No one has ever argued that, and you know it. Even if someone had, it's not about using the Olympics to get everything done, it's about using them to get something done. If N-S Rail Link isn't one of those things (and no one has ever brought it up as such outside of AB, and even here it hasn't been mentioned in a while), then fine. There will be other things, such as South Station Expansion, Green Line signaling improvements, and perhaps Red/Blue as a long shot that WILL be proposed, and we can decide for ourselves whether those things are worth it. I have a feeling I already know which way you're going.
Once again, please don't rail against hypothetical ideas. The bid book will be out in two months and then we'll know what is proposed and promised, and I would bet money that NSRL will not be one of those things.
I don't actually know that.
Even if you're correct in the assertion that nobody outside of AB is considering tying the Link into an Olympics bid, the timing of the chatter by Baker, Weld and friends is certainly a little eyebrow raising, isn't it? I don't think I'm way off base in suggesting that this might be hinting at a Link component of the bid.
And even if it isn't, the other thrust of my argument still holds valid. South Station Expansion? Happening anyway, regardless of the Olympics. Too much outside pressure is going to come in for it not to happen. Green Line signaling improvements? Same deal once the feds get serious about bringing the Green Line into this millennium. It might not even take another serious Green Line crash to trigger a mandate being handed down, and even if a mandate isn't handed down you can bet the day is coming very soon that the FTA starts knocking on executive office doors, asking a little more insistently "where are you at with signal modernization?"
Even Red-Blue can't be avoided forever. Nobody in a position of federal power is ever going to start breathing down the MBTA's neck about Red-Blue like they will for South Station or Green Line signaling, but the crush loading masses of people trying to go between Red and Blue in a variety of inefficient ways are going to take care of that better than any regulators really could.
And I don't agree with your assessment that this Olympics bid is about anything other than mission-creepy "perfection." The tone here is more realistic than most places, except for when the 2024 thread got derailed into Widett Circle decking talk and other such things, but outside of places like this the feel of the bid is absolutely one with the underlying tone of "this is going to change the city, we're going to transform our infrastructure with this." People whose jobs are to hype this thing talk about it in terms that don't speak to "deciding for ourselves whether these things are worth it."
Maybe I'm misreading the tone of the PR or the feel of the general people I talk to around the water cooler or in the classroom about what they think the Olympics is going to do, and in all fairness those are small sample sizes, but so is the general feel of AB towards the Olympics. I do believe that both the man on the street in Boston, and the PR department for Boston 2024, believe this thing is far more about grand sweeping "transformations" and seeking perfection in the way that you need something of this magnitude to even get off the ground.
I'm probably being overly harsh towards it, because again, I think this is the worst thing that could happen to Boston in 100 years and it infuriates me that we've actually gotten this far along in the bid, but I'm just one guy, so take my opinions as they are and do what you will. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's now chatter coming from outside of AB about the Link at a time where we're quickly approaching the release of the bid book, but I do think that this among many other things is a huge warning sign that this is not going to be about measured improvements.
And - again, I can't stress this enough - whether it's because we're going to choke to death on our capacity issues or because the powers that be light the fire under our asses, most of the things that you would get out of a measured improvements, "reasonable," non-sweeping-overhaul Olympics bid are going to happen anyway. And if you take those off of the table, you're left with either a bid that fails to excite, or a bid that's promising all sorts of things like a Rail Link it can't deliver on or a "we did it because we could that's why" horrible resource-sink stadium built on top of an unnecessary decking project.
