Hacker News Reader

Comment by pwdisswordfish0 | Hacker News Reader

If anyone has seen the Austin S2 campus before, you'd know that it has a massive blacktop to provide parking for its thousands of personnel.

It would be nice if as part of the conditions for application approval, Samsung were asked to commit to erect awnings for solar collectors integrated into covered parking and strongly encouraged to invest in making solar more cost effective.

View on HN

the urban heat island is real, and austin is hot enough already, so thanks for the very humane suggestion! the screen on my phone used to turn black if i forgot it in my car at work. sometimes i left frozen tamales on my dashboard and came back for them at lunchtime.

in my student coop, i once looked up from my studies to see that my clock/thermometer said it was 110F on my desk. so yeah, if you're going to cut down all the shade, can a bro at least get some awnings?

I have only been to Austin once to consult on an OpenStack install - Cray was in the same building as my client...

But when I was packing for the trip - I was like "I am going to texas - so I don't need a jacket and only packed short sleeve shirts and brought a pair of shorts!

When I arrived in Austin, IT WAS FUCKING SNOWING

I was so damn cold.

Me too! I got stuck there because taxis weren't running to the airport due to snow. Had a rad time... everything was covered in snow, not a car on the road. Apparently the locals hadn't seen anything like it, so maybe a freak one. This was late 2000's, can't remember exactly when

We had a good snow last month - about 6 inches. But yes that kind of thing is so exceedingly rare (about once every 10 years) that the entire city economy basically grinds to a halt so everyone can go outside and play in the snow. The last time that happened was probably the incident you are describing.

Idk why I see downvotes here for a legit comment and concern. Parking lots are absolutely awful.

First, cars. Enough said.

Second, they take up a lot of space with low utilization.

Third, heat.

> Idk why I see downvotes here

discussion derailment

turning every thread into a debate about your pet sociopolitical issue is unhelpful.

>First, cars. Enough said.

No not really. Cars are wonderful, not everyone who lives on this planet wants to share space with strangers.

Cars are wonderful and useful when moving, less so, when stationary. Allowing a second way to use the area taken by the cars is reasonable — a car parking does not need access to the sky, until we have the fabled flying cars.

Nobody said cars have no benefits. But they do have very real drawbacks that are obvious at this point, they just aren't borne by the owner exclusively.

Cars as the exist today for the most part are the best method we have for increasing mobility and economic independence for those that don't live near or can't leverage public transportation (and sometimes in those cases too). They are still objectively awful in many other aspects though.

Not everyone wants to pay taxes either, but sometimes sacrifices will need to be made so that we don't ruin this planet. Sure having personal space and full autonomy in movement is nice, but it may have to be realized in different ways as we start to see the damage we are doing to this planet.

A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want to live on. Many will fight you to the bitter end on this.

I think the crux of the argument here is that we will not have a planet to live on anymore.

> A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want to live on

Pitiful strawman. I've never heard someone argue to have "only mass transit". More focus on common transports, cycling cities? Yes, please.

Of course, many like you will still fight it "to the bitter end", whatever that means.

Most people lived and died within 20 miles of where they were born until extremely recently. In that context, this sort of idea is kind of amusing given we have many different parameters (such as the viability of life on earth) to consider in solving social problems.

Let’s follow the science.

Cruise ships pollute more than cars. But you won’t see any green politician discuss that. Why?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/28469/carnival-cruise-ship-fle...

Because cruise ships do their polluting primarily in international waters and are registered under flags of convenience. They have separate fuel tanks for in western countries' jurisdictions to fulfill the regulations that these green politicians have already passed.

This sort of non-compliance compliance infuriates me. Any ships with dual tanks should be banned from western waters.

Then they'll invent one with triple tanks ;)

But you won’t see any green politician discuss that

Do you live in a city that gets a lot of cruise ship traffic? Because in my experience a lot of green politicians are very keen on banning cruise ships.

Source?

That article says nothing about CO2, which is by far the biggest man-made contributor to global warming (and probably what the person above you was referring to)

> Cruise ships pollute more than cars

Sulfur oxides (SOx), yes. Carbon dioxide (CO2), no.

I recall during hurricane Harvey in 2017, the news reported that part of the reason for the innundation was due to so much green space and dirt being covered up by impermeable artificial surfaces, which caused the water to have no where to go except to accumulate and flow into the city.

If you choose to live in an over crowded area like a Coastal City, this is true. Texas is huge with a lot of space; so while yes, gas powered vehicles might not great, consider for a second there a much larger world than the small bubble you live in.

Such vast, paved, surface-level parking lots are a distinctively American thing.

In Europe, for example, you’re much more likely to find covered, multi-level parking structures once a parking lot exceeds a given size.

If Europe had the space that exists in and around Austin, they would do the same thing. It's simply far less expensive to build surface lots.

Yes, this is commonly done in areas where land is cheap, I'm thinking of rural train station parking lots, regional and small airport parking lots.

Exactly. It’s not like you see massive flat lots in Manhattan

There is this fairly efficient 10-level parking garage in Philadelphia, Arch Street. It is essentially two 10-floor towers connected at the top. They saved room by making driveways one-way. So you enter, you have to drive 10 floors up, drive across the roof, and then drive 10 floors down to the exit. You can park wherever along the way, but you always end up driving all the way up and down.

That sounds terrible. I feel like I'd get nausea or dizzy. Thats essentially driving in a circle 20 times.

Itd be okay if there were 2 mid level cross connections

The Sydney Opera House is like this too, it's a 12 story double helix excavated from sandstone.

I'm sure it was fascinating to design, but it's an absolute nightmare to park in.

Multilevel parking is about $10-15k per space. An asphalt lot is $1.5k.

You also don't pay land tax and stormwater drainage levies on an undeveloped parking lot.

In Europe, people are more likely to engage in active transportation. You´ll find more public transit, cycling and even walking. Public transit is just a normal way for anybody to get around, not a mobility fallback for poor people.

That is changing though. I've not seen the inside of a train for years and I'm happy with that TBH.

”A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.”

Gustavo Petro

Personal anecdote is not "change"

Some parking places in Europe are also covered in gravel or permeable pavement and have trees between rows rather than being made of tarmac.

As a side note. SAS recently bought 100s of acres around their property probably to expand parking.

Sorry for the ignorance, but what's SAS? DDGing that word might not get the appropriate result.

assuming SAS software, an analytics software company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute

Thank you! It says it's the largest privately held software business. Why is it that it doesn't go public?

Why go public if you already have money?

Why _should_ they go public?

I once visited the SAS campus in North Carolina, when I was working for another well-known North Carolina headquartered software company. Very nice place. Made me quite jealous.

Samsung austin semiconductor (the name of the fab)

If the long-term return from solar cells were higher than the cost involved, Samsung would do it themselves. Since they don't do it, that means it is not efficient enough. So why force them?

There are plenty of requirements in Conditional Use Permits that force entities to do things they wouldn't otherwise do themselves. These are generally to mitigate the negative impacts on others. For example, onsite stormwater retention and traffic mitigation.

> Since they don't do it, that means it is not efficient enough.

This assumes perfect market efficiency -- that everyone has perfect information and is perfectly rational. In my experience, that isn't the case.

Additionally, Samsung is asking for a 25 year property tax waiver. It's a negotiation.

> There are plenty of requirements in Conditional Use Permits that force entities to do things they wouldn't otherwise do themselves.

Ah, let's remove those requirements.

> For example, onsite stormwater retention and traffic mitigation.

Why do you think "entities" would not do these things without being forced? Do these "entities" not benefit from better traffic and managed stormwater?

> This assumes perfect market efficiency -- that everyone has perfect information and is perfectly rational. In my experience, that isn't the case.

OK, then let's fix that.

> Additionally, Samsung is asking for a 25 year property tax waiver. It's a negotiation.

No, it's not a negotiation. Negotiation can occur between similarly empowered entities. There is no negotiation when one side has the power to lock the other up at gunpoint.

"Why do you think "entities" would not do these things without being forced? Do these "entities" not benefit from better traffic and managed stormwater?"

Before you advocate muh free market, read about history of urban panning - we tried it, most houses didn't even have sewers. I don't want poop on the streets.

More recently in UK over 100 people burned to death because a massive skyscraper was built with violations of fire safety, and then plasteres with more flamable material.

Do these entities not benefit from not having the building they manage burn to the ground?

> I don't want poop on the streets.

I doubt Samsung fab employees are going to do that. I don't get the relevance of this to our discussion.

> More recently in UK over 100 people burned to death because a massive skyscraper was built with violations of fire safety, and then plasteres with more flamable material.

Again, this is irrelevant. A parking lot, just by existing is not a fire risk. And even if it does pose some fire risk, putting solar panels and the required electrical equipment on the parking lot will only increase that risk.

> Do these entities not benefit from not having the building they manage burn to the ground?

No, they don't. Ask the owners of that skyscraper. What's your point again?

Negative externalities should be regulated to some degree. Otherwise we could have a tragedy of the commons situation.

I'm usually in favor of free market-influenced methods such as taxing negative externalities and subsidizing positive ones. So instead of forcing a company to install solar panels, the city could provide a tax incentive for everyone in the city to do so. The overhead of managing that could become large though, so I understand why sometimes more small scale and direct individual negotiations can be good.

>No, it's not a negotiation. Negotiation can occur between similarly empowered entities. There is no negotiation when one side has the power to lock the other up at gunpoint.

They wouldn't say do this or you'll go to jail. They would say do this or we won't give you a giant tax cut. It would be unconstitutional to throw people in one company in jail for something that's fine for others to do.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Constitution...

> They wouldn't say do this or you'll go to jail. They would say do this or we won't give you a giant tax cut.

"Won't give you a tax cut" translates to "pay us a percentage of your earnings, otherwise we will throw you in jail." So, I'd like to disagree here and say my original assertion was accurate.

> Negative externalities should be regulated to some degree. Otherwise we could have a tragedy of the commons situation.

I am not convinced this applies here. Solar panels over the parking lot sounds like a solution to an invented problem. Parking lots are not harming the environment. If Samsung is paying for the land, they should be able to do whatever they like on that land as long as it doesn't harm someone else.

This sounds like the typical anti-car communist mindset that I've seen many times over here on hn, which I find highly weird. Cars are probably the best innovation humanity has done in the entire history of the species, and I guess people are triggered by that fact?

>"Won't give you a tax cut" translates to "pay us a percentage of your earnings, otherwise we will throw you in jail." So, I'd like to disagree here and say my original assertion was accurate.

Your worst case scenario happens to all companies in the absence of the deal. So your argument seems to be more that taxes themselves are bad rather than the deal is bad.

>I am not convinced this applies here.

Sure, I might agree with you there. I was more replying to the part of your comment about removing all requirements that force companies to do things they wouldn't do themselves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com