Ballparks and the Environment

[Lafferty Daniel]

From Slate.com

Though football games are massive productions, at least they're infrequent--an NFL stadium hosts just eight regular-season contests a season. Professional baseball is much dirtier over the long haul, with each stadium hosting 81 regular-season games ayear and drawing an average of 2.66 million fans (vs. about 542,000 fans per NFL stadium). Hockey and basketball are cleaner than baseball mostly because their games take place in smaller venues and they play shorter schedules, thus attracting fewer fans; the average NBA franchise gets 728,037 paying customers per year, while the NHL average is 678,440. Basketball is almost certainly the greener of the two indoor sports, since keeping an ice rink frozen requires more energy than maintaining a hardwood court. (The Lantern didn't even bother to crunch the numbers for NASCAR; any sport that centers around vehicles that get four to six miles per gallon is obviously pretty far from green.)

http://www.slate.com/id/2175478/nav/tap3/

[Jim Vaz]

Heres the problem though I have with this whole green movement (and please note I am for the enviroment and care deeply about how it affects us and the future). But this whole discussion simply on lighting. Why should the stadiums and venues be blamed? They are just using the electricity and resources that are available to them. if that venue and that city gets its power from a coal burning facility as opposed to a non burning one, why should the venue take the hit? They're just getting the power thats supplied to them. The city, the electric source, the lawmakers should take the hit.

And how do we know that new venues don't user better more effecient bulbs?
This article brings up a suuposed problem, but does it give answers, suggestions, or solutions? It wants to compare it to the other sports when comparing it is apples and oranges. What about a 60 story skyscraper? What about all the resources that uses.

[grandslamsingle]

Of course, there are some ridiculously simple things that could be done, but never will be:

1. Play in the daytime.

2. Make it prohibitively expensive/difficult to drive. I read that the biggest environmental impact from a large-scale event (like a baseball game or concert) is the vehicular traffic to get spectators to and fro. Perhaps if parking was ridiculously expensive and difficult, but fans who take public transportation get a voucher for a free ice cream (kept cool in environmentally-friendly freezers, of course!).

3. This one would never fly -- refillable beer cups. Charge regular price ($8?) for the first one, but $3 for a refill. Yes, it involves the beer drinker to get up and get the refill (many could use the stretch of the legs). But it really wouldn't fly because you'd sell a lot less beer.

[RuthMayBond]

2. Make it prohibitively expensive/difficult to drive. I read that the biggest environmental impact from a large-scale event (like a baseball game or concert) is the vehicular traffic to get spectators to and fro. Perhaps if parking was ridiculously expensive and difficult, They've already done this in Boston, San Francisco . . .

[Lafferty Daniel]

3. This one would never fly -- refillable beer cups.

The refills would be smart. Every park has those $10 beers that come in the team's novelty cup, you'd think it'd be possible to refill these things, but nope.

There's no doubt that driving to the games is part of the problem, especially here in LA where the Dodgers average about 50,000 fans per game. There is talk that a light rail will finally make stops at Chavez Ravine. (The Dodger Blue Line)

[marlins739]

Here's a thought: Raise the price of beer (and other drinks) by a dollar, and then by the exits, have a booth where you can turn in beer bottles and they'd give you a dollar. They could recycle the bottles, and it would be less work for the cleaning crews later on

[RuthMayBond]

I thought they kept the bottles and pour it in a plastic cup

[Gary Dunaier]

Some of the beer they sell at Shea Stadium is sold in special bottles with the Mets logo on them. I see empties offered on Ebay all the time.

I don't drink beer myself so, except for the fact that they're not glass, I don't know what makes these bottles okay to have in the stadium whereas other bottles are taboo.

:think:

[RuthMayBond]

That would explain why no one was tossing theirs in the trash when I went. I don't drink beer but they're nice looking bottles and I was trying to salvage a couple but no luck

[Gary Dunaier]

Make it prohibitively expensive/difficult to drive. . . Perhaps if parking was ridiculously expensive and difficult . . .

[soxnut67]

Perhaps if parking was ridiculously expensive and difficult, but fans who take public transportation get a voucher for a free ice cream (kept cool in environmentally-friendly freezers, of course!)

No Way. Public transportation stinks. I hate it when people try to force others to do something. I am tired of others trying to force their way bcause they don't like how others want to live their lives. It's disgusting.

I want to go to and fro as I please, not on someone elses schedule.

[grandslamsingle]

Exactly!

I'm so out of the loop I thought parking was only up to about $20 at the two NYC parks.

I used to drive to Shea (never ever considered driving to Yankee Stadium -- the D train gets me there in no time), but once the construction started, I never even considered it. My kid loves the train anyway.

The idea for pricing beverages much higher if you don't recycle comes from Mexico. I don't know if this is still the case, but when I lived there a bunch of years ago, a (glass) bottle of coke cost something like 3 pesos (a dollar at the time), but only 50 (Mexican) cents (less than 20 cents) if you turned in an empty. And we consider ourselves so advanced with our nickel deposits on bottles and cans.

[RuthMayBond]

Exactly!

I'm so out of the loop I thought parking was only up to about $20 at the two NYC parks.

I was just at both of them this summer, they're fourteen bucks if you DON'T use valet

[Lafferty Daniel]

Which parks have public transportation options in place already or in the near future?

Yankee Stadium
Mays Field (SF)
New Twins Park
Wrigley Field
Petco Park
Fenway Park
Busch Stadium
PNC Park

[JohnCropp]

At least the kids are playing on GRASS now*.

That's gotta account for something, right?

They are swinging dead trees at dead cows though...

(* SkyDome, Metrodome, Tropicana Stadium excluded).

[Urbanshocker13]

That is actually a very interesting subject to bring up. I am currently trying to get a job as a commutations assistant for this group Environmental Advocates of New York (I would being doing their design work but also some PR stuff) I had to write them a paper, one to see the sample of my writing and two to see what ideas I had. One idea I had was to make public transportation more attractive to people so they would use it more than they do and are less on the road. The feelings Soxnut67 has are very common with allot of Americans, and I agree with him a little bit. After not having a car for a while I can tell you that public transportation can be a pain in the butt.
The question is how do you make it more attractive, it can be done. If you make it so public transportation runs efficiently, cheaply and allot more comfortable it could be a better alternative than being on the road yourself. I think the major problem people have with mass transit is that it stinks, but if you make it better people would use it more. Especially going to events like Ball games. You wouldn't have to worry about parking or traffic if you had mass transit that actually worked. The Idea I had for my area of Albany ny was to re-institute the trolley or street car system, that was a clean and classic way of public transportation that worked very well until the US became car crazed in the 1950's But that's just my area there could be different solutions in different places. It could be done and it would create jobs and revenue for an area, and wouldn't have to cost that much. It's just a matter of getting government to do it. Cleaner, safer, more comfortable mass transit could add more positive experience to going to a baseball game. There could be once again some "Trolley Dodgers" on there way to the ball park :cap:

[stlfan]

Which parks have public transportation options in place already or in the near future?Washington D.C. (there is a Metro stop at RFK and I think there is a stop near the new stadium opening next season)
Shea Stadium
Camden Yards

[nymdan]

I'm so out of the loop I thought parking was only up to about $20 at the two NYC parks.

You can't really go by that picture though. Valet for a playoff game is obviously going to be a lot.

For a normal game, it's $14 to park at both Shea and Yankee Stadium. I think it was $20 for the playoffs last year at Shea.


Washington D.C. (there is a Metro stop at RFK and I think there is a stop near the new stadium opening next season)

There is. And there's barely going to be any parking around there, so the Metro will pretty much be the ony way to go. Though they did decide recently that they will open up the RFK lots for Nats games and then shuttle fans over to Nationals Park.

[Gary Dunaier]

You can't really go by that picture though. Valet for a playoff game is obviously going to be a lot.
Yeah, my picture showing the $56.00 for valet parking across the street from Yankee Stadium during the ALDS was a bit extreme. Parking at Lot #3, which will be across from right-centerfield at the new Stadium, was $28.00 during the ALDS - and that was not valet.

[soxnut67]

Which parks have public transportation options in place already or in the near future?

Yankee Stadium
Mays Field (SF)
New Twins Park
Wrigley Field
Petco Park
Fenway Park
Busch Stadium
PNC Park

US Cellular Field- same redline that takes you to Wrigley. A Metra stop for USCF is going to be added in the next couple of years as well.