Boston 2024

Taunton River is not set up for sailing. It's too far inland to get the necessary winds or currents. And that new Route 6 drawbridge doesn't leave anywhere near wide enough a channel for competitive boating, so for all intents and purposes Brayton Point is the furthest north there's room for a race. Battleship Cove would be the docking point behind the finish line.


Go zoom around with th' Google at the sparse number of boat landings around the river. How many sailboats do you see? They're all power boats or little dinghys.


Look, it's not a knock on Fall River or what Fall River will be in 2024. Newport hosts regular sailing events for a damn good reason and th' Google over Newport Harbor is swarming with sailboats for a damn good reason. Newport has the oceanography off the open Atlantic to support it, and the dockside infrastructure to support it. Taunton River 20 miles inland of the bay doesn't. There's nothing to say here except...boy, the local pols have been trained like Pavlov's dogs to start drooling their own shirts soaking wet at any excuse to plug "Moar South Coast Rail free moneyz for my well-connected BFF's plz!".


FWIW...Cape Cod Bay would suck too because the winds get cut down too much by the outer Cape. Outer Boston Harbor and Cape Ann better potential because they face more open ocean. But neither of those is anywhere near Newport's league as a spot-on ideal HQ for the sailing events.


So, yeah, score one for Rhode Island there. Granted it's no 2020-2023 MLS champion Providence Revs in their badass new stadium in 'THE' capital of New England, but it'll do in a pinch. :rolleyes:
 
^ OMG. PLEASE delete that last sentence for the sake of the stability of this entire forum.
 
In a change of pace from the whole Cabot Yards thing, this all seems quite reasonable. Glad to hear that Harvard and MIT are leading the charge, although I'm not really sure what Bentley could be used for...

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b...iversities-hold-the-key-for-bostons-2024.html

All the usual suspects are there - swimming center at some university somewhere, village at UMass, using Beacon Park somehow, Stadium for the Revs. The private developer/lease approach to the village is an interesting one, given that the State owns the site - I suppose less public money is better, but it does raise the possibility of UMass backing out at some point and leaving a developer holding the bag for housing not designed for the open market.
 
I heard from someone working on the bid that Harvard's been stonewalling them on using Beacon Yard so much so that they're beyond the talking stage with some other big money about another spot. The Biz Journal article is interesting, but I can't help but notice the only person quoted directly is the woman from Bentley. Who knows though; I think the bid could still be pretty up in the air for a while while Fish et al work out the complicated details.
 
underground said:
I heard from someone working on the bid that Harvard's been stonewalling them on using Beacon Yard so much so that they're beyond the talking stage with some other big money about another spot. The Biz Journal article is interesting, but I can't help but notice the only person quoted directly is the woman from Bentley. Who knows though; I think the bid could still be pretty up in the air for a while while Fish et al work out the complicated details.
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Fair enough. I mean, the Biz Journal may have quoted the Bentley lady because they're the Biz Journal and have better contacts at Bentley. I noticed that she's the only actual President in the outreach group, while MIT and Harvard have contributed EVPs.

I actually think that if they commit to Bayside Expo for the village (and it sounds like they're headed that way), Beacon Park becomes pretty difficult to use. While the main stadium can be off-site, the village is typically co-located with a few venues. That means that the multiple small venues plan for Beacon Park doesn't really work. It's too far away.

The best plan, IMO, is still to do the village on the Globe site (for which there have been no takers) and the stadium on the Bayside site. I hope that's the "big money" they're working with. I was behind Beacon Park from the beginning, and I still like the idea, but if UMass is enthusiastic that shouldn't be overlooked.
 
Given that Harvard and MIT are all of endowment-rich, land/location-rich, and facility-rich, they seem to have the least to gain from an Olympics, and the least likely to perturb their facility, campus, sports, or fundraising plans. They either don't need an Olympic gift or don't have the sports programs (MIT) that'd "win".

Boston College and BU happen to have large, existing Division 1 arenas they could contribute, but no place to accommodate a big "gift venue"

But schools farther out, that are land-rich and cash-poor seem well-positioned. One might leap at the chance to, for example, {upgrade} a swimming program if it was given an Olympic pool, or have a good-but-underfunded program that could inherit/adapt a used venue.

So on the map below, I see Bentley, Brandeis, Curry College, BHCC and UMass Boston as the sweet spot of motive and opportunity. Further out, there's UMass Lowell and Bridgewater State, both Commuter-Rail accessible (kinda, in Lowell's case) and Worcester-area colleges.

Boston_college_town_map.png
 
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Arlington said:
Given that Harvard and MIT are all of endowment-rich, land/location-rich, and facility-rich, they seem to have the least to gain from an Olympics, and the least likely to perturb their facility, campus, sports, or fundraising plans. They either don't need an Olympic gift or don't have the sports programs (MIT) that'd "win".

Boston College and BU happen to have large, existing Division 1 arenas they could contribute, but no place to accommodate a big "gift venue"

But schools farther out, that are land-rich and cash-poor seem well-positioned. One might leap at the chance to, for example, create a swimming program if it was given an Olympic pool, or have a good-but-underfunded program that could inherit/adapt a used venue.

So on the map below, I see Bentley, Brandeis, Curry College, BHCC and UMass Boston as the sweet spot of motive and opportunity. Further out, there's UMass Lowell and Bridgewater State, both Commuter-Rail accessible (kinda, in Lowell's case) and Worcester-area colleges.
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I see your point that Harvard and MIT could fund things themselves, but there is still the impetus that comes with calling your aquatics center an Olympic venue for the rest of time. There's a big difference between Harvard turning over "their Kendall" at Beacon Park for the first 4-5 years after the highway is moved and Harvard building a single venue that they need anyway somewhere on their campus, then installing a few bleachers for a month.

Harvard, BC, BU and Northeastern have DI swimming and diving, Bentley is DII, and just about everyone else is DIII. I couldn't tell you who needs an aquatics center.

Frankly, other than the village and the aquatics center, no one is giving colleges gifts or messing with master plans unless they have a lot of available land. That's only Harvard and UMass. For everyone else, it's hosting events in existing venues (BU, BC, Northeastern) or potentially using some housing space to host media members, volunteers or tourists (MIT, Harvard, and BU) or athletics facilities to warm up/work out athletes.
 
I actually think that if they commit to Bayside Expo for the village (and it sounds like they're headed that way), Beacon Park becomes pretty difficult to use.
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From the same person who I heard the Harvard rumor from, Bayside as a complete tear down for an Athlete's Village that segues to UMass Boston dorms is more or less a go. Then they build the stadium and a few other venues in another location (not Beacon Yard and not the Globe), and HEAVILY reuse existing venues. Again though, between the financing, the politics, etc., etc. everything's gotta be hugely complex and subject to change, so who knows what the final plan looks like.
 
If the OVillage is at Bayside, its also possible that BC High might angle for a venue. That whole area (Bayside + BCHigh + UMass + Globe + Deck the T+ Joe Moakley Park) is ripe with targets for a mix of permanent, semi-permanent (tear down the "extra seating" wing of the pool...), and temporary venues
 
Proposition Joe said:
Those are all better places to put sailing but that isn't a reason that they couldn't or are unable to put sailing in Fall River.

While it is incredibly unlikely that Fall River would get any Olympic events and it isn't the best choice available, it wouldn't be physically impossible so the Mayor may as well bother with lobbying for it.
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KMP responded about as delicately as you'd expect him to, but he's right.

There's a level of absurdity in hosting an Olympic sailing event in a rundown mill town about 15-20 miles upriver from one of the nation's most iconic sailing towns (Newport). Beyond that, it IS physically impossible to host Olympic Sailing north of the Braga Bridge in the Taunton River and the Fall River section of Mt. Hope Bay is riddled with physical obstacles. I keep my small powerboat at Borden Light Marina in Fall River. There are some sailboats there, but most of them are simply there because slip space further south is far more expensive. You won't see them sailing the Taunton River or Mt. Hope Bay. I haven't mentioned aesthetics... there are none. Fall River is not a pretty city from the water (or from land for that matter). The Somerset side has two power plants (both of which will be shuttered by 2024), one of them is massive and has two 500ft cooling towers. There is also Battleship Cove- the world's largest collection of museum ships. While not necessarily ugly, I don't think a large collection of American warships is something the IOC or the world really wants to see during the Olympics.

Sure, you could knock down the old plants and cooling towers, temporarily relocate the Battleship and make some aesthetic changes to Fall River (Olympic Rings on the Braga Bridge, anyone?); but why would you do that when you can simply move the venue 20 miles south to Newport, 15 miles southeast to Padanaram, or 20 miles east to Marion?

Flanagan has a history of writing very public letters to powerful people with nothing to show for it. He has a habit of plugging the same site each time too (Weaver's Cove). Before offering Weaver's Cove for an Olympic venue, he offered it to Foxwoods as a casino site, Bob Kraft for a soccer stadium, and a Providence based developer for a waterfront hotel site. No bites. Currently, the site (at least a big portion of it) is slated to become a layover station for South Coast Rail. I'm fairly certain (my knowledge on the ownership of the site is limited) that he actually couldn't do anything with the site without significant help anyway. It's a laughable proposal, but he's made the same one over and over again so I'm not surprised. Certainly not anything to put any stock in.
 
There is also Battleship Cove- the world's largest collection of museum ships. While not necessarily ugly, I don't think a large collection of American warships is something the IOC or the world really wants to see during the Olympics.
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But think of the home field advantage! You can't pay for that kind of intimidation.
 
Lrfox said:
Flanagan has a history of writing very public letters to powerful people with nothing to show for it. He has a habit of plugging the same site each time too (Weaver's Cove). Before offering Weaver's Cove for an Olympic venue, he offered it to Foxwoods as a casino site, Bob Kraft for a soccer stadium, and a Providence based developer for a waterfront hotel site. No bites. Currently, the site (at least a big portion of it) is slated to become a layover station for South Coast Rail. I'm fairly certain (my knowledge on the ownership of the site is limited) that he actually couldn't do anything with the site without significant help anyway. It's a laughable proposal, but he's made the same one over and over again so I'm not surprised. Certainly not anything to put any stock in.
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Very interesting. Thanks for this info.
 
Of course, the important fact that isn't being included in the sailing discussion is that Rhode Island sucks, and is bad, and everyone hates it, and nobody should ever go there. Therefore, Rhode Island should play no part in the Olympics - they are the worst state in the union and it's a significant negative point on any Olympics bid that Massachusetts suffers the shame of sharing a border with them. We should be focusing on finding more ways to work around this obstacle, while Rhode Island focuses on becoming more like Mississippi.

I'm giving this Olympics proposal every bit of the respect that it deserves, but the fact of the matter is that whatever asinine proposal gets cooked up to host events in Vermont or New Hampshire or Connecticut or anywhere else is going to fall through relatively early in this process, not because of the sheer contempt held for other states by Massachusetts but because transportation investments have an unfortunate history of being rolled back, scaled down or just cut entirely in the run-up to opening day.

Look at what became of all the transportation infrastructure investment promised by Brazil for the World Cup - and the disaster that is the 2016 Olympics preparations. London's transportation investments weren't a disaster, but nor were they particularly transformative given how much farther along London was and is.

Boston alone would generally need several billion dollars worth of infrastructure improvements, and even if big-ticket inside-128 infrastructure projects like electrifying the Fairmount Line or extending the Blue Line in both directions manage to survive getting cut or rolled back by years, commuter and intercity rail projects - the kinds needed to seriously propose holding events far away from the city - are bound to be axed, which compromises the ability of places outside 128 to actually host those events. It's either 70+ or 80+ miles to Newport depending on whether you take 24 or 95, and neither RI-24 or RI-4 can or should be expected to accommodate the level of traffic that the events would bring, "Games Lanes" be damned - and it's ridiculous to expect that investment into a rail extension to Newport with or without South Coast Rail is going to survive the first few rounds of "rethinking" which transportation projects are strictly necessary for the Olympics and which can be tabled.

The outer Boston Harbor might not be "ideal" for sailing (although I can't see how that could be, since we all know that nothing from Rhode Island could ever be better than something from Boston...) but the fact is that once it becomes clear that shuttling people all over the state and the region is going to cause more problems than it solves, Boston Harbor becomes the only choice for sailing since you're not going to be moving people outside of 128 for anything Olympics-related.

Focus, prioritization, and consolidation are the keys to a "successful" bid. The "best" solution to Olympics transportation problems will be to minimize the amount of transportation that actually needs to occur; consolidating and co-locating venues where possible and containing all Olympics activity to as small an area as is practical. In this case, that's probably the area inside of 128. State-wide buy-in, if it is truly needed, can be achieved through means other than scattering venues to the four corners of Massachusetts.

Oh, and on a personal note, I don't think very many people down here want any part of this disaster either - so to everyone who was worried that Rhode Island might drag down the quality of the bid by daring to try and stick its unsightly hands into the Olympics pie, don't be.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Of course, the important fact that isn't being included in the sailing discussion is that Rhode Island sucks, and is bad, and everyone hates it, and nobody should ever go there. Therefore, Rhode Island should play no part in the Olympics - they are the worst state in the union and it's a significant negative point on any Olympics bid that Massachusetts suffers the shame of sharing a border with them. We should be focusing on finding more ways to work around this obstacle, while Rhode Island focuses on becoming more like Mississippi.
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You might want to consider setting aside that gigantic 2x4 on your shoulder for a bit. I don't condone some of the state-on-state nastiness in the Soccer terrordome thread either, but you bear some direct responsibility for letting it degenerate to that point by getting way, way, way too wound up and being one of the first to start dogmatically shouting down the slightest dissenting views.

If you want to lug that baggage around to every other thread, remind people, and let that define you here as if that wasn't a one-time abberration...that's your choice. Everyone gets carried away at some point. You can either move on from it like most do after a poor showing in some threadwreck, or pre-announce with stuff like ↑this↑ that you don't have the temperament for any real debate and don't really have give a flying flip any longer about being taken seriously.

M'kay?
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
You might want to consider setting aside that gigantic 2x4 on your shoulder for a bit. I don't condone some of the state-on-state nastiness in the Soccer terrordome thread either, but you bear some direct responsibility for letting it degenerate to that point by getting way, way, way too wound up and being one of the first to start dogmatically shouting down the slightest dissenting views.

If you want to lug that baggage around to every other thread, remind people, and let that define you here as if that wasn't a one-time abberration...that's your choice. Everyone gets carried away at some point. You can either move on from it like most do after a poor showing in some threadwreck, or pre-announce with stuff like ↑this↑ that you don't have the temperament for any real debate and don't really have give a flying flip any longer about being taken seriously.

M'kay?
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Yeah, fine. I accept my share of the blame. I'm sorry.

The point about transportation cut backs being the 800-pound gorilla in the room and the inevitable breakdown of any attempt to host events far out (whether that's for solidarity purposes or any other reason) is a valid one, but someone else can argue it because I'm still too pissed off about how that thread turned out and that's mixing with how pissed off I am about the Olympics bid apparently gaining traction and I'm not going to be able to actually argue much of anything coherently as the last post should have demonstrated.
 
FWIW, London to Weymouth is farther than Boston to Newport by a good amount.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
The point about transportation cut backs being the 800-pound gorilla in the room and the inevitable breakdown of any attempt to host events far out (whether that's for solidarity purposes or any other reason) is a valid one, but someone else can argue it because I'm too pissed off about this whole thing.
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First off, cutbacks in Rhode Island aren't a problem for Massachusetts. Public money can't be siphoned off from Newport if overruns occur in Boston, and SCR is pretty ironclad at this point and may in fact be open by 2024 regardless. The rail line from the border down to Newport is RIDOT's problem, and in all likelihood will be their only lift for the Games. If they don't want to do it, then hold the sailing in Rockport where the rail line is already in place, or in the Harbor right off Columbia Point.

Second, I actually doubt that the bid, when it's actually published, is going to include many events beyond 128. Whitewater, BMX, and perhaps triathlon, with road cycling another possibility depending on the specifics. Basketball games might be held around the area, and soccer games might be held around the country. That's really not that much. You're talking as if there's going to be an Olympic Park in Boston, an Olympic Park in Newport, an Olympic Park in Manchester, etc, and that's just not going to be the case.

Third, one of the many reasons why it's so important to align the bid with existing infrastructure projects is to prevent precisely the diversion of funds you're talking about.
 
CBS, unless that was sarcasm, you really need to grow some thicker skin. No one has contempt for RI other then the usual Bostonian knocking of everything that is outside 128 (and even inside, I'm looking at you, Lynn). It's like NYCs view that the Hudson might as well be the Atlantic. I like Providence, and think it has more going for it than most if not all cities in a hundred mile radius of Boston. In that completely unrelated thread, we were knocking the completely asinine argument that Providence, arguably a satellite city, could even remotely hold a candle as a mass media market and major league host to the international powerhouse and cultural, economic, and educational capitol of New England that is metro Boston. It would be like Boston thinking it could host two major league football or baseball teams or the United Nations because metro NY can. It can't. NY is NY, Boston is Boston, and Providence is Providence. At least you're not NJ.


Back to the topic at hand:
How many people even watch sailing? I imagine TV coverage is good, but is it even a spectator sport? Newport seems like an excellent venue for this. You have a historic tie to sailing, and existing infrastructure to support it. IIRC, the tracks on the island are still active as well, only the bridge needs replacement. If we're building this boondoggle to Fall River anyway, its a drop in the bucket to rebuild the bridge. Same thing with auto traffic, how many people are going to go watch boats?

DF_OG_LONDON_12_03121_B.jpg


For low spectator sports that are more outdoorsey (BMX, sailing, whatever else) it makes a lot of sense to host them in places that already have that infrastructure. First of all, you DON'T have to build something new to accommodate it in Boston (huge bonus). Second, it spreads the love around and allows a few select communities to highlight and/or upgrade their pre-existing venues.


Also, this:
underground said:
FWIW, London to Weymouth is farther than Boston to Newport by a good amount.
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