According to this article in the El Paso Times, this Wednesday the city is going to release a traffic study relating to our new ball park.
Wrong answer?
Brutus wrote Planned failure, a post about a ball park traffic study that the city commissioned and then published in December of 2012.
Are we going to see a new study? If not, why does the article tell us that the city is going to release the study this Wednesday?
Could it be that the first study was unflattering? Read it for yourself here. Personally I think that waiting 875 seconds at one intersection while leaving a game is pretty bad.
Say it ain’t so, Joe
Maybe this is a new study. Maybe it will predict different outcomes.
Maybe the city did not commission the study to try to get a better answer.
Maybe the Times will start researching subjects before just printing whatever the city tells them to.
Muckraker
elpasospeak 
This week’s Time Magazine has an article entitled “Loser’s Game” which says something to the fact that research had shown again and again that cities that help build sports stadiums do not benefit economically (save for a few nearby bars). The only people that benefit economically are the sports teams owners.
I wonder if anyone did any kind of economic research before doing this project?
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You’re correct. Lots of information, including entire books which dispel the notion that these stadiums make economic sense, was available before the decision was made to build the downtown ballpark. City management and city council did apples/oranges comparisons, using Oklahoma City as a model, while totally disregarding the cost and construction time of similar stadiums.
All of this readily available information was ignored because the goal here was simply to pay for something that Paul Foster and Woody Hunt wanted. Our process was a dishonest process. It was designed to achieve the end result of building the ballpark, not evaluate objectively whether it made sense to build one. The fact that such search research exists is exactly why steps were taken to insure that people did not have an opportunity to vote up or down on the construction of the ballpark, as opposed to voting simply on who would pay for the ballpark..
This has never been about baseball. Your city management and most of city council were not representing you during that process. They were working for Foster and Hunt, who led the downtown real estate investors who funded the campaigns of those who sold you out.
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This part of the article says it all….
“”We want to find out what the general public thinks and what they have identified as a need,” Marquez said. “Maybe they bring up a point the study didn’t find or something we didn’t think of.”
The study’s findings have been shown to representatives from the El Paso Police Department, El Paso Fire Department, El Paso Chihuahuas and other groups that will be impacted by the traffic, Marquez said.
“We had to find out how the people at the ballpark tend to operate…”
So, let’s interpret.
— They decided to spend tens of millions to build the ballpark and deal with mundane things like parking later.
— NOW that the critical decisions have been made, they want to find out what the general public thinks. NOW, they want to know our needs as they continue to spend our money.
— The findings have already been presented to the city police and fire departments….and to Mountainstar, which I guess is now part of city government.
— Mountainstar was once again given preferred access, so that they could have ample time to tell city management what to do and so that they could gear up to handle any objections or issued presented by the public.
— Mountainstar’s operations are more important to the traffic and parking plans than how others of us try to get to/from work and do business downtown.
— Now that they have been told what Mountainstar wants, they’ll tell us the plan. They’ll let people complain and then they will once again do whatever Mountainstar says.
The result of this study will be that the city will incur additional operating costs to support the operation of the ballpark on event days.
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Yes, there is a lot of research backing up what the Time article says. The research has been available for quite some time because other cities have gone down the ballpark path before us. Did our previous city council bother to read any of it? Why didn’t they?
Oh wait, city council and others went to Oklahoma City where a ballpark revitalized downtown. They told us the same thing would happen here. There are huge differences: 1) the OKC ballpark was specifically funded by a sales tax approved (as in “voted on”) by the public, 2) OKC paid for its downtown renewal with a pay-as-you-go plan. Development was paid for in advance rather than taking on debt. The stadium wasn’t built until 5 years after it was approved by voters, 3) Voters, not the city administration, lead the way.
Was a feasibility study done for the ballpark? Was it made public? Maybe someone knows. I never saw one. If the owners didn’t have to provide one during the team purchase process, they certainly would want one for their own benefit. Probably their feasibility study guided them in how to negotiate their contract with the city.
As it turned out, the team owners only had to convince the city manager, a majority of city council and the mayor. Since the public was not involved in the decision there was no need to convince us of the ballparks’ feasibility. Why should the owners have to convince a city of naysayers – naysayers who understand how to stay on a budget?
We, the public, need only be concerned with how to pay for season tickets, parking, stadium food — and ultimately higher tax bills if the HOT funding doesn’t pay for the bonds. Oh yes, we need a Chihuahuas T-shirt too.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
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Your Oklahoma City comments are right on the money. Their ballpark is also located on one multi-lane thoroughfare which intersects with a second major street nearby. Their ballpark also has tons of parking right next to the stadium. The differences would have been obvious to anyone with a lick of sense, but the El Paso community and business leaders who enjoyed their boondoggle trip to OKC were simply Hunt/Foster ambassadors who chose to feed us a bunch of Chihuahua caca.
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Tim,
Yes…. I did. I posted links to all kinds of studies about that very topic. Bottom line is nobody in a position of power cared…or cares for that matter.
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Act first, plan later. This is called a “public-private” partnership by the city manager and PDNG council.
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Here’s an article from way back in 1999. The subject of the article is ballpark boondoggles and how private business should not take government handouts.
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=270
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The public has to pay to build the ballpark and for maintenance and for some game-day operating costs and yet again to actually use the ballpark. Private profits. More often than not, when someone uses public-private partnership, it’s a justification for the public to fund something for a small group of private individuals who feel entitled to tax dollars for their own personal enrichment. When an individual wants something from tax coffers, it’s called welfare or entitlements.
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Hunt loves public money. As reported in today’s paper, they just signed a deal to develop a $55 million public (government) housing project in Georgia. That makes four public housing projects awarded to Hunt this year. That’s more money they can donate to supposedly conservative political campaigns, while continuing to enjoy the fruits of runaway government spending on things like mixed-use developments.
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