Boston 2024

[Equilibria]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline

Globe has some "inside information" on what the committee is thinking. 60,000 seat stadium (apparently the new capacity guideline) near Cabot Yard. Athlete Village at the Bayside Expo Center. Neither is a half-bad idea, though I would want to see what would be done to connect the stadium to the neighborhoods.

The Bayside Expo village -> dorms idea is an excellent one if UMass is willing to pay for some of it. That's also a good stadium site, but I see the logic in doing it this way.

I have no idea how they plan to fit a 60,000-seat stadium anywhere near Cabot Yard. The widest point not located in Widett Circle (which I hope will be an MBTA storage yard in 2024) is only 485', about half the width of Gillette Stadium. If they find a way to make it work, that site is glorious for access. Besides Broadway being next door, you could also have people walk from South Station and Tufts Med. Center, and really even from the Financial District.

An alternative idea would be to use Bayside for the stadium and site the village on the Globe site across Morrissey Boulevard. That doesn't get you the UMass dorms, though.

 

[GDX163]

I have no idea how they plan to fit a 60,000-seat stadium anywhere near Cabot Yard. The widest point not located in Widett Circle (which I hope will be an MBTA storage yard in 2024) is only 485', about half the width of Gillette Stadium. If they find a way to make it work, that site is glorious for access. Besides Broadway being next door, you could also have people walk from South Station and Tufts Med. Center, and really even from the Financial District.

Leung seems to suggest the committee wants to take over the MBTA maintenance facility parcel:

"For the signature stadium, I am told, the committee is looking at cobbling together parcels in South Boston, including a city tow lot and an adjacent MBTA maintenance facility. "

That would give them sufficient space to build a stadium, something closer to 900-1000 feet.

But this would seem to pose some significant challenges. Can anyone speak to the feasibility of this? Would this force the maintenance facility to move somewhere, maybe down into Widett Circle? Or could they conceivably deck over the facility and maintain operations below?

 

[George_Apley]

Where there hell does the Red Line yard go if you get rid of Cabot? It has to be somewhat central to effectively feed the line doesn't it?

 

[Arlington]

Where there hell does the Red Line yard go if you get rid of Cabot? It has to be somewhat central to effectively feed the line doesn't it?

I don't think location matters as much as size and connection.

Plenty of rail transit systems put their yards at the ends of the lines (or what were the ends of certain phases of growth).

What seems to matter more is size and flow and not needing to cross "live" tracks in order to put trains into/out of service.

At the same time, (and for whatever reason) they don't seem to get moved--or even decked over--despite often sitting on prime land.

 

[Equilibria]

I don't think location matters as much as size and connection.

Plenty of rail transit systems put their yards at the ends of the lines (or what were the ends of certain phases of growth).

What seems to matter more is size and flow and not needing to cross "live" tracks in order to put trains into/out of service.

At the same time, (and for whatever reason) they don't seem to get moved--or even decked over--despite often sitting on prime land.

That's not the relevant issue here, though. We shouldn't be wasting infrastructure dollars for the Olympics messing around with perfectly functional infrastructure. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to move the yard, and it's not like there's that much available land in Quincy, Braintree or Cambridge to build a replacement...

 

[Proposition Joe]

I had the idea of redeveloping the Bayside Expo Center into an Athlete's Village earlier in the thread. If thats where the committee wants to center the Olympics, then they'd be much better off in redeveloping the South Bay Shopping Center though.

 

[davem]

Why they are building in areas that already have _stuff_ instead of the several large tracts of vacant land scattered around is beyond me. You should be able to fit almost all the new construction along the banks of the Mystic and at Beacon Park.

The fact that they would rather blow the budget on land acquisition for pretty overhead shots of downtown instead of infrastructure improvements to slightly far reaching sites does not bode well.

 

[Equilibria]

I had the idea of redeveloping the Bayside Expo Center into an Athlete's Village earlier in the thread. If thats where the committee wants to center the Olympics, then they'd be much better off in redeveloping the South Bay Shopping Center though.

I will grant you that it's a better site than Cabot Yard, but those stores are healthy and form a public resource. I actually think it's possible that UMass could buy the Globe site, transfer the Expo site to the State (to sell to the Krafts or to some other developer after the Olympics), then build the village/dorms on that. It's the same size as the village site in London, and it would form a nice little hub around the combined T/Commuter Rail station at JFK/UMass. You could even do things like archery and shooting sports in Joe Moakley Park and at BC High.

I know you proposed some of that before, Proposition Joe, but I'm still not with you on the shopping center.

 

[George_Apley]

Why they are building in areas that already have _stuff_ instead of the several large tracts of vacant land scattered around is beyond me. You should be able to fit almost all the new construction along the banks of the Mystic and at Beacon Park.

The fact that they would rather blow the budget on land acquisition for pretty overhead shots of downtown instead of infrastructure improvements to slightly far reaching sites does not bode well.

Right? It reeks of a lack of seriousness.

 

[Arlington]

We know that ~60k seats is too many for soccer, but how feasible is it for the 25k seats in the "inner doughnut" of a 60k seat stadium to be reused?

How do the actual "field" sizes compare on Soccer vs "Olympic" stadiums (which usually host the open, close, and track&field events).

Essentially to build a permanent 25k soccer stadium, with its circulation innards on the outside and then a breakaway layer with the "upper/outer" part adding another 35k seats? (and you just scrape that part off when you're "done" with the Olympics)?

Atlanta's solution (which ultimately failed, but I think more for "urban planning" reasons than for engineering ones) was to half-demolish their Olympic Stadium and use the remaining half for baseball. Seems like a good idea badly executed rather than strictly bad.

 

[Equilibria]

We know that ~60k seats is too many for soccer, but how feasible is it for the 25k seats in the "inner doughnut" of a 60k seat stadium to be reused?

How do the actual "field" sizes compare on Soccer vs "Olympic" stadiums (which usually host the open, close, and track&field events).

Essentially to build a permanent 25k soccer stadium, with its circulation innards on the outside and then a breakaway layer with the "upper/outer" part adding another 35k seats? (and you just scrape that part off when you're "done" with the Olympics)?

Atlanta's solution (which ultimately failed, but I think more for "urban planning" reasons than for engineering ones) was to half-demolish their Olympic Stadium and use the remaining half for baseball. Seems like a good idea badly executed rather than strictly bad.

Well, the fact that excepting Atlanta every recent Olympic stadium was used for soccer after (and sometimes before, as in LA, Barcelona and Rio) the Games should indicate a good answer to that question. In fact, there are issues with playing soccer games on American Football fields, since they're too narrow for the required sidelines (it's done, of course, but it can't be easily done everywhere, particularly in international competition).

A quick survey of the past bunch of stadia gives a typical width (of an elliptical surface in most cases) of between 300' and 500'. The smallest is Barcelona at 330', the largest is probably Beijing at somewhere around 450', though it's obscured by the roof. For comparison, Gillette (which Google Earth helpfully shows in soccer configuration) has a width of 290' at the 50-yard line. Toyota Park in Chicago, a soccer-specific stadium with no need for a track, is 275'.

In short, it would be a slightly odd-looking stadium because the field would be too big for the stands, but the field size could also make it a better host for other large events taking place on the ground (like concerts, festivals, fireworks displays...)

 

[underground]

Here's the wikipedia entry on the redevelopment of the London stadium for West Ham United. Sounds like the solution to the track vs soccer field dimensions is retractable seating that pull out closer to the field. That lets them use the stadium for both going forward, but I'd imagine permanent seats would also work if we decide we want a soccer only.

 

[George_Apley]

This issue is increasingly in the news as the exploratory board ramps up. There will be a lot more pieces out there like this WBUR opinion piece.

 

[Equilibria]

This issue is increasingly in the news as the exploratory board ramps up. There will be a lot more pieces out there like this WBUR opinion piece.

The size issue is really a more recent one than this piece points out. Calling Sydney a "city of 5.5 million" is incredibly misleading. Australia, like many non-US countries, defines its city population by metro area rather than by strict municipal boundaries. According to Wiki, which is quoting 2013 estimates, metro Sydney has a population of 4.7 million people, effectively equivalent to Boston. Beijing, Tokyo and Rio are famous megacities. The fact that they're hosting the Olympics has less to do with how big they are and more to do with the IOC wanting to hold the event in their respective regions or countries.

Trying to identify Boston with Atlanta, Athens, Sochi, Beijing, etc. and assuming we'd have the same experience as any of those is silly. Boston has better infrastructure and hospitality, for instance, than Atlanta, which basically had to build a "world city" where none existed before. Counting whatever dormitory space could be called into service, hotels aren't a problem here.

Neither is the transit system. Bostonians have very poor points of comparison with the T - we keep assessing it in relation to New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, etc. when we shouldn't be. Of the last several Summer Olympic hosts, London, Beijing and Barcelona had more extensive transit systems than the T, while Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, and Rio all have weaker ones. The Sydney Games were hailed as a success without a huge subway system, and Atlanta had a functional plan that failed on execution.

The fact is that condemning an idea is a damn stupid thing to do. Making a paper proposal to the USOC costs very little. Making a concrete, detailed bid costs quite a bit more, but to start that process we should have a paper proposal first, with the major improvements outlined and the impacts alluded to if not extensively studied. You can be apprehensive about the challenge here all you want, but the status quo is delayed transit extensions, fare increases, service cuts, and an eternal failure to meet a state-of-good-repair. At least see what an Olympic bid can do about those things before condemning the infrastructure to keep rotting away.

 

[DominusNovus]

About the cabot yard site:

How feasible would it be to cut-and-cover the rail lines around there, to make room for the Olympics?

 

[davem]

About the cabot yard site:

How feasible would it be to cut-and-cover the rail lines around there, to make room for the Olympics?

You don't have to cut the lines at all, just cover them. W 4th and Traveler/Broadway both exist already, and it boarders a highway on one side. Perfect place for air rights development.

 

[George_Apley]

But why the hell would we spend $$ on a massive air rights development over train yards when there are huge tracts of developable land that don't require air rights?

 

[Equilibria]

But why the hell would we spend $$ on a massive air rights development over train yards when there are huge tracts of developable land that don't require air rights?

That is the five hundred million dollar question.

 

[omaja]

But why the hell would we spend $$ on a massive air rights development over train yards when there are huge tracts of developable land that don't require air rights?

Not that I necessarily agree with pursuing a Cabot Yard proposal, but I'm not sure you could find any undeveloped/underdeveloped tract of land with as prime of a location. We're talking about an area that is walking distance from all of the amenities in Downtown/South End/South Boston, centrally located off of the region's highway spine, one stop from New England's largest train hub, and at the crossroads of four of Boston's neighborhoods. At the very least, I'm interested to see how much it might cost and how they will pitch the idea.

 

[underground]

Is the added benefit of a Cabot Yard's location really that much better than a location like Beacon Yard, South Bay Center, or Bayside Expo Center? I'm not sure, especially considering the costs associated with a decking project.