Over the winter, International Speedway Corporation, the ultra-wealthy, family-owned business that owns and operates Nascar racetracks around the country, paid about $110 million for the biggest remaining block of undeveloped land in New York City, a 686-acre industrial site on the west side of Staten Island. On what was once the site of a gas tank explosion that killed 40 workers in 1973, ISC plans to have a three-quarter-mile speedway and big box retail center up and running by the end of the decade.

At first glance, what could be more wrong than a Nascar speedway in New York City? Most New Yorkers don't even own a car. And though Nascar claims 75 million fans worldwide, four million of them here in the tri-state region, I've never met one. Yeah, I could probably get excited about a Taxi 200 grand prix pitting fifty of the city's most agressive and insane taxi and limo drivers against each other, especially if a few of them crashed into the wall at high speed and never returned to city streets. But like many New Yorkers, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to spend four hours watching cars covered bumper to bumper in corporate logos drive around in a circle. If you want to see idiot drivers doing death-defying bump-and-run maneuvers at high speed, hang out on Queens Boulevard at rush hour.

Yet, when you compare the development that ISC is planning for Staten Island to the stadium and arena projects that the Bloomberg Administration is trying to push through at Hudson and Atlantic Yards, the rednecks come out way ahead. Put aside for a moment the question of whether New York City truly needs any of these projects. When you line up the three plans side by side, the Nascar track is in many ways the most innovative, thoughtful and urban-friendly. The planners and developers of the other two projects could learn a lot from these motorhead, red state, interlopers.

Most impressive is the sophisticated transportation-management plan that ISC is proposing for the 80,000-seat racetrack. To limit the amount of traffic choking Staten Island's four overworked bridges and local roads, ISC is limiting parking at the site to 8,400 vehicles and giving Staten Islanders first dibs on the spaces. According to Michael Printupp, ISC Director of Corporate Development, only about a quarter of the fans will be able to come by car. Everyone else will be forced to take a ferry or bus to the site. ISC is commissioning 80 to 90 ferries on race weekends, virtually every commuter ferry between New York and Boston. Because every ticket is linked directly to a specific mode of transportation, it will be impossible for a race-goer to drive in, park for free on a neighborhood street and gain admission to the track.

Kate Slevin, co-chair of Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a reliable critic of anything that creates more sprawl or traffic in the region, calls ISC's transportation plan "innovative." In sharp contrast to what's happening at the Hudson and Atlantic Yards and in various rezoning proposals around the city, she credits ISC for "planning ahead, thinking about how people are going to travel to the site, and dealing with a lot of the transportation impacts prior to getting approval for the plan."

You'd think that it wouldn't be all that difficult for the city to work out similarly innovative transportation management plans for the stadium and arena projects, seeing as how the MTA owns the land at both sites and would be the beneficiary of any program that compels fans to take a train rather than drive. But this kind of creative planning has been nonexistent. Amazingly, the raceway builders appear to be the only developer in the city really thinking about ways to reduce automobile traffic and increase the use of mass transit.

ISC is also showing far more sensitivity to its local environment and future neighbors than the Jets and Nets. They have committed to preserving and enhancing the 250 acres of fragile wetlands on their property. During most of the year, a large portion of the site will be given to the community for use as sports fields, and nonprofit organizations can host charity events at the track for free. Printupp also says that ISC is open to figuring out a way to allow its ferry docks to be used year-round for daily commuter service.

But the biggest contrast of all is in the financing of the projects. Whereas the Jets and Nets are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, the entire $550 to $600 million cost of the speedway is being paid for privately. The racetrack is expected to generate $45 million a year for the city and state, not including all of the additional revenues earned off of money spent on hotels, fried Twinkies and 9/11 memorabilia.

Don't get me wrong. A speedway and big box center are, almost certainly, horrible long-term investments for New York City. And installing a transportation management system, saving some wetlands, and paying for an extremely profitable real estate venture by itself doesn't suddenly make Nascar the world's most progressive corporate citizen.

Nascar is one of the clearest manifestations of a deeply delusional culture. At time when our nation’s, monolithic, car-based transportation system has never been more dysfunctional, when we require a massive military presence in the Middle East to keep our vast oil supply flowing, and when the planet’s climate is changing rapidly and unpredictably due to the burning of fossil fuels, Nascar is like the regular 4:30 pm party at the local bar. It’s a celebration of the very thing that’s killing us.

So, what does it say about the state of New York City urban planning and development that the toothless, beer-bellied, rubes of Nascar are doing a better job of caring for our city than we are?