed that imho. They've done this kind of thing many times before.

 

At a foundational level, the WEC now forms part of a wider strategy by COTA’s management to create four key pillars to the circuit’s annual schedule. The circuit currently welcomes Formula 1, MotoGP and NASCAR each year, and its VP of Motorsports, Andy Soucek, is hoping that securing the future of the circuit’s WEC event will provide a good cadence and momentum from spring to fall into the future.

 

“We’ve been applying all our experience to try and make this one of our ‘majors.’ It’s a highlight of our season, and we need to make it an event that attracts people from far away with campers, RVs, every year, hanging out watching the racing, bringing friends and family,” he tells RACER.

Dude. It's always been one of your 'majors'. The problem was always that COTA treated it otherwise. That's why WEC called a mid-event, late-night meeting the first year, threatening not to return. The fact that y'all are just now thinking "Hmm. Maybe this should be one of our majors" speaks volumes.

 

“There’s always room for improvement,” Soucek admitted. “But people really enjoyed the value for money we offered. The ticket prices were accessible and fans had open access to all the viewing points. We loved the fact that we could see people making the most of that. Over six hours, you can capture all the key vantage points and make the most of the facilities we offer.

Eh .. what in the actual F? "Capture all the key vantage points"? No, we can't, because you fenced them off to keep us out of them. Last year they had everything from T3 to about T15 closed to the fans. Closing off half the track to paying customers for an FIA world championship series is just sooooo COTA, and is unacceptable.

 

The comments section says a lot. Re: the new date ...

 

I went last year to the 6 hours it was extremely hot to be track side. The date of the race is what makes the event not so great. The article talks about how all vantage and viewing points were available when that wasn’t true at all. COTA track management closed half of the circuit where most of the good view points are. From the bridge at the esses to turn 15 you could not access the track. Then because it’s close to the F1 weekend the track is building all the mega grand stands and suite sections that get erected for the race. This then blocks more of the vantage points in the areas that you were allowed to go see. Having been to Le Mans, Super Sebring, Laguna Seca and more it was an extremely disappointing event for the spectator experience. COTA should move the date or manage the track better.

 

The date is terrible.

I’ll take a six hour event at Road America any day over a six hour in the oven known as Texas.

Exactly. Having been to COTA in that time period, I would never go again. Unless they made it a night race.

 

“The heat was a talking point too, so we are planning to provide fans more shuttles and quicker shuttles, more shade, more misters, and more A/C areas to allow people to take a break if it’s hot. We’d rather find solutions than move the date.”

 

Guess what, that heat is going to keep a LOT of people from coming back. You can't air condition the whole venue. Move the date, for goodness sake.

They're not wrong. I said it before the event, and I don't know what either WEC or COTA can be thinking in this regard. It's so hot that time of year that even we Texans don't want to be outside in the heat of the day unless we're floating in a pool or down one of our beautiful Central Texas rivers. People from most places simply aren't accustomed to that kind of heat and just won't go for it.

 

That bold bit suggests to me that maybe COTA is driving this crazy date choice, too. And adding some misters (lol) and AC'd tents isn't gonna help much. It's lunacy. Just pounding their heads against Texas heat when they could easily move the race to a MUCH better date. They could at least move it to twilight start like they used to have, running into the night when the temperatures are more tolerable, but no, they ran it from 1PM to 7PM, at literally the hottest possible time.

The result? 65,089 fans made the trip to watch AF Corse’s Ferrari 499P take the win, and paddock passes sold out, despite the trackside temperature averaging 92 degrees F and hitting 96 during the week.For the first time, Lone Star Le Mans felt like an event that mattered in Austin, rather than a sideshow on a weekend dominated by a Texas Longhorns game.

First off, 2024 was the first time WEC sold Paddock passes for the event. Previously, the Paddock was always open. In 2024 they severely restricted entry and charged for access. There were so few passes that they sold out almost immediately - not due to some incredible demand, but due to the fact that there were so few and they were cheap. Re: the 68K fans, even assuming there really were 68K fans there (there weren't, given virtually no GA crowd at all with most of the GA area closed, and GSs that weren't close to full), that's not a lot of people across the whole weekend (the number represents the whole weekend) and is similar to previous numbers they've drawn at COTA. Nobody came away from that event talking about how the crowd was great (the opposite, actually) or that the event 'suddenly mattered' based on how that one went. What a bunch of absolute nonsense. Sorry about that crazy-long sentence full of parenthesis!

 

 

Lessons were learned last year, and work is ongoing to improve the fan experience further in 2025, beyond the major development work that is ongoing outside the circuit to build an amusement park, water park, hotel and convention center.

"Lessons were learned. We'll do better next year" is what COTA says after literally every large event, and then they repeat the same mistakes the next year, or even double or triple down on them with another logistical fiasco. And they've been talking the hotel nonsense since before the circuit was even completed. The convention center nonsense is new and is especially odd given that they say they want to build one bigger than Austin's current CC, in the middle of nowhere, just after Austin has announced a major renovation and expansion of its own which is right downtown in the heart of the action.

 

And this ... LOL.

 

“If you asked Bobby [Epstein] back in 2012 how many people he thought he could get to COTA for the F1 Grand Prix, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t say 430,000. It’s amazing the difference a decade can make.”

Yeah, about that "430,000". Someone make that math work for me. Please. That's an average of more than 143K people per day, when even COTA said they only had an 'estimated' 140K on Sunday. Even if they had that many on Sunday, there is ZERO chance they had anything close to the 290,000 across Friday & Saturday that would have been required to get to 430,000. The nonsense never ends with these guys, and every article they put out just hammers away at the lies, trying to reinforce them through repetition, a la a certain politician we all know.

Edited by AustinF1, 30 March 2025 - 23:59.

[jonpollak]

Wow.
Jp

[BRG]

Wow.
Jp

Yeah, I wish AustinF1 would get off the fence and tell us what he REALLY thinks. 

[AustinF1]

Yeah, I wish AustinF1 would get off the fence and tell us what he REALLY thinks. 

Haha! Someday. Maybe!

 

It's just amazing with these guys. Honestly, I haven't told y'all even half of the shenanigans (to put it nicely) and/or purely incompetent **** that's gone on. We see this over and over from them, esp right around the time of bigger events. They find these guys to write these vapid 'articles' full of COTA talking points, asking no substantive questions and challenging absolutely nothing at all. The reality is that they're ads, saying whatever COTA wants them to say, and these shills would all call themselves 'journalists' if you asked what they do for a living. 

Edited by AustinF1, 30 March 2025 - 19:29.

[jonpollak]

Yep

PR/ Journalist
An endemic situation throughout…
I heard it rained during the bike race today…
🤪

Jp

[red stick]

Haha! Someday. Maybe!
 
It's just amazing with these guys. Honestly, I haven't told y'all even half of the shenanigans (to put it nicely) and/or purely incompetent **** that's gone on. We see this over and over from them, esp right around the time of bigger events. They find these guys to write these vapid 'articles' full of COTA talking points, asking no substantive questions and challenging absolutely nothing at all. The reality is that they're ads, saying whatever COTA wants them to say, and these shills would all call themselves 'journalists' if you asked what they do for a living.

I'm going to defend Kilbey, who is a Graham Goodwin disciple and very good at what he does. He's British, however, not close to the action here, and I don't recall if he made it to COTA last year, so distance may be an issue here. Or deadline. Or just being told cover the story. But he's no shill.

[AustinF1]

I'm going to defend Kilbey, who is a Graham Goodwin disciple and very good at what he does. He's British, however, not close to the action here, and I don't recall if he made it to COTA last year, so distance may be an issue here. Or deadline. Or just being told cover the story. But he's no shill.

Fair enough, and of course the editors can do whatever they want with the author's content. Appreciate the heads-up!

[red stick]

To your other point, I considered going to the WEC race last year, was really not interested when I realized how hot is was going to be, given the venue's lack of shade, and would have been royally ticked to get there and find I was going to watch most of the race via trackside video screens. So, score one for me. They should move the date.

[AustinF1]

To your other point, I considered going to the WEC race last year, was really not interested when I realized how hot is was going to be, given the venue's lack of shade, and would have been royally ticked to get there and find I was going to watch most of the race via trackside video screens. So, score one for me. They should move the date.

Yep, and that's if you happened to be near one that was actually working.