Boston 2024

There's a 25-minute audio piece attached to this article. Click on the link below to access the article and the accompanying radio piece.

Is Boston Secure Enough To Safely Host The Olympics?

By Boston Public Radio Staff

Mention the prospect of a Boston Olympics in 2024 and you're likely to hear an earful, whether it's from supporters touting infrastructure improvements or detractors bemoaning traffic and congestion. But one aspect of the Games that hasn't been discussed much? How to keep them safe. Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem joined Boston Public Radio to explain what security measures would need to be taken should the Olympics come to Boston.

"The challenge of a big event that we are hoping to go forward with is of course you need to be secure but open. That's the Olympic spirit," Kayyem said.

To do that you need beefed-up security to anticipate, as Kayyem describes it, the "infinite" number of issues that could arise. Not only do you need to have security personnel at events, screening spectators and guarding exists and entrances, but you also need to control transportation to the United States in the time period leading up to the Games. That will involve streamlining the visa processes and being strict about who is allowed to come in to the city before the Games begin, Kayyem noted.

"There's going to have to be a rigorous yet open assessment of who's coming into the country, not just athletes," she said.

But should security concerns make Bostonians wary about hosting the games here? Absolutely not, said Kayyem.

"Let's try," she said. "The timing is right for us to try."

For more on security issues and the Olympics from homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem, tune in to her full interview on Boston Public Radio above.
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WGBH
 
Rumblings about where things are looking to be placed in this article.

Most interesting to note here is that they seem to be going full steam ahead on placing the Olympic Stadium in the rail yards south of South Station.
 
Proposition Joe said:
Rumblings about where things are looking to be placed in this article.

Most interesting to note here is that they seem to be going full steam ahead on placing the Olympic Stadium in the rail yards south of South Station.
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Strangely, neither Fenway Park nor TD Garden are mentioned as potential venues.

And putting beach volleyball on the parade grounds at the Common just makes me cringe -- don't we have sandy beaches somewhere that are suitable?
 
Maybe I lack the imagination, but I can't imagine how they'll be able to use the Southie rail yards for the Olympic Stadium.
 
I figure that Fenway Park and the Garden would be a part of any Olympic bid, but they are privately owned venues. I have no doubt that the Garden will be used while Fenway is more of a mystery.

For Beach Volleyball, there are a lot of better places to put it and from all the various proposals I've seen on various sites like 90% of people put it either in East Boston near Maverick Square or somewhere on the beach in South Boston. I think the impetus for putting Beach Volleyball in Boston Common is that they wanted a venue there with downtown views and Beach Volleyball happens to be the most compact venue that could fit in that space.

The sports not mentioned in the article are: all aquatic disciplines, non-road cycling disciplines, kayaking, indoor volleyball, wrestling, badminton, basketball, boxing, golf, handball, rugby, sailing, shooting, tennis, and weightlifting. I imagine that wrestling, badminton, and weightlifting at least are included in the sports being held at the BCEC. I also imagine that the Garden would be used for basketball and gymnastics.

The only remaining interesting question marks on what they're planning in terms of venues would be the aquatics center, tennis, rugby, indoor volleyball, handball, and an international press center.

Although how exactly the Olympic Stadium and the South Boston rail yards thing is planned to work is also an interesting question.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Maybe I lack the imagination, but I can't imagine how they'll be able to use the Southie rail yards for the Olympic Stadium.
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I've heard from a reliable source that it'll be a deck over Widget. Evidently they've convinced Kraft to pay for the whole thing out of pocket in exchange for future development rights on the parts of the deck that are unused post-Olympics. How this all plays out, and whether or not changes are or have been made? Who knows.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Maybe I lack the imagination, but I can't imagine how they'll be able to use the Southie rail yards for the Olympic Stadium.
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They can't. No way in hell will they be able to take active yards for the Red Line, commuter rail, and Amtrak. Amtrak in particular would not be movable - I don't believe they'd be subject to eminent domain, and there's no way you'd convince them to give up their prime yard location for anything.
 
If they can deck the yards and have them running actively beneath the deck that would actually be a really good thing and from what has been said it sounds like they are planning. I am sure the people planning this are aware they can't impact the rail yards.
 
From what I've heard, the decking plan would actually improve the train yard. Evidently a flyover for the CR between the Seaport and Back Bay is included in the plan.
 
There might be someone on this board with a good memory - I remember reading way back, probably in the 60's, that when they renovated one of those train yards behind South Station they included pilings for future air rights. Can anyone verify this.
 
Pretty much all of them could be decked in pure theory, but you've got two-story buildings in all of the yards for garages tall enough to have train/bus lifts and various ops offices updstairs. Amtrak Southampton, the MBTA shed at Widett Circle, Cabot Yard on the Red Line, and Cabot bus garage. None of that stuff can move, so you're talking awfully tall air rights allowances. Go zoom in on Street View and see how substantial those structures are and how high in the sky the cover-over has to be.

This is not New York where Hudson Yards has just the storage tracks and no maint structures to cover over, and Sunnyside Yard has huge rectangular parcels of just train storage with just a narrow strip of buildings. And where both already sit below street level.


I don't think Olympics-unlimited billions are going to allow for this. It's that much harder and exponentially more expensive to air rights here than it is even is with the various South Station cover-over tower proposals which can hang as low as the bus station over the platform shelters. And there's no place to scatter all these transit facilities so you can knock those buildings down a level. Red doesn't run without world headquarters at Cabot, Amtrak's need to restock every train with food service and empty the toilets between runs means Southampton (an expanded Southampton at that, given what the NEC 2025-30 Infrastructure Improvements Plan calls for) has gotta be there and they can't be forced to find new digs in Beacon Park or Readville, and downtown bus routes don't run without the central-most garage and fueling station on the system.
 
If we had to make a list of "un-glamorous" transit project that should get done as part of capacity-building for the Olympics, what would be they be? The criteria should probably be projects that'd be

1) Moderately expensive
2) High benefit-to-cost ratio
3) Hard to explain / justify / "politically-promote"

Basically stuff that'd be unsexy (or seems too "war on cars")in the ordinarly political context, but which would use the sexiness of the Olympics to sell.

A mantra of Organization [paint] before Electronics [Signals] before Concrete [stations or track-miles] is called for. Stuff like:

1) Signal priority for the C through Brookline
2) Improved signals on the Red & Green to permit closer spacing of trains
3) Painted bus lanes (incl. counter-flow) Kenmore-Boyleston-Essex-SS
4) Additional (new) railcars on whichever line is nearest the most venues

As for real, concrete stuff, the upper bound is likely:
1) 1 infill station named "Olympic" somewhere
2) South Station Expansion
3) Back Bay Station total rehab
 
F-line, Hudson Yards does have some maintenance buildings located next to the throat of the yard that are being demoed and incorporated into the deck. There's also some portals being built for future tunnels across the Hudson, which rhymes with the future North-South link.

On the other hand, the Hudson yards deck is aided by the yard already being substantially below grade/street level, an advantage that Widett et al. doesn't have.
 
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Arlington said:
If we had to make a list of "un-glamorous" transit project that should get done as part of capacity-building for the Olympics, what would be they be? The criteria should probably be projects that'd be

1) Moderately expensive
2) High benefit-to-cost ratio
3) Hard to explain / justify / "politically-promote"

Basically stuff that'd be unsexy (or seems too "war on cars")in the ordinarly political context, but which would use the sexiness of the Olympics to sell.

A mantra of Organization [paint] before Electronics [Signals] before Concrete [stations or track-miles] is called for. Stuff like:

1) Signal priority for the C through Brookline
2) Improved signals on the Red & Green to permit closer spacing of trains
3) Painted bus lanes (incl. counter-flow) Kenmore-Boyleston-Essex-SS
4) Additional (new) railcars on whichever line is nearest the most venues

As for real, concrete stuff, the upper bound is likely:
1) 1 infill station named "Olympic" somewhere
2) South Station Expansion
3) Back Bay Station total rehab
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This may not fit your above criteria, but the one project I'd personally most like to see completed as result of a potential Olympics, would be Red-Blue at MGH. It seems like it would have the biggest system wide benefit of any single project, cost/benefit not considered(save for maybe NSLink?). It would also seem to be a prerequisite, from a practicality standpoint if not a technical one, for Blue-to-Lynn/Salem or an extension of Red to Arlington/Lexington (not to mention the relief it might bring Silverline).

From reading the article above, it seems like their goal is to have as many people using public transit as possible, and without Red-Blue I just don't know how the 4 major transfer stations downtown could possibly handle the crushloads that would exist during those couple of weeks. This project is needed even without a couple hundred-thousand or million extra people visiting the city for two weeks.

I'll admit seeing Red-Blue get done is personally a very important project to me regardless of Olympics, I'm just hoping that hosting the Olympics could be the leverage needed to finally get it done.
 
Deetroyt said:
This may not fit your above criteria, but the one project I'd personally most like to see completed as result of a potential Olympics, would be Red-Blue at MGH. It seems like it would have the biggest system wide benefit of any single project, cost/benefit not considered(save for maybe NSLink?). It would also seem to be a prerequisite, from a practicality standpoint if not a technical one, for Blue-to-Lynn/Salem or an extension of Red to Arlington/Lexington (not to mention the relief it might bring Silverline).

From reading the article above, it seems like their goal is to have as many people using public transit as possible, and without Red-Blue I just don't know how the 4 major transfer stations downtown could possibly handle the crushloads that would exist during those couple of weeks. This project is needed even without a couple hundred-thousand or million extra people visiting the city for two weeks.

I'll admit seeing Red-Blue get done is personally a very important project to me regardless of Olympics, I'm just hoping that hosting the Olympics could be the leverage needed to finally get it done.
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Red-Blue should absolutely be part of the transit infrastructure improvements for the Olympics. I think they're going to push for DMUs to Lynn/Salem over the Blue Line, although I agree a BLX to Lynn makes more sense in the long-run. We're probably not going to get RLX to Arlington out of this - unless the community really pushes for it. Forget Lexington, even though the benefits of having another RT connection to 128 are enormous. The Minuteman trail goes through wetlands, and passes private residential lots in the heart of Lexington way to closely for it to ever carry the Red Line above-ground beyond Arlington Heights. I don't think you get Red to Lexington without diverting it under Mass Ave from Arlington Heights to Lexington Center, and/or burying it under the Minuteman until it gets to 128. Which would be at least 6 miles of tunneling depending on how much you sink.

As for the wish-list? It's pretty easy to just list every project that needs to get done and hope some get chosen.

Red-Blue is doable probably. BLX to Lynn should be in the conversation. N-S Link probably can't get done by 2024, but that would be amazing. Some sort of GL connection to the Transitway (whether it's Essex Street or a diversion to Tufts Med Ctr and swinging north to SStation) should at least be studied. GLX to Dudley or BBY/Huntington Ave. D-to-E connector. OLX to Rozzie minimum, if not paired with GLX to Needham to get Orange to WRoxbury. GLX to Harvard via Allston. Red Line to Arlington and/or Mattapan. I mean the list can become enormous.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
I mean the list can become enormous
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From a transit wish-list perspective, yes. From a "just right" Olympics package, it can't be that a metro area that basically works OK would need all that stuff to pull off an Olympics in August (when 20% of the Metro is on vacation anyway...and those that remain won't be on a AM-PM rush schedule, they'll be spread throughout the day)

So not a wish list, but a *need* list. If you pushed me, I might add a bigger park-and-ride lot (structure) at Riverside that was served by DMUs (as in the "Vision 2024" document) or by a D-to-E connector, but not both, and neither if the D were always at 4-car trains (or even always at 3-car).

The Olympics will work a lot like the Boston Marathon or the Democratic Convention: a whole lot of people are going to be on vacation, a whole lot will go to work during a lighter-than-usual rush hour, and a whole lot of people will spread themselves across the system in a sustained-busy-but-never-crush-peak level of usage.

Except to deliver large crowds to particular venues in places that today don't have venues (my one "Olympic Station") I don't see where the Olympics require all these big projects.
 
Arlington said:
From a transit wish-list perspective, yes. From a "just right" Olympics package, it can't be that a metro area that basically works OK would need all that stuff to pull off an Olympics in August (when 20% of the Metro is on vacation anyway...and those that remain won't be on a AM-PM rush schedule, they'll be spread throughout the day)

So not a wish list, but a *need* list. If you pushed me, I might add a bigger park-and-ride lot (structure) at Riverside that was served by DMUs (as in the "Vision 2024" document) or by a D-to-E connector, but not both, and neither if the D were always at 4-car trains (or even always at 3-car).

The Olympics will work a lot like the Boston Marathon or the Democratic Convention: a whole lot of people are going to be on vacation, a whole lot will go to work during a lighter-than-usual rush hour, and a whole lot of people will spread themselves across the system in a sustained-busy-but-never-crush-peak level of usage.

Except to deliver large crowds to particular venues in places that today don't have venues (my one "Olympic Station") I don't see where the Olympics require all these big projects.
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I agree, that's how it's going to work. That's what I was trying to point out. The wish-list approach isn't going to happen the way people think it is. Red-Blue is probably the biggest project we *might* get, and most of the infrastructure improvements will be the "unsexy" kind. BUT, as far as want versus need; it's not just us transit advocates who want Red-Blue, or a Green connection to the Transitway, or CBTC signaling, or OLX to WRoxbury ultimately the system needs those things if transit in this city will be able to handle rising capacity in the coming years. The Olympics might not be the push that gets these things done, but they will need to get done eventually.
 
underground said:
I've heard from a reliable source that it'll be a deck over Widget. Evidently they've convinced Kraft to pay for the whole thing out of pocket in exchange for future development rights on the parts of the deck that are unused post-Olympics. How this all plays out, and whether or not changes are or have been made? Who knows.
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That's pretty incredible if it's true, but even then it's still too ambitious. Being intelligent about this is not only about avoiding white elephants, it's about avoiding projects that go sideways and gum up the works. Build things where you know you can build them and have them done on-time and on-budget.

If that means a Suffolk Downs stadium, then fine. This decking idea is too risky even if they've got Kraft's money.
 
Equilibria said:
That's pretty incredible if it's true, but even then it's still too ambitious. Being intelligent about this is not only about avoiding white elephants, it's about avoiding projects that go sideways and gum up the works. Build things where you know you ca
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Right? They've been going on and on about how they want to do this relatively cheaply, and they're planning this as their centerpiece? Wow...
 
It's possibly ambitious, but it's hardly unprecedented. It's basically the old Back Bay Yard into Prudential Center project. And transportation-wise, it's a spot that makes a lot of sense. Suffolk Downs is out on the end of a line with "troublesome" road connections. Widget is on the Red, walkable from South Station, near 93 and the Pike, and closer to downtown. Beacon Park is the only other spot that could have worked that way, but evidently Harvard said no early on; they've already got their plans for that space and they don't want to change them.

Clairvoyant Bill is also looking into his crystal ball and seeing an environmental fight at Suffolk. And that's once they get past their casino litigation. Then you've got to deal with the mobilized and well organized anti-casino neighborhood groups. My guess is they'll see a stadium and think it looks like a casino. All those issues might have been enough for the Olympic Committee to walk away.
 
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