A day after Boston's 2024 Olympics bid ended, state and city leaders are taking a hard look at the effort and what can be learned from the process.
"They jogged the imagination. I don't know that anyone would be talking about Woodlet Circle or any of these other neighborhoods, what do to with Columbia Point, if it hadn't been for this bid," Conor Yunits said.
Yunits, a communications executive, was a founder of the No Boston Olympics group, but when the city won the U.S. bid in January, he defected, thinking he could do more to help as a Boston 2024 supporter.
Now he says he believes both sides need to work as a team.
"I think we all share this idea, we need to do more for housing and transportation and the T, so let's bring everybody together, let's form some working groups, let's come up with solutions," he said.
And most agree that job No. 1 is fixing the MBTA.
"We all know it's going to take funding to improve the T," Yunits said.
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To that end, Governor Charlie Baker says the state will not drop the ball just because the deadline is gone.
"I know the billion dollars we're planning to spend on the MBTA will be the single largest spent on MBTA infrastructure in the state's history, and this is obviously an important area for us and we're going to continue to invest and move forward," he said.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said Boston 2024's legacy, millions in research and planning the city could not have afforded, will go a long way to keeping the momentum going.
"I thought about it last night when I went home and I thought to myself, in 2024, watching those Olympic Games will probably be a little tough because, whatever city gets it, I'll say 'It could have been us,'" he said.
