BIKE: SW Parkway, Barton Springs, Clean Groundwater

[Patrick Goetz]

Colin Clark of the SOS Alliance asked me to alert folks on the bike list 
to an online petition to convince AMD to not locate their new facility 
over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge zone.  The petition is here:  MoveAMD.com

Even if you don't care about Barton Springs or clean groundwater, the 
proposed AMD move is fiscally idiotic and could be economically 
disasterous for Austin.  Think about it:  They're proposing a workplace 
for 5000 people where every employee will be forced to drive in order to 
get to work.  How efficient will this be when the price of gas goes up 
to $4 or $5/gallon?  Unless some kind of dramatic breakthrough occurs 
which will allow us to continue to have cheap energy (don't hold your 
breath), large workplaces such as AMD will only be economically viable 
in a central, downtown location which is well served by high speed, high 
volume mass transit.  Yes, we don't have the mass transit system yet 
(and never will if matters continue to be left up to the likes of Lee 
Walker and Lyndon Henry), but we're much more likely to have such a 
thing providing service to downtown or in the desired development 
corridor than we are in the environmentally sensitive, LOW DENSITY 
southwestern boonies.

I strongly urge everyone to sign this petition and to tell all your 
friends about it, too.  The AMD move is completely driven by the fact 
that AMD CEO Hector Ruiz lives in Southwest Austin and would like to 
make HIS commute as convenient as possible.  By the time most Austinites 
are living in $5/gallon hell and AMD has been flushed down the toilet 
due to mounting costs and foreign competition, Ruiz will have 
conveniently cashed in his stock options and moved to the Virgin Islands 
a multimillionare without a care in the world.  Let's stop being 
complete f****ing idiots for a change and try to exert influence to put 
an end to this madness.

Colin has some additional arguments below aimed specifically at cyclists.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: SW parkway
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:45:05 -0500
From: colin clark <colin>
To: Patrick Goetz <pgoetz>

Patrick,

Thanks for sending an email to your friends asking them to sign the
petition. We really do want to crank up the numbers big time.

Here is some text for cyclists. Please tweak as you see fit.

Thanks,
Colin

Do you ride your bicycle on Southwest Parkway? Would you like a major
increase in traffic on the road?

Advanced Micro Devices is planning on moving 2,900 employees into 860,000
square feet of proposed new offices at Southwest Parkway and William Cannon
in Stratus/Freeport's "Lantana" development. For comparison, the new Frost
Tower downtown is about 500,000 square feet. "Lantana" is in the Barton
Springs Contributing Zone, just upstream of the Recharge Zone.

AMD's move would generate over 8,000 car trips per day onto Southwest
Parkway and William Cannon. In 2004 average daily traffic on Southwest
Parkway was 20,427 cars, according to the City of Austin.

You can help AMD reconsider its decision and find a better site, not on
Southwest Parkway and not in the sensitive Barton Springs watershed. Sign
the online petition at www.MoveAMD.com, where you can also get more
information.

Many other companies have announced plans to move to the Barton Springs
watershed only to change their minds in the face of public outcry. The
Austin cycling community can be of great assistance to concerned neighbors
in the area and conservation groups trying to move AMD.

Thanks for your help.