Boston 2024

Matthew said:
Sorry to be a party pooper but can we all take a moment to reflect on the fact that freely flowing Federal funds is what created "urban renewal", the highway era, and other atrocities in our city? Once that trough opens the line of politically-connected pigs gets quite long.
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You know those pesky feds. You ask them to build you a rapid transit line and they'll accidentally bulldoze a historic district and pave a highway instead!

I get a healthy dose of skepticism, but don't you think threatening urban renewal 2.0 is a little outrageous?
 
^I'm not against T.F. Green but I don't think its a convenient place for many people, even if you add in a dependable rail link. BOS' appeal is its proximity to downtown for business travel and cultural institutions. TF green is focused on the south of boston family/leisure travel market, which is its niche, but all it will be.

New York and DC metro airports are different, they are much more widespread. BWI is Baltimore's airport (a bigger city than Providence) and in between DC and Baltimore. Dulles is bigger and further out than National, which is the local direct appeal that Dulles can't be. EWR is in Jersey and pulls all the Jersey based fliers that don't cut across the city to JFK. EWR is also able to serve as a huge international hub just because of New York's size.

TF green is too hard for a Boston focused flier to use as an alternative in my opinion. Even if you are in like Randolph or Canton, it is still faster, more options and often better price to go to Logan vs. Green.

Boston is currently handling 30 mil a year. Olympic crowds wont be renting many cars or parking, the real issue is getting them to and from the airport efficiently, and the Olympics would enable a more direct and efficient rail connection. Which Logan needs no matter what.
 
fattony said:
You know those pesky feds. You ask them to build you a rapid transit line and they'll accidentally bulldoze a historic district and pave a highway instead!

I get a healthy dose of skepticism, but don't you think threatening urban renewal 2.0 is a little outrageous?
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Not threatening anything. I'm merely pointing out that "massive influx of money" often has many unintended consequences and attracts many unsavory sorts of folks.

We might be on guard against the kinds of destruction wreaked in the 1950s but that doesn't mean we are invulnerable.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/02/olympics2012
This is about regenerating east London, but not for the people who live there now. It's being done for a completely new population, a much richer population who will enjoy the canals that were once used for industrial purposes but are now available for them to live next door to and enjoy the river views and so on. Our community was shattered. It fell apart very rapidly once this started, as people were concerned about finding a place to go.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/178051/hidden-environmental-and-human-costs-sochi-olympics
Despite promises from the mayor of Sochi and the head of Olympstroy that “not one resident” of Sochi would suffer in the lead-up to the Games, Human Rights Watch estimates that about 2,000 families have been displaced. Although most received compensation, HRW says that many were under-compensated for the loss of their homes and the income they had earned growing vegetables or renting rooms. Others were not compensated at all, including Andrei Martynov and Natalya Martynova, who like many had never been able to obtain the proper documentation for the land they had lived on near the beach since 2005. After a long legal battle, their home was bulldozed to make way for the coastal cluster. The pair now share a room in a Soviet-era hotel.

“We don’t want to be homeless…but no one wants to help us. No one wants to help us as fellow human beings,” Natalya told The Nation. “We don’t know how we’re going to live in the future.”
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^ That is all the usual anti-gentrification tripe mixed with gross hyperbole. I think the US handles eminent domain a little more equitably than Russia.

We'd better not make anything nice, because some people like it as a dump!

It is all lipstick on a NIMBY pig. There are legitimate concerns about driving the lower and middle classes out of neighborhoods, but those can and should be alleviated with inclusionary housing policy. "Do nothing" is absolutely not the right policy and "hope that nicer living conditions and good jobs fall from the sky, but none of those damn yuppies come with it" is a pipe dream.
 
I think the US handles eminent domain a little more equitably than Russia.
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Did you not see the article from The Guardian about East London? That is not in Russia.

"Do nothing" is absolutely not the right policy and "hope that nicer living conditions and good jobs fall from the sky, but none of those damn yuppies come with it" is a pipe dream.
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I think there's a lot of middle ground between "do nothing" and "drop $10 billion from the sky for the Olympics."

Bringing that kind of sudden shock of money into the city can and will cause displacement, neighborhood fragmentation and social problems that go with it. Perhaps we've become enlightened enough to counter those effects with policy. Perhaps we've learned from history. I'm inclined to think not.

You know that I am an advocate for neighborhood improvement, for public transportation improvement. I've posted many times. But I also try to think about the larger effect those changes have on the people around them. Not all NIMBYism is bad, although I know that a lot of it has perverted into a ridiculous parody. There's a reason why people of 50 years ago began to speak out against large government projects, though, and it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Broadly speaking: it's better to work incrementally, instead of making massive, sudden changes. For example, that's the difference between the success story of the North End compared to the ignominious story of the West End.
 
Matthew said:
I think there's a lot of middle ground between "do nothing" and "drop $10 billion from the sky for the Olympics."

Bringing that kind of sudden shock of money into the city can and will cause displacement, neighborhood fragmentation and social problems that go with it. Perhaps we've become enlightened enough to counter those effects with policy. Perhaps we've learned from history. I'm inclined to think not.

You know that I am an advocate for neighborhood improvement, for public transportation improvement. I've posted many times. But I also try to think about the larger effect those changes have on the people around them. Not all NIMBYism is bad, although I know that a lot of it has perverted into a ridiculous parody. There's a reason why people of 50 years ago began to speak out against large government projects, though, and it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Broadly speaking: it's better to work incrementally, instead of making massive, sudden changes. For example, that's the difference between the success story of the North End compared to the ignominious story of the West End.
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That is a much more clear presentation of your concerns than you provided on the previous page. Thank you.

Your concerns about sweeping change are certainly valid. Perhaps I'm just more optimistic than you. I think a master plan and a master developer can do many good things that incremental change is less likely to do. For example, it is difficult for the first buildings in a clean slate area to be particularly urban if they are designed independently. You can't lease retail space in a place with no foot traffic *yet* so why bother with retail? Incremental change is certainly preferable for established neighborhoods, but what about a place like the pike relocation in Allston?

I fear another Kendall Square much more than I fear Assembly Square.

All that said, I really don't see anyone proposing a new round of urban renewal in Boston. Most of the sins of our past are behind us and trends look positive. In the last several years we've seen a huge switch to prioritizing good urban design. With luck federal funds could help make some transit improvements like Red-Blue, fix the way the SL enters (or rather avoids entering) the tunnel, or with real luck a Chinatown tunnel to join the SLs.

Maybe a reasonable bid will never be accepted by the IOC, but crafting a reasonable bid ought to outline a host of reasonable transit and housing projects to pursue in the near future.
 
I think concerns about sweeping change and forced relocation are huge issues to be aware of in this planning period. I too think I'm a bit more optimistic.

I look at areas like Suffolk Downs, Allston's Beacon Yards, TOD opportunities down the orange line, combined with our dated and increasingly insufficient transit connections in the immediate Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area and see incrementalism as actually exacerbating the problems.

We don't have reliable and fast mass transit even in areas were there are rails (B-Line). We don't have mass infrastructure to move people to new, expanding job centers and opportunities from workforce house (Silver Line).
We are tens of thousands of residential units short of slowing rising housing costs.

In short, Boston is growing. It is becoming richer, more expensive, and even more attractive, while also increasingly strained. All incrementalism will do is keep the South End stretching into Roxbury and other neighborhoods pushing out long time residents, keep the T breaking daily on every line, keep forcing students to overcrowd and displace families and keep costs going up.

I see an Olympics centered around Boston's existing facilities while providing the incentive to modernize intra-metro transport and create a focus on supporting tens of thousands of more people that are already coming as a plus. I don't support the white elephant projects and would quickly turn against a bid that has such a stupid focus. But as we are in the planning discussions, a bid that accelerates Boston's investment in itself if very exciting.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Right-of-way acquisition is really, really expensive - and there's a lot of places where we're going to be hamstrung by a lack of available right-of-way for a contiguous third or fourth track.
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I'm pretty sure the only choke point for continuous triple tracking is the Canton viaduct.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
I'm pretty sure the only choke point for continuous triple tracking is the Canton viaduct.
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Oh, it is indeed the only physical choke point. (If you assume that Neponset is completely untouchable, that's another choke point - but, again, Olympics, going hog wild.)

I'm referring to the fact that nobody thought to buy up or reserve the land needed for the third (or the fourth) track when it was available. As a result, we'd need to buy that land now - and there are a few people who we'd have to go through to get it.

Once we buy out everyone occupying the potential right of way, the actual cost of the track is negligible. It's getting the land that's the problem.
 
Just when we think we are finally doing things right is probably the best time to play devil's advocate and start applying some healthy skepticism to be sure.

Very, very few good neighborhoods have been built from scratch by one master developer. Actually I wouldn't even count the Back Bay in this category since it was done in stages and by many developers, even if there was a master plan. Incrementalism, with many stakeholders interacting, is how almost all good city neighborhoods came about, over the course of many decades or more.

For all the flaws of Kendall Square, at least it exists already. Assembly Square barely does. Jacobs would say that such a district built all-at-once "is dead from birth." I'm inclined to agree. It will be like a shopping mall. But that is a different thread...

Incrementalism doesn't mean "preserving the status quo", which is what has mostly taken place for the past decade (some new buildings notwithstanding). Incrementalism means improving things, but doing it in a way that gives the city time to recover, at human time-scales.

I'll give an example: a radical transformation of the "B" branch would be to put it underground, as has been proposed on this forum for fun. Several billion dollars, but the result would be that the trip from Harvard Ave to Park Street would probably drop from 25-30 minutes down to 15-20 minutes, scheduled. Furthermore the perception would be changed. Land values in Allston would skyrocket.

In contrast, a set of incremental changes would be to apply small reforms to the Green Line: signal priority, all door boarding, better accessibility, station consolidation. It's not going to radically change the experience of riding the Green Line but it will make it a bit faster and more reliable. That's not going cause the same kind of disruption. And it's a lot cheaper and very cost-effective (possibly profitable).

West Station with a bit of commuter rail service won't be too disruptive either. West Station with high frequency rapid-transit like service could be extremely disruptive. Also a lot more expensive to create. North Allston would go from being a bit of a backwater with cheaper rents to being super-hot property. I wouldn't argue against doing it, but I would argue for a great deal of thought and effort to soften the blow.

A radical approach to housing might be to build large clusters of it on empty land (and if this were another era, to clear some land). An incremental approach would be to set a goal of X% growth per year, for some reasonable X, citywide in housing units, and then have each neighborhood come up with a way of doing it that works locally. But they can't opt out. X% city wide, contributed by all neighborhoods.
 
Sorry, how did we go from talking about a small bid that only does cheap things that are best for the city, all the way to suddenly worrying about sweeping changes?
 
underground said:
Sorry, how did we go from talking about a small bid that only does cheap things that are best for the city, all the way to suddenly worrying about sweeping changes?
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I think there are some aspects of the Olympics that are necessarily big in scale - for example the Athlete's Village. You need to build 16,500 beds worth of new construction all in one place with sufficiently high security. I don't think there is any way around that aspect of modern Olympic bids. Dropping 16,500 beds, or about 10,000 apartments, in any one place would bring sweeping change without question.

To solve that particular issue, I would love to see modular construction for the Olympic Village which is disassembled after the Games and distributed throughout the city. That way every neighborhood gets a piece of Olympic legacy, not just one post-industrial site. 10,000 middle and low income homes added to Boston would be a 100% slam dunk positive as long as it is decentralized.

Building a whole new transit line would also be a sweeping change, but that is not going to happen in Boston. I think I disagree with Matthew that DMU service (with 15 minute headways) from West through Cambridge to NS would drop a bomb on Allston. I think it would be good for Allston because it would bring both new residents and jobs for current residents. Transformational? Yes. But I think the only people who will be "hurt" by it are people who prefer an auto-centric Allston and I really have no sympathy for them.
 
^But Boston needs 10,000 units pretty much as fast as possible, otherwise, all middle and low income people will be continue to be pushed out. Hell, they say Somerville needs 9,000 by 2020! Olympic accommodations don't need to be luxurious, so it is an opportunity to build moderately priced housing. I also don't think expanding DMU service to a current transit constrained area to support new housing and job access is being thought of as a downside. Boston needs this things now, regardless, and if we don't do them the results could very much be worse. At least the Olympics will spark an impetus for building thousands of units, discussion about how to incorporate even more middle/low income residents, and greater transit access.
 
I don't have sympathy for auto-centric views of Allston either (spent plenty of time wrangling over that, after all). I do have sympathy for people who might get pushed out. I especially have sympathy for immigrants as well as low income families that have managed to find a place in Allston because of relatively low rents due to the peculiarities of geography and politics. West Station as envisioned would have DMU service to South Station every 15 minutes (feasible) and possibly to North Station via Kendall every 15 minutes (infeasible at the moment). That's quite a radical change for a neighborhood that is largely dependent upon the connections emanating from the overcrowded 66 bus. It would a good change, but it needs to be accompanied by a hefty housing increase as well as some affordable housing policy to ease the transition. And you won't get the local jobs unless the new development includes commerce (e.g. mixed use, retail). DOT is not interested in doing land use planning, so we'll see how that goes.

And of course this isn't just about West Station. Boston could use housing increases and commercial investment broadly. Even without DMUs or whatever, Boston needs thousands of housing units more per year.

I agree with fattony that there's just no way that any kind of Olympics investment, no matter how "small", is not going to cause disruption. Even the cheapest talk is billions of dollars. And if they don't prepare for the crowds, then we're going to see some of what happened in London, and that's local landlords doing mass-evictions to cash in.
 
To solve that particular issue, I would love to see modular construction for the Olympic Village which is disassembled after the Games and distributed throughout the city.
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That's already been reported on as what the committee is looking to recommend. Hell, build it all module spec'ed out as close to dorm space as possible, and then divvy it all up to the Universities post games, and put the rest in a location TBD. Bam! cheap games accomplished, off campus crowding solved, and a couple hundred units left over to go wherever.
 
Some thoughts from Mike Ross.

Boston Olympic bid: The motivation we need
By Mike Ross | Boston Globe | JUNE 08, 2014

AS WE sit down on our couches to watch the World Cup, we’ll all be paying careful attention to how cities across Brazil manage the logistic, financial, and security challenges before them — some of the reasons Boston could be skeptical about hosting the Olympics in 2024.

But Boston’s path forward works, and not just for the reasons one might think, such as helping us get over our persistent “smaller than New York” Napoleon complex. Our primary reason for doing this is because it will force us to upgrade, well, everything.


To put this in terms that we can all appreciate, the Olympics is analogous to hosting a really important dinner at your home, just on a much grander scale. You use the opportunity to fix things that are broken, make new purchases, and generally clean the place up.

This we could use. To thrive well after the Olympic Games have left, we require a massive expansion of housing, transit, and general infrastructure. A new soccer stadium on the waterfront wouldn’t hurt either. But unless we invite our friends over, we’re likely to remain on our couches and put it off for another day, watching another city bask in Olympic gold instead.
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Mike Ross, a former Boston city councilor, writes regularly for the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @mikeforboston.
 
It's not terribly surprising that Boston would still be in the running with LA, given that those are the 2 cities with the best-organized exploratory committees. Still, it's a nice touch that this meeting is being held here.

"The U-T San Diego reported last week that L.A. and Boston are expected to make the USOC’s list of finalists at Tuesday's meeting, and possibly Washington and San Francisco, but not San Diego. (San Diego’s inferior airport was cited as one of its biggest liabilities.)"

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b...till-acontender-for-2024-olympics-as-u-s.html
 
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