Boston 2024

curious - is the reggie lewis center on the list of venues? they're hosting the USA indoor track national championships next week (as they've done multiple times).
 
datadyne007 said:
Boston 2024 is upping their offensive on profitable Olympics:

DYK: The last three Olympic Games in the US have been profitable. In LA and Salt Lake City, those profits were returned to the city or invested in legacy youth sports foundations such as the LA84 Foundation. LA84 has given $220 million to youth sports programs in southern California, impacting 3 million boys and girls.
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I can certainly understand why they'd pitch this, but I don't know that it's going to sway tons of voters. First, LA was completely anomalous, and I'm consistently surprised how many people I talk to know it. LA was the only city in modern Olympics history to be in the cushy position to dictate terms to the IOC, rather than having terms dictated to them (only Tehran was an early competitor and had to drop their bid due to a pesky revolution). What LA has done with the profit is admirable, but I'm not holding my breath it's replicable. The IOC and NBC know how to negotiate.

Also, profit for whom, and on what? The organizing entity, presumably, which per Boston 2024's statements will be either a newly created authority or an expanded existing authority. This would presumably ensure any profits go back into the greater community in some way. And I am 99% certain they're talking about profits on the operating budget.

But the entire debate has largely focused on the costs / benefits OUTSIDE of the specific operations budget. I am personally pretty well sold that the ops budget would end up in the black. I don't know if it'll be > $200M, but it'll profit. But the stuff outside the ops budget is what I care about.

So, for a pair of straw men:

Scenario A: The ops budget turns a $250M profit - all of which goes to worthy causes post-Games - but our state pols turn the infrastructure component into a clusterf*** of misguided spending that completely misses the point of what we really need, while pissing off commuters/voters/taxpayers and managing to make even more sour the general political environment for improving and rationalizing our long-term infrastructure planning and construction.

Scenario B: the ops budgets limps in with a paltry $1M profit, but as a polity (voters, pols, etc, all of us)- perhaps prompted by this winter's fiasco - we sort ourselves out admirably and we launch ourselves into a reform of infrastructure planning that sets us on a solid path both for digging out of the hole we're in and getting started on needed expansion. Not just for 2024 or the Olympics but the years beyond and everyone in the region.

OK, I admit that those are straw men; any reality will be somewhere in between or perhaps not even along the spectrum between those straw men. But if we ended up closer to Scenario A, the profit gained and spread among worthy causes would not (for me) be worth the damage done to long-term planning. Whereas Scenario B, even if declared a relative failure on the ops side, would make me ecstatic. (And yes, I know there are other straw men, like the infrastructure part goes great AND we pull in $800M in profit. That's the sort of optimism that leads to the purchase of lottery tickets.)

All this is a long-winded way of saying that I don't think the profitability of the operations budget is really the key point at all. It's A point, but not nearly the KEY point. Not for me, and not for anyone else I've spoken too. So I don't mind the promoters running with this argument for a bit, but it's only going to get them so far, and not very far, in my estimation.
 
Reggie Lewis wasn't in the original plans but when someone asked (I think at the Roxbury meeting on Monday), the board was quick to respond, "That's a great idea!"

I think they are thinking/assuming it would be used as practice facilities, not for actual events.
 
I think people are also forgetting the long term profit that comes from the exposure. Have you been to Park City, UT lately? That town is booming with new ski resorts and luxury hotels. I was there last June for a wedding and couldn't believe the development. Also, Salt Lake city wasn't looking to bad either. The mall in downtown was pretty neat with its retractable roof.

Initially the four weeks would suck. I agree with you there. But the economical impact and the infrastructure improvements that would come from hosting these events would last years.
 
akmags said:
I think people are also forgetting the long term profit that comes from the exposure. Have you been to Park City, UT lately? That town is booming with new ski resorts and luxury hotels. I was there last June for a wedding and couldn't believe the development. Also, Salt Lake city wasn't looking to bad either. The mall in downtown was pretty neat with its retractable roof.

Initially the four weeks would suck. I agree with you there. But the economical impact and the infrastructure improvements that would come from hosting these events would last years.
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There are plenty of examples and counter examples. I won't be flip with the more extreme counter- examples of what happens with cities post Olympics and if it has anything to do with the Olympics. But there are enough examples to suggest the Olympics can distract from dealing with pressing social, political and economic realities and it is more of a risk than opportunity. LA is a very mixed example itself.
 
That said just because the risks outweigh the potential rewards doesn't mean I say don't do it. I just think the merits of the Olympics aren't merely tangible and if you make it about the tangible benefits then you lose the argument for hosting.

Similarly I don't think you justify the 4th of July by how much beer you sell or by claiming fireworks are good for the economy or the Boston Marathon and Patriots Day by how much money shoe companies can make afterwards. There will be economic winners and losers, but I think success would be measured by people having a good experience and not going broke doing it. And no doubt hundreds of thousands of people taking two weeks off to flee the city will be a hit on some businesses and will largely negate the tourism benefits.

In terms of lasting effects on the city, it would be good to see more about the Olympic village becoming a new student neighborhood with mixed housing and perhaps retail and offices after the games. And on transit, once they get the venues nailed down, it would be good to see which stations, sidewalks, roads, etc will need sprucing up and what needs to be done.
 
akmags said:
I think people are also forgetting the long term profit that comes from the exposure. Have you been to Park City, UT lately? That town is booming with new ski resorts and luxury hotels. I was there last June for a wedding and couldn't believe the development. Also, Salt Lake city wasn't looking to bad either. The mall in downtown was pretty neat with its retractable roof.

Initially the four weeks would suck. I agree with you there. But the economical impact and the infrastructure improvements that would come from hosting these events would last years.
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I was in Park City two weeks ago. Yeah, it's booming, but it's all resort development. Like Aspen. PC is not something that is directly comparable to Boston: the reason for the Olympics being at PC was the mountains, same reason the resorts are there. It's one of the richest zip codes in the country. I seriously doubt the Olympics had much to do with it; skiing is increasingly popular and it generates a lot of money - and PC has been a rich-ass zone for a long, long time, same as any resort.

Also, Boston will get some "exposure" but it's not like it has none now.
 
I expect that, over time, much of the visible opposition will dissipate, and that the pro-Olympics group knows this and will just wait it out. Following that, there'll be a group of very vocal, almost militant opponents but they'll be marginalized.

Of course, the opposite could happen and opposition could grow, like it did in the 1960s with I-695 and the current governor will put an end to any plans, regardless of whether or not there's a referendum.
 
It will have to come down to what the final concrete plan is. Already some of the ideas to make it an affordable project are coming apart. It's still doable but there are going to be a lot of hurdles.
 
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Hamburg chosen as Germany's nominee. Joins us, Rome, and likely Paris.
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Better for Boston's chances. The narrative of a diverse, tolerant, effortlessly cool, and unified Berlin triumphantly overcoming the legacy of 1936 would've been hard to beat. Hamburg is a nice city at the forefront of sustainability, but that's about it. Rome is magnificent but Italy is in no place to host the Olympics.

IMO, it's Paris vs. Boston.
 
lexicon506 said:
Better for Boston's chances. The narrative of a diverse, tolerant, effortlessly cool, and unified Berlin triumphantly overcoming the legacy of 1936 would've been hard to beat. Hamburg is a nice city at the forefront of sustainability, but that's about it. Rome is magnificent but Italy is in no place to host the Olympics.

IMO, it's Paris vs. Boston.
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I think you're being way too quick to dismiss Hamburg, though your point about Berlin's relative appeal may have been accurate had they been chosen.

Along with Hamburg being in the forefront of sustainability, they are also really advanced in simultaneously modernizing their immense port facilities while also converting over portions of their port lands (many man-made islands) that are being made obsolete by port upgrades elsewhere in the broader shipping basin. Their Olympics plans fit into that, as can be seen for example in the following links (one in English and one in German for those of you who read it):

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/03/16/olympics-2024-germany-idINKBN0MC24820150316

http://www.ndr.de/sport/mehr_sport/Hamburgs-Olympia-Plan-Spiele-auf-der-Insel,olympia3388.html

(the German site has more renders)

They are pitching their plan as being 100% accessible by foot and bike and subway. From my first perusals of their plan, their claim on this front looks more credible than Boston's original plan looked. And the tendency of the Boston bid so far (I know, long way to go still, nothing in stone yet, etc) is for the centrifugal forces of MA politics to pull venues outwards. In Hamburg, they may actually have a developable parcel of land on which they can carry out this compact scheme. I don't know the politics of this site, but will try to find out, so perhaps these plans could be mired in opposition. But I don't think so: I think it's held by the Hamburg equivalent of MassPort.

And in the end, the IOC cares about furthering the Olympics cause and brand a thousand times more than they care about any given city. And thus they care deeply about any bidder's ability to pull it off. They've had deep scares recently - Athens, Sochi both staggered to the finish line, Rio is struggling - and plenty of concerns with viable cities getting taken out of competition by their own voters. That last possibility could happen in Hamburg, too.

But for anyone like me who's seen Hamburg's infrastructure, you know that it is - RIGHT NOW - radically better than Boston's. I mean sidewalks, bike lanes, taxi fleets, little roads, medium roads, big roads, subways, busses. Maybe on airport our Terminal E can compete with their airport. But on every other front they have spent the last thirty years doing the opposite of the neglect and mismanagement we've done over that time span. What we as a culture throw at military spending, they as a culture (all of Germany, not just Hamburg) throw at transport infrastructure.

If Hamburg's bid team can get their citizens on board (not a certainty) and promise some new subway lines to serve that island, and a bunch of new bike/pedestrian bridges to connect to downtown and other parts of the existing fabric, the IOC will have confidence that they'll get built. If Boston promises the as-drawn expanded South Station and re-opened Dot Ave to become the grand Olympics boulevard to the stadium, will we get that done? I sure hope so, but if I have to place my bets on who is more certain to live up to promises on infrastructure, my money's on any German city over Boston. This is not treason, this is realism.

The IOC is already watching the public debate over the T closely and will continue to do so for the next few years. Not all of them are royalty, some of them have likely been on the T already, and more will visit between now and 2017, as will their hired scouts. In the eyes of any neutral observer, the T is a pathetic joke compared to the subway of any German city. And I mean this when comparing the two systems operating normally in perfectly fine weather, not under the stress of ultra-extreme winter events of the sort that will not occur during July/August. And the way we flail about in our discussions about what to do is not going to impress anyone as compared to the way the Germans do infrastructure politics. Sure, they fight, and some ideas do get shot down, it's not one big happy family by any means. But it is inconceivable that any city would ever let its subway systematically run down over time like we have with the T. So their promises on future projects look more realistic.

On the idea of re-using existing facilities, Boston's in a better place than Hamburg, though not on the big items that always cause the heartburn: main stadium, aquatics center, velodrome. And on the university front, a key part of Boston's bid, I've heard some backpedalling from within the university community. So perhaps the Boston edge on this front isn't as solid as it looks at a glance.

I agree with you about Rome, they're not credible, Italy's situation within the Eurozone will make Rome look like a potential repeat of Athens to the IOC. I don't have as much of a read on the politics of a Paris bid, either within Paris or at the IOC.
 
Maybe Boston 2024 needs to focus more on Mass Port and Convention Center land in the Seaport area. The stadium could go behind the convention center.
 
datadyne007 said:
Hamburg will have a referendum. Over 50% must vote FOR the Olympics in order for the city to submit. It is not a referendum against.
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I think if Massachusetts did a 2016 referendum which was structured as being welcoming of the Olympics, but which stipulates no public general fund spending on venues, Olympic specific transportation infrastructure, operations other than security then that would be a winner.
 
The Boston bid should instantly take as many lessons as they can from the outline of Munich's proposal. What I'd take away: localize everything in the Seaport to every possible extent, branching out only to venues with very concrete transit access. For example:
  • Buy out all the low-slung warehouses to the east of the Convention Center for Olympic Stadium
  • Buy out USPS parking lots along A street for Olympic Village
  • Repurpose the abandoned pier behind the Pavilion for aquatics
  • Suffolk Downs for equestrian - run a dedicated SL fleet through the TWT
  • BCEC for as many of the smaller venues as possible
  • Carson Beach for Beach Volleyball
etc
etc
etc
 
Shepard said:
The Boston bid should instantly take as many lessons as they can from the outline of Munich's proposal.
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You meant Hamburg, yes?

I think it's risky to react too quickly to anyone else's bid; looks panicky.

My long-winded screed above was more a warning that if we pitch our bid as "look at our transit, and look how much better we'll make it between now and 2024", Hamburg will kick our asses from here to Hawaii, while the IOC rolls around on the floor laughing their asses off.

Shepard said:
What I'd take away: localize everything in the Seaport to every possible extent, branching out only to venues with very concrete transit access.
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Interesting idea, but I think it conflicts with all sorts of plans already afoot for the Seaport. Some of the parcels you mention, if I understand correctly, are needed for the MassDOT / USPS land swap that is the precursor for South Station expansion. I'd hate to see that get hindered by a decade for any Games. Also, the Seaport now has some of the most cluster****ed transit issues of any part of Boston, and there's a ton of new commuter pressure already under construction or in the credibly near-term pipeline. Perhaps sinking Silver under D plus some additional Silver priority lanes in the area you propose would work, but I wonder.

Equestrian at Suffolk makes sense, and some other things could likely fit there, too. I would expect spectators to get there via Blue Line, not bus. Athletes will have to be taken by dedicated bus, that's true, but viewers should be on the Blue Line. It's the only line not groaning under capacity issues, so there's that.

One of your ideas, though: the aquatics center out on the old drydock behind the pavilion. This is genius, I want this to happen, Games or no. It could be rented to hotel visitors on day passes, or office workers, plus club memberships for the many new residents out there. I work in DTX and I'd hop a hubway bike to do mid-day swims there, and I am sure I'm not the only one. It would be a wicked site for a great pool, and a permanent one. MA should own it, it could be the default location for MA high school swim championships and the rest of the year as I proposed above. I must now acknowledge that as a former competitive swimmer/water polo player, I am not capable of rational thinking when it comes to aquatics centers. I want better ones, full stop. I can do cost/benefits analyses on all other types of structure, but better pools? I want. So I wait while some non-swimmer dissects the idea.
 
West said:
They are pitching their plan as being 100% accessible by foot and bike and subway. From my first perusals of their plan, their claim on this front looks more credible than Boston's original plan looked. And the tendency of the Boston bid so far (I know, long way to go still, nothing in stone yet, etc) is for the centrifugal forces of MA politics to pull venues outwards. In Hamburg, they may actually have a developable parcel of land on which they can carry out this compact scheme.
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Sure, but there's another term for what you're talking about and what Hamburg is proposing: "Olympic Village." What Boston 2024 has proposed is not just about being walkable and transit-friendly. That's part of it, but the "whole city as the Olympic Village" concept is also about using existing facilities that are located within reasonable walking, biking, and transit distance. This saves money, and prevents white elephants from tarnishing the legacy of the Games.

We have a "developable parcel" in Boston as well, as Shepard has pointed out. Actually, we have a couple. Boston 2024 could have proposed to center everything in a massive redevelopment of Massport land in the SBW or at Suffolk Downs. Here on AB (and in the city in general) this wasn't the preferred option, because we saw Boston's ability to spread the Games out among neighborhoods, distributing the benefits and the burden across a slightly wider area of the city, as a more economical strategy than remediating an industrial island. FWIW, ideas like that (see Treasure Island in SF) don't seem credible when they're proposed in the US, so I don't see why we should assume it's easy in Germany.

Also, Hamburg may have a high-quality transit system, but the U-bahn doesn't serve Kleiner Grasbrook. Even extended, they're talking about one U-bahn and one S-bahn station, in an arrangement not unlike JFK-UMass. Were Boston 2024 proposing to locate the stadium, village, and a bunch of venues at Bayside Expo, I think we'd have a lot of concerns about the ability of one dual-mode station to handle the traffic. Hamburg isn't proposing to place these events in the middle of their multi-modal web.

Finally, let's not pretend that Germany is some magical infrastructure heaven. They have mind-bending boondoggles there too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
 
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