Got a message from my friend earlier today. Here are the outstanding issues with COTA, and some extra info: This is a letter from Travis County to Cota from last week. The letter never got sent. They are going to meet instead. Enjoy. Dear Mr. Sexton: Travis County appreciates how closely and cooperatively COTA has worked with the County on plans for the 2012 United States Grand Prix. A tremendous amount of work has been done. At this point, the County believes it would benefit our joint efforts to establish a target date for completing this planning and finalizing several important details. As stated in a May 26, 2011, letter to you, the County will hold the legally-required public hearing for a mass gathering permit for the United States Grand Prix well before race day. This lets the County and the public confirm that satisfactory planning to deal with the races public impacts has been completed and there remains adequate time to execute those plans. With race day drawing nearer, the County now needs to set the date for that hearing. While COTA has worked with the County on a draft transportation plan, draft public safety plan, and other legally-required elements of a mass gathering permit application, a complete application has yet to be filed. Finalizing the transportation and public safety elements is critical because they are integral to several County site plan and building permit issues, such as possible improvements to Elroy, Kellam, and/or McAngus roads. Any of these improvements may, in turn, be dependent on the County granting variances from its regulations. Moreover, the County will need to adopt special traffic ordinances to accommodate some of COTAs traffic plans. Finally, some County departments must know how their resources need to be deployed to handle traffic and public safety for the race. Setting a target date to finalize these details allows us to initiate the often time-consuming processes needed to implement them. State law defines a mass gathering as an event outside city limits that is expected to attract over 2500 persons over five consecutive hours. The County Fire Marshall advises that the United States Grand Prix exceeds this threshold. State law prohibits a person from organizing a mass gathering without a permit. The law does not allow someone to organize an event, but delay filing an application until shortly before the event is held. Organizing for this race is well under way, so it appears a mass gathering permit application should have already been filed. If COTA or its associates know of a legal or factual basis for concluding otherwise, please let me know. Otherwise, the County needs to know how soon a complete mass gathering permit application for the race, including final transportation and public safety plans, will be filed. Not having a complete application filed when the County holds the hearing could obviously affect the outcome of that hearing.
Sorry, I didn't know this was a 'mine is bigger then yours' competition. I'm just saying that if the only accommodations that someone can find is in Houston, and they really want to go to the race, then it is feasible.
There is a good thread over on F1 Technical about Austin. It's not about cutting costs, IMO, it's about being able to finish in time. They are way behind schedule and IMO they are in "let's just get what we HAVE to get done, done" mode.
Never gonna happen. I'd say Montreal was probably the easiest race I did. If practice started at noon, you better leave your downtown hotel by 10am to be in your seat in time. For race day, a bit earlier. And this is Montreal with a large transit system that is not handling workers on a weekend and can fully support F1 - and the track is in the center of the city, not outside. For Monza, it was more like 3-4 hours before race time. Monza's track-proper is outside Milan, and we learned that the way to do it was to drive to one of the off-site parking lots and take the track buses into the track itself - because they had some lanes blocked and only for buses. Of course, there are lots of ways into and out of the Monza track. After each day finished, it was a good 3-4 hours to get home. As Simon says (I crack myself up), Austin has some serious... VERY serious problems to work on. A 2 lane road, 30k hotel rooms, no tickets on sale yet.... It could all go very bad very quick. I read an article somewhere that a COTA official said they would be selling tickets in July. Of course, they want to sell the PSL's before that, but July is crazy late. Even right now, it's late to get good seats to many of the races. By the time July rolls around, most of the races will already have taken place, and those that haven't will be sold out. If the value proposition that COTA is offering the traveling F1 fan is -Seats on the grass only, unless you buy a PSL committing you to 15 years worth of ticket purchases -Huge lack of hotels, necessitating staying 2+ hours away -No tickets available until you've already missed out on buying tickets to another race -Inconvenient travel destination -Probable difficulties with track ingress/egress leading to legendary delays -Possibly unfinished track they are going to be utterly screwed.
And coming from Europe I want this LOL?? Hello NJ/NY. 1 flight, 1 black Lincoln and Im in the 'big town'. Austin is a great city of course. COTA is amateur hour and then some. I feel sorry for the dedicated F1 fans that are continually being let down in the US.
Flyover photo taken yesterday, I would have thought by now the track paving would have started. Image Unavailable, Please Login
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/f1-organizers-hope-to-avert-potential-permit-snag-2255490.html Heres an article addressing those issues from the county
Will, I read they will wait until early summer for the track paving to get hotter days and less rain, which helps putting asphalt down and keeping it down.
Seems to make sense for this year (as long as they have the cash to pay Bernie considering the low attendance numbers). Won't make much of a difference to the tv audience and it gives them 12 months to finish the rest of the structures. Even with only 3 grandstands I predict they'll still have a bigger crowd than Korea...
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/racing/entries/2012/03/23/street_festival_planned_downto.html
If you look at the streets they want to close, such as congress for 4 blocks, 11th in front of the capitol, and the left border street of the capitol (colorado), you can bet this will never happen. If it moves over a couple blocks, maybe. And there's a couple mistakes on the application: "encircles an area" checked no should be yes; failed to check congress as an included street. Whoever submitted the application is trying to do a big thing, but as submitted, have no chance. There was a very popular yearly "race for the cure" that wanted to close congress. That set off a **** storm and they had to modify the closures before the city would sign off. And this will have to go before city council.
As a side note, I just heard Robin Miller say that Indycar wants a race in Austin for the 2013 season.
Some new construction pics... http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/03-27-12-racing-ahead-an-exclusive-look-at-the-new-austin-formula-one-tracks-construction-progress-inside-circuit-of-americas/ 234 days until P1...
I was reading on another site where someone who claims to know several high level people on the project (and he has posted quite a lot of insider info before that ended up being spot on)... he says that in addition to scaling down the grandstand project (which we already knew), they are not going to have the "team buildings" complete in time for the first year. It looks like they are shooting to get the very bare minimum done to qualify for having a race. I believe the road improvements are not happening for the first race, which still means unheard of delays to/from the track.
meh, I'm ready to deal with traffic. I did the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas last year, and that attracted 240,000 people over 3 days. 8pm-6am, and then having to deal with 3 hrs+ of traffic after the event. This year it's expected to be even bigger. So a few hours of traffic for one weekend in Austin is nothing to me. Just gotta prepare and bring the essentials, and you'll be good.
A hundred thousand stoned teenagers stuck in traffic is not the same as a hundred thousand 40+ year old F1 fans stuck in traffic.
you're right, those older F1 fans will probably doze off while in traffic. Zzzzz..... And it was more like two hundred thousand people, not just teenagers.
I am not sure if it will be just a few hours in traffic. NASCAR at Loudon, NH was a few hours. So was getting to Monza. But these are established tracks with numerous access paths to them. I think COTA is going to be certainly much more delayed getting to/from. I think they need to do something about it urgently... imagine a 10 hour delay to get there. Or imagine delays so bad that a lot of people end up missing the whole race.
