Yesterday, in his fittingly closed-to-the-public press conference on the city’s Olympic bid, Marty Walsh remarked, “Are we going to ram it down people’s throats? Absolutely not.”
The problem is that he’s already done so. Yes, the bid may change based on input from the community hearings, which will be too few and too late (and, given the description of the first one, too tightly controlled). But no one in the city or the state voted on bidding for the 2024 Olympics in the first place. That decision was made entirely without public input.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t even think the Boston City Council has ever had a hearing on this. A search for “Olympics” in City Council minutes from the past year yielded nothing. (The Cambridge City Council, by contrast, has been far more open and proactive. Last month, they voted to oppose the Boston 2024 bid.)
It is important to remember that hosting the Olympics is only part of the problem. One of the biggest damages that the Boston 2024 bid will do–whether the city wins or not—is divert our attention from many of the pressing challenges that we face as both a city and a state. The planning that goes into the bid will take up time, money, and resources, and that will come at the expense of other issues we need to address: the dearth of affordable housing, the acceleration of climate change, the rise of health care costs, the plague of mass incarceration, insufficient funding and inequitable funding for education and infrastructure, among many others.
The IOC does not make its selection until summer 2017. That means that we have two and a half years of time, money, and resources that, in the best scenario for the people of Boston and the state, will be fully wasted.
At his closed press conference, Marty also remarked, “I’d be willing to bet if you took a poll today, the majority of people would be excited.” A month ago, he acted as though he had actually seen such polling numbers. His language here makes that seem doubtful. However, the only public polling data available do not support such boosterism. A poll by the Globe back in the summer found a majority of Metro Boston opposed to the Boston 2024 bid (51% to 38%), although a slim majority of the state overall supported it (47% to 43%). However–and this is key–when the best arguments from both sides were presented, that slim support became overwhelming opposition, with people saying no to the Olympic bid 2:1. In other words, the more people hear about the bid, the more they realize that they’re getting a raw deal.
…and I can’t tell what is objectionable about the format. The press release says that there will be discussion of benefits AND impact, and that there is a citizens advisory group. Both sound like opportunities for public input and feedback.
Some of the public business will be complementary to seeking the Games. Infrastructure improvements will get a shot in the arm, for example.
Haven’t you noted the zeitgeist? Anti-Olympics is the mandated ideology of BMG. People who speak of the nobility of politics will refuse to believe a single statement any politician makes on the subject. Suddenly, Bostonian leaders and voters will be assumed as unable to think about more than one thing at a time. Heck, one person has already tried to invoke a dead mayor to protest. Another person who tries to make a living reading polls for candidates has declared that polls are valueless in this case. A post declaring that we need to trust rumors as truth was widely recommended.
This comment will be downrated, as will anything else I make about the Games. The personal insults won’t be far behind. Just accept it.
Personally, I support the Boston Olympics unless convinced otherwise by discussion over the next few months. (I also find the zero-sum argument made in the main post — a dollar spent on the Games is a dollar not spent on something else — completely unconvincing: the Games can stimulate investment and are not necessarily zero-sum). David also has written that he is skeptical but willing to be convinced to support the Games. I’m not sure where Charlie stands. So that is the three editors: two possible supporters, one unknown. There certainly hasn’t been any survey of the 20,000 or so unique weekly readers of the site, 90 percent of whom never post anything, and only read what others write.
But 20’000 unique visitors isn’t something to crow about.
Hell, I do that with my Google plus home stream and I’m pretty insignificant.
nice tactic.
I haven’t insulted you or any Olympic backer, simply ponied up the data from previous games (nearly all of which have lost money and left white elephants behind) and asked you and other advocates to make counter points that are based on data rather than emotions about the games. You said you wrote a paper on why the Montreal games were successful to spurring urban investment in that community, again a point that runs contrary to what nearly every economist says about the subject, but one I am curious to know more about.
Nobody asked the people of Boston or even the city council (which at least authorized the bid in Chicago) if we should go through with this. Nobody had any public input about who got selected for the board, how the bid will look, which neighborhood or community will host which event, or how this will be planned regionally if Lowell and Worcester will have sites (which I’ve heard from some opponents and backers alike, other groups say neither of those cities are getting anything-so some clarification and transparency should benefit both sides of this debate.).
I am an opponent unless I am convinced this is a bid that will benefit Boston. I am not a knee jerk ideological opponent swept up in the rhetoric against a ‘party for the 1%’ and the like.
Will it be when they find out that public money will be used?
Or when they determined that the damage done to lower income tenants is too much and unavoidable?
Or when they are told how protesters will be muzzled?
Or when? Is there a mechanism for shutting down this bid?
The bid can effectively be shut down by lack of public support since the IOC won’t grant the bid without it. As for your questions I would recommend attending one of the meetings or contacting them through the website.
Is it too inconvenient? Again, examine the reports form the Evaluation Committee on the 2020 candidates. Quoting from page 6: “As additional background information, the IOC commissioned an opinion poll in each Candidate City (and respective region and country) which was carried out in January 2013. The results of this poll can be found in Annex C.”
No, you and twenty loud and like-minded friends don’t get to shut this down because you show up and every forum holding signs. But public support is a huge part of the process, and one reason why so many candidates pulled out of the 2022 process.
The last poll, without knowing a single detail about which park would be destroyed or business torn down using eminent domain, showed 43% opposed, with no majority support.
It is highly likely more and more will be opposed as details are revealed – which is why those in charge have resisted at every turn to release details and still won’t release the bid.
This is why the city needs a vote. Not a poll, particularly not one commissioned by the organizers, but an actual, honest to goodness vote. There should be one in every community with a proposed venue. Period.
I’m not asking what you want, but under what legal auspices? Who controls campaign funding and advertising?
I won’t quibble over your eagerness to spend money on vote when modern polling methods serve just as well. Remember, if you will, that Boston is not the only city vying for the Olympics. Also, that the IOC Board is stacked heavily against North America. So, what interest does the IOC have in a prejudicial poll that will unfairly tilt things toward one city? What’s more, if the poll doesn’t go your way, what is your next step?
I’d rather focus my energies on Governor Baker than rumors and conspiracies.
Other cities from getting a vote, including both in Germany.
And you can stop with any notion that the IOC is stacked against the US at this point. NBC just paid them 7 billion bucks that says otherwise, and the USOC made their peace with them.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/01/10/olyboston/wKW5qZZHh6Mm0VEOKUFr1M/story.html
We are as close to being guaranteed getting the Olympics as possible. The quality of our bid isn’t really that important, so long as it shows we can put it on. NBC has paid dearly for that.
And a vote is simple – a simple yes or no to hosting xyz event in any community. Anyone can form any group they want to support or oppose it.
You are absolutely going cray cray if you think polls can our ever should take the place of a vote. Polls don’t have a campaign, can easily be botched and are paid for by people who often have an interest in a particular result. Are you insane?
…here and here.
Funding such initiatives comes under the purview of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.
FWIW, polling in isolation seldom affects political decisions by electeds, in the absence of:
Sufficient intensity by proponents or opponents of a given issue to make addressing it politically credible.
An organized and politically competent support base on the ground regarding the issue.
Even if the Olympics are taken off the table as you suggest, there remains the matter that the turnout in the 2014 Governor’s race was the lowest in seventy years; there is little to nothing in the way of a counterweight to Governor Baker at this moment, exclusive of the dynamics within the House leadership.
Hence, every issue has to be analyzed in the context of the vacuum on the ground.
That does happen. All it would take would be unusually sucky candidates to get unusually low turnout and that pair surely qualified in the perfect evil of two lessers contest.
Come on Sautai, that is an incredibly lame argument. Do you really think that we are incapable of holding a fair vote on the issue? Do you actually think that a vote would cost anything? Why couldn’t it just be a ballot question? What would that cost? You don’t seem to be at all concerned about the cost of the Olympic bit, so why should we believe for a second that you care about the cost of a vote?
In any case, you are free to spend your energies on anything you want.
I asked questions and am glad Paul Simmons answered them. Better to add information than accusations.
I have no problem with a referendum in 2018 statewide. I fear a 51% no with Boston solidly voting yes while other regions vote no. Seems like that could be a problem, but I never objected to a vote. And yes, I will continue to ask questions, if that’s okay.
Shouldn’t we aim for a vote in 2016? Voting down the Olympics after Boston has already selected would be a disaster.
BTW, what makes you think that Boston is going to be a solid “yes”? I live in Boston and I don’t personally know a single person who thinks this Olympic bid is a good idea. Now, I don’t for a minute think that the people I know form a representative sample of Boston citizens, but I haven’t seen anything so far that would suggest there is much enthusiasm for the idea in the city outside of the mayor’s office and those in the construction industry.
if it is on the ballot with the Presidential election. Pretty much everyone in the Commonwealth will have the chance to weigh in. I forget the rules on getting a statewide ballot initiative but I think the signatures need to be gathered in the summer of 2015.
…at least for initiative and referenda. This would probably be more akin to the non-binding questions sometimes put on the balot by district to advise legislators since it’s not calling for a change in the MGL.
It is not early, it is late in the process. The self-appointed Boston 2024 committee decided they can speak for the us. Why don’t we get get to do so with our own votes?
I would like a binding question on the use of public resources to support the Olympic bid. I have never supported the non-binding referenda and only support binding ones on big policy questions, like the Olympics. If the self-appointed grand pooh-bahs of Boston will not show us what they submitted on behalf of the taxpayers of Massachusetts, then let’s put handcuffs on them. I want to know if the BRA proposal to extend their eminent domain power will be used against us in this process. I want a guarantee that we won’t be paying for the construction and subsequent removal of a 60,000 seat stadium.. I want a guarantee that they will not come to the state pleading for money to pay for their toys. I want a guarantee that my right to exercise my right to free speech and assembly will not be stomped by Boston 2024.
Which of these do you disagree with?
If Boston 2024 shows their bona fides, then I will reconsider. Meanwhile, I consider them deceivers of the first order, as they have deceived themselves first, before trying to fool us. Thanks ML Strategies, Doug Rubin and the rest of the team.
A no vote will mean you won’t get those resources… even the ones already allocated. Try it and see.
A yes vote, on the other hand, is your worst nightmare: there will be no holds, restraints or anything resembling caution in the spending towards the Olympics. You want to see Sochi-redux…? Well then, let there be a vote and when it comes out a clear ‘yes’, then the watchword will be ‘the people voted for it.’ So long to all restraint…
The twin flaws in your argument are glaring: 1) you assume that, once people look closely at the merits of an Olympics bid, they’ll clearly, definitively and with all haste, trip all over themselves in their frenzy to vote “no.” I once thought that way about casinos; and B) that the mayor is just a ventriloquist’s dummy waiting for permission from the hand up his backside to speak and to act. Well, if you treat him like that, don’t be surprised when he, and all the other politicos, take that permission and run clear away with it…
There is no upside to a public vote.
The way a ballot initiative is crafted is, at its best, art, sometimes less so. The question reflects a wide range of interests. You have obviously never been involved in this process.
The authors of the ballot question determine the parameters, not you. If it says no public money then no public money. If it limits eminent domain then no eminent domain.
As I have stated here before, I would like a good Olympic proposal. Your proposal, with no public input, does not work in a democracy. But it is informative to note that you do not believe in a public vote. Wow.
… you’re doing a pretty good job of fooling yourself.
If you think that’s gonna cover it… more power to ya.
On the Olympics? No. I do not. I’ve been pretty upfront for quite a while on how I feel about our republican form of government and my distaste of any hybrid forms and half-measures. We are not a direct democracy. the implications of that are clear: if Marty Walsh did want to ‘shove the Olympics down” anybodies throat, he actually has the power to do exactly that and you can’t take that power away from him. You can refuse to vote for him next time, but that’s about the extent of your say in this. If you don’t like it, then go ahead and advocate for a direct democracy. I won’t stop you. I might even join you. But as of right now, the Mayor of Boston is invested with power to do what he’s done and to keep doing it regardless of what anybody feels about it, least of all you.. Furthermore he has the power, perhaps even the obligation, to completely and totally ignore you. That’s the way it is. It’s not a perfect system. I don’t particularly like it. But I have to live with it. As do you.
I don’t always believe that direct democracy serves us. You will see that in the post that you intentionally misquoted. So now that we have your misinterpretation of my position (as stated in my previous post) let’s get to the real issue.
I did not use the phrase that Marty Walsh wants to “shove the Olympics down” anyone’s throat. Don’t attribute that to him. He is a better man that. He was slow to come around to supporting it, an approach I respect even while I disagree with the final outcome.
But your utterly stupid comment that our shared democracy does not allow for any limits on what the city of Boston can impose on the state of Massachusetts is…utterly stupid.
… stop embarassing yourself.
I said no such thing. I said “you” can’t stop him. I said “I” can’t stop him. A public vote can’t stop him and in fact a public vote is direct contravention of representative government.
You do not have a veto on the mayors actions. You cannot have a veto on the mayors actions.
Other politicians, duly elected and exercising the powers with which they were invested… well, that’s the checks and balances of the system and I never said otherwise.
That you chose to think that because I said YOU cannot therefore I must be claiming that “no one can is given yourself too much credit. If that isn’t arrogance, it’ll do until arrogance comes along. Your further assumption of a ‘public vote’ as totem of totems and most high of holy endeavors is hopelessly naive. Perhaps that’s a potent combination, but not particularly a good one.
The public’s power to make law through ballot initiatives is written into the state constitution. It’s part of our republican system of government. The voters absolutely have the power to take this decision out of Marty Walsh’s hands and ignore his wishes. And we should.
“It is very early” was just to confirm your comment about needing the 2016 signatures well back into 2015, which is much earlier than signatures needed to put candidates on the ballot in the same cycle.
The timeliness of submitting signatures is not about you or me, just a matter of state law. No offense intended.
But I don’t think it would be all that difficult to get the signatures. I suppose the biggest hurdle would be crafting the text of the ballot initiative.
You can’t really say that it is “too early” when the IOC is going to make the pick in 2017. That is not that far off. If you think that is not enough time to come up with a good plan and to get people on board, then we should defer the Olympic bid to a later year.
What I said that for a ballot question in 2016, needing the first round of signatures well back in 2015 is very early in the cycle – just a factual statement regarding process.
Why the City? – this thing is going to be regional – Worcester, Foxboro, Lowell, Waltham…. Why does the City alone get to vote? See the nine planned community meetings Are there planned community meetings in other regional towns? Could be and I hope so; but color me cynical. I agree with you ryepower12 – except that we’re all going to suffer – even communities w/o a venue will suffer traffic/infrastructure woes while the construction & games happen.
From the WBUR story
Really? The committee put the entire region on the hook based on a concept? By the time an actual plan comes out and people see the impact it will have on their local communities, it’s way too late to do anything about it.
We usually see that level during a heated primary race, but I never imagined the Olympics would provoke such visceral reactions.
Typically, I would downrate posts that are either extremely hyperbolic or that do not contribute to the discussion, I see no reason to downrate over mere disagreement.
What is most troubling about this entire debate, and supporters of the bid should be the ones most troubled by this, is that we are all in the dark about the details of the bid. Where proposed facilities and venues will be, how much they will cost, and what long term benefits the city may get in terms of infrastructure investment, tourist revenue, and potential for growth. One would think these details would be widely touted by the bid architects to win more support and arm their supporters in the community with better information to communicate.
The fact that you Christopher, and I, have to keep going back to the website while also guessing on the fundamentals of this project, prevents this debate from being as illuminating as it could be. I would be far more comfortable with the bid at this stage if it didn’t seem that we were going into the IOC blindly.
Exactly. The problem is that the supporters don’t know what they are supporting and the opponents don’t know what they are opposing. My default position in such a case is to oppose moving forward until I have a handle on is going on. But moving forward is what is happening.
This is no longer Boston’s bid or even the region’s bid or Massachusetts’ bid. It is the US bid. That means that, unlike just a few weeks ago, a lot more interests (many outside of MA), including the USOC and NBC, have skin in the game on the side of seeing that it happens. It has become that much harder to stop it should the consensus of the governed be that it is undesirable.
He is absolutely correct that if we voice our opposition loud enough, the IOC will listen. Public opposition helped defeat the Chicago 2016 bid and bring down the Daley mayoralty ahead of time (the parking meter fiasco didn’t hurt, though if we are honest Rahm is basically a seventh Daley term without the blarney and charm).
I like Walsh personally, and I actually like the idea of a walkable Olympics that has a smaller carbon footprint and price tag than previous Olympics. I am leery that our security during 2004 seems to be our main selling point, or that the site locations haven’t been publicly disclosed yet and worked out. But I think we can all use the hearings to get as much information as possible so we can learn about the bid to the fullest extent and make an educated decision.
I have yet to hear the educated rationale for why the Olympics will be good for Boston, but I am eager to hear it, from Christopher, Sabutai, or even someone connected with the bid (maybe Kayyem on her old candidate account?) coming here and taking questions.
I’m just the messenger on this one and have nothing to go on besides the website and what I see and read in the media.
In the press release linked above, there is a further link to the bidding committee’s website. They waste no time soliciting feedback. As soon as you are on the site there is a popup asking for it where candidate websites might have a “donate” or “join our mailing list” opportunity. There are pages describing the process and an FAQ page which is set up in myth vs. fact format. It’s as if the website creators have been reading BMG since all the concerns raised, including in the present diary, seem to be addressed. Not that there are not other valid ideas about how this could have happened. For example I agree with the diarist that a City Council vote to support bidding to begin with would have made sense. However, unless you are predisposed to think these guys are a bunch of liars I think there is reason to be comfortable with the process.
A timeline of the process, previous Olympic bid books, assorted regulations are all available here.
The only time they wasted was the many months of running a secretive process that tried to deny the taxpayers of the Commonwealth the right to have input on how we should manage our public assets. I don’t know why anybody could complain about that.
They won the bid. Let’s see what they do next.
they kept all of the details from the public, including the financing of the project. And they did it by promising to use public resources. Does anyone else worry when private sector developers promise to use taxpayer money?
…which we need to improve anyway. Otherwise, the current promise is NOT to use public resources.
don’t you understand. I am glad to see you used the honest phrase “current promise” but less than happy about future prospects.
I’m almost beginning to suspect that this will be dead before I am. 2017 sounds about right.
What if, by accepting Boston, the IOC is really saying… “looks like we won’t be dealing with the US for 2024.” That would be cool, to discover it was a booby prize all along for all the underlying and systemic reasons that have been advanced.
The toilet ethics crowd is too lazy to put the boots to DeLeo and the Ward Heeler Faction and get things fixed as a normal course of governance. They want a childish gimmick approach instead, which betrays their contempt for process and people.
So instead they wring hands and speculate about how conning these clowns is the ‘only way….’
I find it funny that the enthusiasm among US cities for handling this rodeo clown extravaganza is waning.
Seattle was considering it when I lived there but they have a much more honest civic culture than Boston ever will and when everyone had time to examine the IOC fine print, the whole conceit sank.
Here. we’ll go through a long run of eternally springing hope mania so the boosters can feel properly important and connected before the IOC sensibly concludes that an archaic, crowded and decrepit little city in a contentious and often sleazy political environment really ain’t Olympic material and they’ll get back to picking more amenable and sensible venues.
Why do you assume they are being deceptive?
that makes it part of state law.
Prohibition on funding? Lest anyone think there has never been a vote by an elected body related to Boston Olympics there was this resolution commissioning the study thereof to keep the ball rolling.
They resolved to throw some consultant fees at cronies to dream up ways to claim it’s feasible.
Nice work if you can get it… pipe dream fabrication.
Yes, let the Boston 2024 folks embrace state and local legislation that says no public money for the Olympics. Your comment that “Public resources are only promised for infrastructure” is a fabrication. And then of course there is the massive outlay of public tax dollars that will be needed for security and traffic control.
Please, if you are going to repeat a lie from Boston 2024, stick with the lie. Don’t change the terms when you do not control them.
You have clearly chosen not to believe a word of the website. As someone who is not involved the website is all I have to go on. It seems to me that they have done their due diligence, and regarding money they do say that the feds will pay for security as they do for all Olympics in this country.
the burden of proving the truth, although it seems to me that the Boston 2024 people should be the ones to shoulder that burden. The feds DO NOT pay for traffic control throughout the region. And they certainly are not going to pay for any cost overruns on the facilities.
I believe much of what they say on their website, including the line “We will not divert public funds from projects crucial to our health and competitiveness as a region.”
In other words, they reserve the right to try to divert funds from projects they do not deem crucial to our health and competitiveness. They are reserving the right to tap into MY wallet to pay for a party I cannot afford to attend.
…not as deciding what is and isn’t crucial, but that they are not diverting public funds, period, thus by definition crucial projects however you define it will not be affected. There’s always traffic and other things incidental to a large event, but I guess I just chalk that up the experience of a big city.
FWIW, you probably can afford it. Half the tickets at the Rio Games in 2016 will cost less than 30 USD
that is what they would have written. There are too many lawyers and spin doctors in their claque to have meant otherwise. They are reserving the right to ask for a taxpayer bailout.
I am not unalterably opposed to an Olympics bid. If I thought there was a very good chance that UMass Boston might get decent dorm space, that there would be new affordable rental housing built elsewhere in the city then I would be more interested.
I want an honest Olympic proposal where the taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill because the proponents fall short on their fundraising and claim it is too late to pull the plug. I don’t want my city torn up, the Boston Common (the oldest public park in the US) wrecked for some bikini babes, Franklin Park (a gem in Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace) cordoned off. So far, these players are hiding.
FWIW I don’t want to attend the games. I also don’t want to have my streets choked and have my civil liberties infringed upon by rich people who want a party.
A more reasonable comparison would be the cost of Patriots/Celtics/Red Sox/Bruins tickets.
…but if that’s the case I do think the prices are outlandish, but I’ve never heard that as a reason we should not have those franchises in town.
Opening night ticket prices in London averaged higher than $2500, swimming event seats were in excess of $700 on the scalpers market, almost triple their face value of $200 and most of the rest of the events in London’s more comparably priced market were in the same range.
…but many were not. Some events were even free. Scalping i’m pretty sure is illegal, and shouldn’t be held against the organizers anyway.
I don’t believe that you are so shallow that you only listen to one side of a multi-billion dollar proposal. You must be at least looking at some people who doubt heir presentations, right?
…the opponents have shown that there’s no way it can work. So far it seems it is the pro side that has done its homework.
It is pretty clear that the pro side has not handed in their homework so there is no way to know whether they actually did it.
…relative to financing, inconvenience, facilities, etc. Some people make it sound like this is just some fanciful idea with no thought or planning behind it, which is clearly not the case.
They have a full proposal that they submitted to the USOC. Surely that would back up their claims that they have thought this ought. Why have they not made it public? Why? Why all the secrecy? Why?
So far they have kept promising “transparency” without providing it in the slightest degree. Why should we trust them?
They may well ‘consider’ Boston but it isn’t like they’re anywhere near the substantive digging needed to figure out how doable it is. No deception needed…. yet.
And the specifics will probably be a Pandoras Box from hell with more gored oxen than an abattoir.
And those gored oxen will stampede and stomp the thing flat in its crib with the heavy hooves of litigation.
Then we get the delicious spectacle of booster pirouettes and face saving rituals that probably aren’t worth the distraction and initial millions spent on crafting a sure to fail proposal.
This is Boston not Sochi
They are made to be broken. Sochi was promised a cheap Olympics that would improve their lives. They got an unmitigated 50 billion disaster, with hundreds or thousands thrown out of their homes to make way for venues and empty hotels and Mother Russia becoming a government of dog snatchers.
Why do you have the tendency to so easily believe people who have every reason to be dishonest and couldn’t possibly make a single meaningful guarantee, even if you could believe them.
The Olympics has a history of being built on broken promises, spiraling budget, corruption and the ashes of city neighborhoods and institutions. It’s well past time everyone wake up – and demand the full release of the bid and a vote.
Just to be clear that word coming from me should not be taken as a complement:)
The history you refer to in the final paragraph is acknowledged AND addressed on the website. To be clear I’m not talking about the IOC, but rather the bid committee which came together for this purpose and thus has no record of deception, because it has no record, period. It’s just fundamental to human relations in my book that you start by giving people the benefit of the doubt unless/until they give reason otherwise. It’s a correlary to the Golden Rule as far as I am concerned.
I’m a big fan of Golden rules myself and like to include a generous dollop of doubt benefit, but I watch conduct closely. Behavior speaks more usefully than flack yap and they blew it out of the gate.
It’s the perpetual Boston nonsense of self appointed elites hatching schemes on the sly. If I had a feeling they were competent elites, I’d be fine with it.
But fear not. I did wade through some of the proffered links and found much to like in this part.
There are so many ways to blow it in the clutch here that it should be a fairly easy derail.
One interesting take away I got from checking the role of polling is that they ignore it after some lip service.
In the round that elected Tokyo, (2020?), way down in the’annex, (page 105)’, you’ll find the polling tabs for Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo.
It is pretty funny. Tokyo evinced the least enthusiasm. And they got the thing while the far more enthused Turks got hosed.
I like how they are in a last minute panic over the Rio choice as the locals made a hash of it. This will make em wary of locales that bloat and overrun things. Our stunning execution of the big dig is likely to make em skeptical.
And while polls get lip service, litigation is another matter.
The real reason we got all that commuter rail expansion on the South Shore was due to a Conservation Law Foundation Air Quality litigation over said big dig.
The Civil Liberties angle looks promising as Boston grabs its ankles to be a Terrorist Attraction in addition to the other foisted ordeals.
The various property takings, likely attempts to bypass process and so on are all ripe with promise. This city is so process happy, a property owner can’t swing a cat without process.
I figure it’ll death by a thousand cuts. Maybe a referendum would be fun for the 2016 cycle when people are actually voting. And then a few fat litigation bombs are likely to go off.
We choked the attempt to run 95 through the city, this should be a great chance for a revival.
Suggested viewing: http://youtu.be/-VGajDTNKFU
…but you don’t really expect me to base my judgements on a scene from a scifi movie, do you?
they state that they want to use the Boston Common for beach volleyball (ain’t that an oxymoron) an unspecified public space for rowing, fuck up our traffic to a fare-the-well and restrict free speech and assembly. Other than that, you are sorta, almost right.
the web site you posted says
“We will not divert public funds from projects crucial to our health and competitiveness as a region.”
So they get to decide if public spending is “crucial to our health and competitiveness.” That is not even close to a promise not to use public resources. This unelected body of rich pricks and political hacks think their judgement surpasses our democracy. Remind me, which party do you belong to.
They are saying their plan does not require public funds, which is up to elected bodies to appropriate. Knock it off about party – it has no relevance here. Plenty of people, both elected and unelected, who support this are Democrats, including my state senator who sponsored the resolution I referred to above.
Winning the bid doesn’t undo all the secrecy and the fact that the public and neighbors were intentionally kept in the dark.
They could have won the bid by offering everyone ponies, or by plan to knock down downtown crossing to build a velodrome. We don’t know.
The interests of the public and the interests of Boston 2024 are two, completely different things – radically so. No one should give jack sh#&$t about Boston 2024’s moment of triumph before knowing exactly what was in that bid, every last page of it, along with any other promises that were made.
If the thing was a sound fit, it would sell itself and they’d want to be crowing about it.
But if it turns on an array of callow shaftings by entitled buffoons who don’t want the unwashed to get wind of it, the need for secrecy is readily apparent.
It’s the friggin Olympics, not the Manhattan Project. The swells know it’s a seat of pants jerry rig from hell and some people are going to get hosed enough to bite back.
The secrecy is there to hamper effective dissent but I’m not so sure it’ll work.
… Poker is a game played in which circumstances and odds might be turned upon themselves.
In the case of those who’ve clearly already made up their mind, like ryepower12, secrecy on the part of the bid committee is the only fair response: anything at all they don’t like they’re going to shout long and loud about it. They are intent upon turning the thing on its head and the bid committed is playing close to the vest this early in the process makes a great deal of sense when all they have to look forward to is just complaints.
If the thing is a sound fit, and, as you say, will sell itself, then when the hand is played and call is in, they’ll reveal and it’ll be done. If it’s not a sound fit, they’ll have that call and that’ll be that. Ryepower12 want’s that to be that already and be done. But the hand has to be played.
The thing is in the bag and it’s too late to do jack sh&#@t about it, they’ll reveal their hand – probably with about just enough time to get out of a home or place of work before the building is crushed to make way for a velodrome or something.
That’s what happens when a private group uses secrecy to push something on a public.
If this is a game of poker, Boston 2024’s putting your neighborhood, your park, your place of work, and commute and civil rights and taxpayer dollars in the pot – then choosing which cards to give out to whom, while none of the players get to look – and then demanding everyone to play the game.
…everytime over the years you’ve pointed me to sources and have suggested that if only I read the material I would see the light and agree with your conclusions. Now it is my turn to say for crying out loud browse the bid website. So many of your concerns are discussed and IMO should be laid to rest.
While the IOC links were useful if you dig a bit, 2024Boston is just a middle grade marketing shingle that’s got lotsa glib but not much substance.
It looks like top tier local PR persuasion firms had at it.
The site is glitzy and well optimized for mobile but the FAQ section is a hoot.
Their presumed ‘rebuttals’ of Ryepower’s concerns are little more than a bucket list of glib assertions reshaped as ‘facts’. It could almost make a funny short performance piece with a bit of work.
It is also telling that the concerns are dismissed as “myths” rather than presented as issues or concerns.
It’s a total wing and prayer dog and pony show.
It’s so funny to see because it represents the capabilities of our supposed top dogs, our movers and shakers and big dick swingers.
I found myself saying.. “so this is it??’ Masshole oligarchs are even more provincial than I realized and I was hardly being generous in the first place.
As is often the case here when the oligarchs find a new chew toy, their arrogance is only exceeded by their ignorance.
Meaningless promises and vague assurances.
Nothing should go forward without tangible evidence that they aren’t full of baloney.
I’ve seen this dog and pony show before and know that if they had anything other than baloney, they would have been the first ones out there trying to toot their own horn.
Ronald Reagan said we should trust, but verify. They’ve had ample time to try verify – and all I hear are crickets.
I’m not willing to put generations of people in my state and my favorite city on the line, not when we’ve seen just how much that burden can be from Olympics past.
No one else should, either.
Boston 2024 could release their full bid tomorrow, engage with the city, bring in neighborhood groups and activists and pitch us on how we could work together to make this work for the benefit of all. They haven’t and they won’t. Enough said.
I was working with Tufts U on a composer commission for a jazz guy in 87-ish.
It was during the Dukakis era and he had a capable visionary running what was called the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.
The Globe hated her because she set up a merit system. Old dowager things like the BSO no longer got taxpayer money for existing… they had to have a good idea.
Naturally, this pissed the oligarchs off. Lincoln Millstein over at Arts and Living used the Glob to beat on her and bully her AND foist a Sarah Caldwell fiasco on the funding system.
Sarah was a famous culture dilettante from Boston Opera with some hygiene issues and considerable incapacity at practical things like running big projects. It was during Detente so she decided to have a posse of Russians over.
She made a similar bunch of glib promises but made a hash of fund raising and everything else to the extent that George Schultz, Reagan’s Secretary of State, had to intervene while in Egypt to ensure the thing would happen and avoid a diplomatic incident.
And the mess had ripples. Sarah blew off the paperwork and just dumped it on the hapless Mass Council staff. (You were supposed to do your own paperwork).
The Globe, of course, was utterly full of shit and wrote glowing accounts of what was really their little party. The Phoenix was much better and described the administrative fiasco in considerable and delicious detail.
I was working on an orchestra project and needed to rent a harp. Boston is too much of a backwater for ready concert harp rentals, but there was one person who had a harp or two.
I contacted her and she was initially depressed and reluctant because she just had one broken by Caldwell’s inept stage crew and it evidently takes a while to mend a broken harp.
She finally agreed when I gave her my word that the only persons touching that harp would be her and Zeena Parkins, the harpist.
My hatred of the Globe dates back to then and extends to our glib idiot elite here. This thing reeks of that Caldwell fiasco and already has many similar characteristics. Foisting, dissembling and conceit are already in evidence.
Must we wait for the incompetence shoe to drop or can we nip this crap in the bud?
Not more toilet ethics.
This is governance. Not some crap shoot thrown but unelected oligarchs.
It is a presumed democracy, not Belarus. I don’t really think much of anything is in the bag, TV deal or no.
Secrecy is also handy to hamper litigant preparation and given our peculiar history , that may well be more likely than it is in any bag.
…but I am starting really appreciate why the 1787 Constitutional Convention was conducted in secret!
And was conducted in a free state?
That sounds like a pretty good reason to STRONGLY OPPOSE secrecy in the bid.
did this massive proposal that will disrupt life for years get reduced to a game of poker? Don’t play with metaphors that you don’t understand.
BTW, I am not opposed to the Olympic bid, just liars and manipulators, people who do not tell the truth.
… was posited as always and ever a sign of a weak ‘game plan’. I used poker as a metaphor for an instance where secrecy is not a sign of weakness and, often, can be a strength.
chris-rich also noted that the proposal would ‘sell itself’ if it were a ‘sound fit’ and I noted that keeping your cards close to your vest might be a fair strategy if any opposition was vocal, strident and immune to logic.
“Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” — Flannery O’Connor.
And part of the process whereby a proposal sells itself is to have it out in the open to be poked and examined from the get go.
A bold and visionary leader invites and engages opposition with skill and panache. Weasels try to sweep it under the rug, obfuscate, back peddle and leave as many plausible deniability bolt holes as possible.
it will stand on its own, not by deception or lies. Petr’s O’Connor quote has nothing to do with the circumstances here. But it sure looks purty.
They should be good enough to use as inspiration for this private group of the elite and powerful.
All Olympic planning and organizing should be 100% public, as any city business touching on all the disparate and important issues would be.
Given the public nature of the games (from cost to public interference to use of public space) why should any of it be kept hidden and private? We wouldn’t abide by this for the school committee going over its budget, a proposal to change recycling policy – or even a developer trying to build a skyscraper.
Why should Boston 2024 have been treated differently and continue to be treated differently? Why would you and others argue it should be exempt from these otherwise universal standards for our state until the bid is decided by the IOC and Boston is quite likely put in the position where we are selected, and would then have no real choice but to have the games – and lose control over our city’s must important priorities, from development to public safety to the our taxes and debt?
Open meeting laws have protected cities and towns in Massachusetts from a few elites controlling things from behind the scenes for decades – and this private and unaccountable group is just a way to get around having to be transparent and public, and of having to convince the people of this region of the merits of their proposal.
You argue there needs to be secrecy and obfuscation. Well, I respond to that by saying that for decades we have been running our communities in the open. Schools continue to get built, parents get involved and people have an avenue to organize around the most critical issues going on locally.
Far from transparency being a barrier, I think it’s clear that when our cities are more transparent and more open, they are run better and far more fairly. I think most of the neighborhood groups across Boston would agree – and have great cause for concern that they’ve been shut out from this process from the beginning and continue to be so, given that Boston 2024 continues to refuse to release the bid.
If the Boston Boosters really want to be grown up, they’d front load it.
It would start with something like “Hmmm what do we need to have an Olympics..?” and actually work toward it because it has some intrinsic reason to be here.
And public dialogue would begin at the hmmm point. Not as an afterthought to ratify a foist.
This is just an attempt to do a plug and play injection mold of something into the civic culture and handle the howling monkeys at the last possible minute.
The overload of university poobahs is interesting as are recurrent blurb references along the lines of “the most advanced brain and tech center in the world”.
Obviously no data is provided to support that mawkish claim but it speaks to this profound insecurity one finds in contender backwaters however impressive their accomplishments and assets may be..
comment from the USOC
“We made a request to the cities to go light on public discussion because of the
fact that it is just a draft,” said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun, who said other cities have recently spent $10 million on bids intended for public consumption, describing an “arms race” for the most appealing public bid books.”
Virtual keyboard foul; accidental downrate. Sorry!
. . . if the bidding committee weren’t presenting opinions as facts in their FAQ section. I don’t mean to accuse them of bad faith; I don’t see any reason to assume they don’t believe what they’re asserting. And I’m sure that they’ve got some analysis somewhere to support their conclusions. But at best, those conclusions are based on assumptions that may or may not hold up to examination, and that aren’t (at this stage) available to us for review. And asserting things as facts when they plainly are nothing of the sort doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in their overall approach.
I don’t mean to argue that this can’t possibly be done well, or that the bidding committee is deliberately attempting to fool anyone or obscure anything. And if we’re going to do this, I’d actually prefer to be enthusiastic about it than to spend the next two years fretting about potential disasters and playing Spot the Unexamined Assumption. But the website didn’t reassure me as much as your comment had left me hoping that it would.
In an online conversation with a friend, agreeing about the impracticality of a Boston Olympics, I was about to mention that this is a city that allowed the Long Island bridge, the only access to the largest city homeless shelter, to fall apart…. Then stopped and thought “oh no!” Maybe Long Island, maybe not, but many in-transition or economically-pressured spaces in the city and metro area will be eyed for the Olympics. Lots of spaces could be tied up until 2017 while being vied for as potential sites, delaying other positive uses of those sites.
It’s a classic buck pass in a commonwealth form of government.
The mainland end is in Quincy. It’s trying to pass the buck on fixing its part for this grubby homeless shelter thing it wishes would go away.
Boston has been half assed about addressing it, but it’s really up to the state to wade in and resolve these jurisdiction squabbles.The island is a real asset on many levels but there are insurance issues with some of the old military facilities in yet another perpetual buck pass.
It’s current predicament mainly supports the assertion that a city/state that is too cheap and half assed to manage a quality waterfront asset and amenity isn’t one to let loose with a planetary hoe down that has many more moving parts.
And, of course, Charley Baker has his sleeves rolled up to wade right in and resolve the Boston Quincy quarrel while the ward heeler faction licks its chops and speculates on who can get the job, if it ever happens.
I have to agree with that. We are not only parochial and provincial in terms of how we relate to the rest of the country, but also in terms of how we relate to one another. Fighting over every last scrap of local aid, communities arguing about who has to pay more for special ed funds, charters vs. publics, and suburban voters v. urban residents on issues of rent control and more recently infrastructure funding-with the suburbanites winning out to the detriment of the region.
I think overcoming that to put on the Olympics will be a tremendous task, one that could be successful, but that will require a lot more than Mayor Walsh to work, it will require Gov. Baker and the legislature all united behind a common purpose. And if we honestly believe only the Olympics will be the external pressure valve and ticking clock to spur the necessary improvements needed to take the Commonwealth into the 21st century as a region, than I might be more willing to back them. I think we can do these things without having to host the games, and I fear the games give us such a short time line to make these changes that we won’t be able to overcome these divisions in time.
My sense, coming back here after a decade in the Pugetopolis, was that I was returning to a place that blew the rent money on a binge.
The basic local infrastructure, the very stuff of the Commonwealth that has been a point of pride since I was a child was all shabby and run down.
This what happens when your Eliot Richardson’s pass from the scene, when Dukakis retires and the ugly mess of GOP Foists passing as governors end up locked into dynamic dysfunction with grubby ward heelers who are abetted by yuppie navel gazers running some Beacon Hill version of Groundhog Day until the public despises it all so much it hunkers into a defensive crouch and reflexively says no to nearly anything likely to bite it in the ass.
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2008/08/olympics-open-thread/
Interesting to note that in this old thread, sabutai claims that “there’s no way we could do the Olympics.” And ryepower12 argues that “Boston will get an Olympics sooner or later … I’m in complete favor of the next announced games being in Brazil, because I think that country is deserving and it would make a great statement to have one in S. America. After that, Boston =).”
Sabutai now seems open to, and even supportive of the idea of a Boston Olympics. Ryepower12 is now one of the most vocal critics on this site of Boston 2024.
Luckily, 2024 is far enough in the future that everyone to change their minds a few more times.
har har har!
I made the same argument, almost word for word, in these debates and he talked about how the 2004 Convention was a resounding success! And Rye is the one talking about how the Americans are bound to get the games and it might as well be Boston, basically the arguments sabutai is making now.
Interesting to hear from them what changed their minds, and I do think it is relevant to this current debate.
.
My eyes were opened to:
-the massive spiraling costs that cities and states become responsible for, as evidenced by every Olympics since then
– the massive security crackdown (up to and including the complete suspension of the constitution that would likely take place in Boston), seen in every Olympics since then,
-the compete corruption of the IOC,
-the banning of any attempt by local businesses to take advantage of the Olympics, including the IOC threatening lawsuits against local bakeries for having Olympic themed cookies or suing local businesses with the name “Olympic” in it
-the complete lack of any transparency, or inclusion of regular, non millionaires on Boston 2024 who could represent the interests of Boston neighborhoods
-The fact that the BRA just so happens to be asking to extend its abusive eminent domain powers, just long enough to get them through the Olympics – powers that have been used to knock down entire neighborhoods and city treasures in the past
-The fact that middle income, the working poor and the homeless (who are often the working poor) will be driven out of the city -and often thrown out – in record number, causing massive problems for the city for decades to come, as seen in Atlanta and many other Olympics since then
-The special perks that the ioc would get, like entire roads or lanes built exclusively for them, while other Bostonians suffer
-The fact that it would tie up vast swaths of city real estate for over a decade in the midst of an unprecedented construction boom, creating huge opportunity costs and almost certainly hurting our ability to grow jobs and badly needed housing
-The fact that our city’s most beautiful and well used parks would be ripped up, cordoned off and essentially privatized for beach volleyball, equestrian and other events, up to and including Olmstead’s crown jewel, Franklin Park, as well as the Boston Commons.
I was competely niave back then, just thinking of how nice it would be to actually be able to afford to go to an Olympic event or two in my life, and was thinking more of the city’s glory on the world stage than the families living there.
A city that can’t keep bridges open and who’s schools are old and decrepit, and which has more homeless people than LA, five or six times our size, has much bigger and more difficult problems than the Olympics – the kind business executives, television networks, politicians and lobbyists aren’t falling over to solve, yet would make a much greater difference for our great city and commonwealth.
So I apologize for the naivety I displayed years ago, but with all due respect time is not going to change my mind. Only a completely open process, a promise by the federal government to handle any cost overruns and a plan that has a minimal footprint on Boston neighborhoods, that does not include the denial of anyone’s constitutional rights, and one that expressly denies any special perks for the IOC.
I didn’t comment at the time, but I long thought that Boston couldn’t handle an event of this magnitude, particularly seeing how barely we handled the DNC-and I say that as a Boston 2004 volunteer who was on the ground at several events. I definitely hated the protest zones, the massive police presence, and the sense that my city was taken over by an outside event and all other aspects of regular Boston life came to a halt.
On the one hand, I saw the entire city that week and really got to know parts I hadn’t been to before as someone from the other side of the river. I also got to meet a ton of my progressive heroes, some celebrities, and see the Kerry speech live (the Obama speech was the harder one to get into-watched it at home with my dad).
I felt the same way about Chicago 2016. We had some great plans to get some badly needed transit funding from a penny pinching Springfield, to get some quality athletic facilities and park grounds for South Side communities that hadn’t had access to them. That my proposal for a Chicago CBI got greenlit as a legacy component for the bid committee to study.
But there was the seedy side-the friends of Daley and U of C real estate grabs in anticipation of transforming the Washington Park neighborhood and making it gentrified. The fact that residents of the actual communities we thought it would benefit educated us-the Ivy plus educated fellows, that we didn’t know shit about their neighborhoods and had no business being there selling them the Olympics. That’s what made me turn against the bid, the anger in their faces and the sense that this was unfairly out of their hands. Studying other bids since then, seeing how much money was wasted on Michael Reese, and seeing how desperate U of C is to get the library to make up for the lost Olympics, has all made me see the light too.
Again, on paper, I am with Christopher and sabutai that if we could get an Olympics that was worthy of Boston we should do so. But I strongly doubt that we will get anything but what the IOC wants. And what it has delivered to every host city in the past, is something we should strongly consider avoiding if we can.
from the Boston 2024 commitment. CNBC is reporting today that in an interview with Exec Vice President Erin Murphy that public funding might be needed for the construction of Olympic buildings, in addition to the the infrastructure improvements they want:
“Murphy counters that no taxpayer dollars would be put toward the “operation of the games,” although public spending would go toward infrastructure costs like roads, buildings and transportation.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102329308#
I am interested in hearing from Murphy if she will confirm this new claim on public money.
Lots of bombs are dropped in it, and it so succinctly lays out the scary inevitabilities (like the ballooning costs), putting them into context.
the chance to deny she said that building construction might be part of the package. She truly might have been misinterpreted/misquoted. You could write to Boston 2024 and ask the question at their website but since that seems to be a PR front I would not hold my breath waiting for a response.
Most disappointing today was Shirley Leung’s appearance on WBUR saying (and I am paraphrasing) that she really hoped that Boston 2024 would be a little more transparent. Utter bull shit. If she is not demanding the release of the USOC filing then she should quit the Globe or they should fire her. Billions of dollars are in play and a columnist who does not have to rely on facts before she expresses her opinions does not belong at what used to be a great newspaper.
Why do we have to rely on a national on-line website to ask the penetrating questions yet cannot count on our Paper of Record to do so? Ah yes, it is the ingratiation that the ink stained wretches engage in when trying to be part of “the team.”
If you detect a little anger underneath my snark, you have my number. Guilty, as charged.
The CNBC article misleads when it implies that the entirety of the Olympics will only cost 5 billion dollars. It most certainly will not. Nobody, with the exception of the mouth breathers over at CNBC, thinks that this is the case.
The Boston2024 bid comes in at about 5 billion for private funds raised PLUS another 4 or 5 billions of already identified public infrastructure funding without allocation for security, which is expected to be carried by the Feds. The total cost of putting on the games is expected, not as the article cites to be only 5 billion, but over 10 billion. If we do not host the Olympics that 4 or 5 billion dollars of already identified public infrastructure spending will still be spent. That is the, hoped-for, beauty of the bid: it leverages existing public funding so that the 5 billion of private funding is for the actual running of the Olympics on top.
of already identified public infrastructure spending is not part of the Olympic bid. CNBC made that clear. You are dissembling.
I don’t know about you but I was involved in the Green Line extension going back more than a decade and fought to make sure that money would be spent in compliance with the BigDig mitigation efforts but that means it is NOT part of the Olympic bid. And it is not all federal money.
The Boston 2024 peeps continue to write about their $5 billion, while falsely claiming that they are getting new investments in infrastructure even while they won’t answer the question of whether they want tax money for buildings or acknowledging they want billions of dollars from federal taxpayers for security.
…The article said that, because THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND. That you want them to be right is your investment in your anti-Olympics position, not by reason or perspicacity. I’m not dissembling, I’m untangling their’s, and yours, emotional, sensational, misunderstanding.
The cost of going from here, now, to the Olympics, is not going to be anywhere near 5 billion. CNBC made the clear, and erroneous, statement that “Boston plans to do the Olympics of 5 billion”. That is not the case. That is wrong. That will never be the case. If you want to split hairs and say the Olympics bid is separate from infrastructure spending and let’s summon forth an accounting fiction, then fine. But don’t tell me I’m dissembling when it is the opponents of the Olympics, yourself included, who’ve fabricated, conflated, misunderstood and generally muddied the waters with half-truths and misprisions.
as proved in a post from a few weeks ago. I am opposed to Boston2024 trying to fool the public and I am opposed to you dissembling and outright lying about the bid. If you were merely uninformed about the broad range of issues under consideration here, then your behavior might be more understandable but you compound your lack of knowledge with a heavy handed bullying when you get caught in your numerous fabrications.
Mayor Curtatone’s idea over on the thread I started seemed like a good one. Let’s presume for the sake of argument that we are going to win the IOC bid, we can use that bid as a crutch to get federal dollars for the plethora of real transit reform we need. Not just South Coast and Green Line extension, but Urban Ring, North-South connector, BRT service, and updated arterial roadways. Add an updated communications, electric, and broadband grid and then add amendments forcing affordable housing within Boston and it’s adjacent towns, and force a regional planning board, and we can get a legacy out of these Games that will benefit us for the long term.
If the Feds won’t do it, the private interests backing the bid won’t do it, than maybe we shouldn’t do it. His proposal seems like the only way boosters can actually deliver on the long term spur and growth promises. Either deliver the moon you promise, or hold your party somewhere else.
in which I would be okay with considering the Olympics, if the feds pick up any costs private funding can’t.
If the Federal Government isn’t willing to do that because of the stratospheric expense, the city of Boston or Commonwealth of Massachusetts would be astoundingly stupid to do it.
A federal guarantee on financing should only begin the conversation, though, not end it. There are still concerns over our the damage that could be done to our neighborhoods, our constitutional rights, among others.
People who support mass transit (like me) need to be realistic about the cost-benefit balance on mega projects. Too many proponents have ignored the details on the South Coast rail proposal and support it without examining the details.
The problems around financing it are likely the ones that will kill it. Capital costs are projected to be well in excess of $2 billion, certainly a low ball estimate given the failure of Transportation to account for environmental mitigation. That borrowing would add $50 to $60 million annually just to debt servicing. Federal funding? Hah! As Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff once asked about this project, “If you can’t operate the system you have [the MBTA], why does it make sense for us to partner in your expansion?”
South Coast expansion would add to the operating costs of the whole T system, since rider fares do not cover them and they are already overburdened. We can kiss goodbye to the possibility of replacing our aging rolling stock or repairing the existing infrastructure, let along making the Red-Blue Line connection and the many other capital projects mentioned by jconway.
All of this money would benefit a projected 5000 daily commuters. As a South Coast resident, I might sometimes be one of them but at that cost, I would prefer you just give me and all of my other prospective riders $20,000 to buy a high fuel efficiency vehicle and save the other $1.8 billion.
Or better yet, invest in my communities. If we have $2 billion to play with, engage in a big state funded off-shore wind project and don’t let the New Bedford launch site die with Cape Wind. Make Bristol Community College and UMass Darthmouth more affordable options for local people. Help our local fisherman even if it requires buying out some of the boat owners.
The environmental problems of South Coast rail get less attention than the financial ones but the devastation to the Hockomock Swamp in the Taunton River Watershed would be enormous, including the globally rare white cedar population. There are few better organizations that know enviro science than Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and they think this project would be a really bad idea. See this examination in Commonwealth Magazine for a sketch of the enviro problems:
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/environment/005-south-coast-rail-worries-environmentalists/
The South Coast does not need a bunch of Bostonians telling us that expensive mega-projects that turn our dying cities into Boston bedroom enclaves are the answer to our future. People are not going to move here for cheaper housing and a one hour daily rail commute each way. Let’s have a reality check, please. And spend the money on things that will really help our region.