Boston 2024

Regarding the public transportation expansion that people are assuming will happen if the Olympics are secured, would a Blue Line extension to Lynn be guaranteed?

It seems to me there wouldn't be as much need for that as for other extensions/expansions/renovations. It does already have a commuter rail station, after all.

For whatever it's worth, I don't think the Red/Blue Line project would be high on an Olympics list, either.
 
^ I think it would be just out of the capacity increases across the system that it could provide. Red/Blue makes all of the downtown transfer stations more efficient.
 
Can we get real for a second? Winning an Olympics bid wouldn't suddenly make all the politics, corruption and foot dragging that dogs our infrastructure go away.

I think that the only link that would get bolstered in case of a successful bid would be the link that funnels money into the pockets of connected insiders.

Oh, and everyone better make plans for an alternate place to live for that summer, if you rent. Because you're getting evicted to make way for $5000/month visitors. And if you own, you'll probably want on that gravy train too.

Ok, back to fantasy world :)
 
I'm asking here for a reason, does anyone know of any free mapping software where I can freehand draw a shape on a map and have it show me an estimate of how many square miles are within it?
 
'Nother question: Why wasn't Wembley used for the opening & closing ceremonies in London? Was it just a matter of the IOC wanting something new? Was it a matter of not being reconfigurable in a way that would satisfy IOC requirements? Did they need another stadium because Wembley was already being used for football?
 
My guess is it's because the Olympic Stadium usually doubles as the track and field venue, and Wembly would have been hard to reconfigure because a soccer field is smaller than a track oval.
 
underground said:
My guess is it's because the Olympic Stadium usually doubles as the track and field venue, and Wembly would have been hard to reconfigure because a soccer field is smaller than a track oval.
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Yup. That's the reason American football venues don't work as well. The ground-level surface at an Olympic Stadium has to be immense.
 
JohnAKeith said:
The IOC application or letter I saw online says there has to be 45,000+ hotel rooms in the area. One of the vacation bureaus says there are 36,000 "in greater Boston". Greater Boston doesn't include NH or RI, I wouldn't think. Given they are just 45 minutes away (and, accessible by commuter rail, at least RI - and its airport) I think they'd be included in any bid ... and there's at least another 1,000 rooms planned for Boston, right now?
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I've got some information on this one, let me find it.

Edit: Damn. I had some links to reports by the MCCA, but they went 404 on me.

According to a conversation I had had with Boston 2024 on another forum that referenced those links, there were 35,000 in Boston itself. But since the citation doesn't exist anymore, we'll have to take that with a grain of salt.

As for currently planned rooms in Boston:
2013: 423 rooms (finished)
2014: 190 rooms
2015: 1341 rooms
2016+: 377 rooms
Total: 2331 rooms

Source: http://www.bostonusa.com/partner/press/statistics/

Now, if you average those out, you get 582 rooms/year (assuming the 2016s are all from the same year; if you cut out that, it jumps up to 651). Admittedly, that 2015 skews the average up significantly (drops down to 330 w/o it).

Anyway, lets use a ballpark of 500 rooms a year with the assumption that a bid is made and accepted; figure that an initiative like the Olympics would drive hotel development even further, but lets start there.

By 2016, we'll have just about 38,000 rooms. We hit 40,000 around 2020, and 42,000 by the time the Olympics come around. A gap of 3,000 rooms to make up over 8 years (an extra 375/year).

Of course, none of that includes outlying hotels in any of the figures. There are certainly hotels being built within the region anyway, and more might be built due to the Olympics.
 
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DominusNovus said:
I've got some information on this one, let me find it.

Edit: Damn. I had some links to reports by the MCCA, but they went 404 on me.

According to a conversation I had had with Boston 2024 on another forum that referenced those links, there were 35,000 in Boston itself. But since the citation doesn't exist anymore, we'll have to take that with a grain of salt.

As for currently planned rooms in Boston:
2013: 423 rooms (finished)
2014: 190 rooms
2015: 1341 rooms
2016+: 377 rooms
Total: 2331 rooms

Source: http://www.bostonusa.com/partner/press/statistics/

Now, if you average those out, you get 582 rooms/year (assuming the 2016s are all from the same year; if you cut out that, it jumps up to 651). Admittedly, that 2015 skews the average up significantly (drops down to 330 w/o it).

Anyway, lets use a ballpark of 500 rooms a year with the assumption that a bid is made and accepted; figure that an initiative like the Olympics would drive hotel development even further, but lets start there.

By 2016, we'll have just about 38,000 rooms. We hit 40,000 around 2020, and 42,000 by the time the Olympics come around. A gap of 3,000 rooms to make up over 8 years (an extra 375/year).

Of course, none of that includes outlying hotels in any of the figures. There are certainly hotels being built within the region anyway, and more might be built due to the Olympics.
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On this topic of hotel rooms/capacity in Boston, I'd like to point out the use of the more recently constructed, upscale residence halls at university campuses used for hotel rooms. It's already established that the dorm rooms would not suffice for olympic-participant housing due to security concerns (among other things). But during the summer months, empty dormitories and residence halls can definitely be repurposed for hotel spaces.

I know that Northeastern University has had guests stay at West Village E and International Village where they pay by night, generally parents who couldn't book a hotel during their kids' orientation in the summer months. And the rates the school charged were market rate with other Back Bay/Fenway hotels. If these beds and others were taken into consideration, that could mean another 5,000+ rooms for hotel use in a Bostonian bid.
 
Boston (Allston) vs. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (et al) (London's are the same, just one map larger than the other):

Boston



London



London



London's Olympic Park includes Olympic Stadium, Olympic Village (housing), Velodrome, and Aquatics, Basketball, and Handball arenas.

Estimated area in square miles/kilometers (London's the second one; seems to be about 33% larger than Boston's could be - although not sure why my areas differ but my perimeter is so similar - am I confused on my geometry?):

Boston



London



Areas estimated using: http://www.freemaptools.com/area-calculator.htm
 
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re: perimeter:area ratio

Every shape is different. Your Alston shape has some skinny appendages which need more perimeter to enclose the same area.

Circle is the best you can do, everything else has extra perimeter for the same area.
 
dshoost88 said:
I know that Northeastern University has had guests stay at West Village E and International Village where they pay by night, generally parents who couldn't book a hotel during their kids' orientation in the summer months. And the rates the school charged were market rate with other Back Bay/Fenway hotels. If these beds and others were taken into consideration, that could mean another 5,000+ rooms for hotel use in a Bostonian bid.
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Hell, it wasn't too long ago they'd put the parents up in Speare and the Stetsons during Orientation.
 
Why would our Olympic Park have to have dimensions at all similar to London's? Especially if the venues at a Boston Olympics are spread around the metro-Area/New England.
 
It doesn't but I got the feeling from research that having an "Olympic Park" was preferable, so I figure you'd have the Stadium and Olympic Village on the same plot of land, along with the main Media Center.

Having the residences right across the street from the Stadium means you don't have to transport 12,000 athletes, trainers, and officials across town for opening and closing ceremonies, and having the media there gives them access to athletes on a regular basis.
 
Oh, and I'll stop all opposition if I can be there when the authorities tell Harry Mattison he's going to have half a million people wandering through his backyard in 10 years.
 
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