5 ms·

I visited LA a couple of years ago. The smog in that region was awful. Out of all of the cities to represent the United States. I can’t believe LA was picked a

by xyst 2y ago

I visited LA a couple of years ago. The smog in that region was awful. Out of all of the cities to represent the United States. I can’t believe LA was picked as the spot to showcase on an international level. A “4-year sprint” to make it “car free” is nothing more than a Potemkin Village in my opinion. International visitors will be greatly disappointed at how terrible this country’s public transportation infrastructure

playingalong 2y ago
Car free or not. There will be tons of public transportation extraordinary options running during the Olympics. There is simply no other option to move all these people around - athletes and their crew, service people for the venues, journalists, etc. etc. Not to mention the spectators.
- dmurray 2y ago
  That's not public transportation."Mass transportation", maybe. Shuttling athletes and their minders from the Olympic village to the venues is a different set of challenges from delivering a city's residents to their places of work, school and recreation day in, day out.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I have been thinking. Should we actually move towards reducing people involved? Like ban all spectators, just stream televise them. Journalist can get their interviews over Teams meetings. No need for dignitaries to be present either. Basically you need only athletes, maybe coaches and support staff. For catering, well develop some efficient meals that don't need heating and produce them off-site. All this would save lot on very many things, both in emissions and in costs.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Some events already take place at distant locations. I think they are planning on hosting the softball events out in oklahoma for this olympics.
  - ibash 2y ago
    You know, we can solve all the problems if we get rid of the athletes…
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Even better, let's move all the competitions to VR/Wii, that way it can all be streamed and requires much less infrastructure.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Also those expensive and big opening and closing ceremonies. Why not just do it all with generative AI. Soon no one would even notice difference, just imagine the savings.
tacticalturtle 2y ago
> I can’t believe LA was picked as the spot to showcase on an international level. It’s because they’ve done it relatively recently and efficiently, and no other city wants the hassle. They have the 2028 slot because Boston pulled out, after half the city’s politicians revolted against the idea
dageshi 2y ago
Paris and LA were the only two cities who bid for the Olympics in 2017. They got the 2024 and 2028 Olympics respectively. I'm not sure any other city in the US wants to host the Olympics. I'm not sure there's many cities in the entire world that want to host it at this point...
- addicted 2y ago
  I mean look at Paris. The city’s residents emptied out. This is still ok in Europe, especially France, which have a culture of weeks long summer vacations, so it wasn’t as much of a disruption as timing the vacation right. I’m not sure how well it will work for the residents of LA when US residents have no such limitation. OTOH, LA is large and broken up enough enough that it may not be very noticeable for the residents as long as they remain in their residential areas.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > I mean look at Paris. The city’s residents emptied out Some of them did, but lots remained at least for some parts. The venues, fan zones, streets and cafés/bars/restaurants were full with people dressed in French colours.
- Kon-Peki 2y ago
  People in Brazil were convicted for money laundering related to buying votes for Rio 2016. The US refused to submit a bid for the 2020 games because the IOC was demanding more money. Tokyo, which had the strongest 2016 bid according to the IOC grading process, took 2 runoffs to win the bid for 2020 with some pretty shady voting patterns. So yeah, it’s no surprise that hardly any city wants to bother with the IOC.
duxup 2y ago
>The smog in that region was awful. That was the concern in 1984. I believe the air quality in 1984 generally was far worse, and the Olympics did fine.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  People forget we had an olympics in beijing...
- undersuit 2y ago
  Steve Ovett must've been lying or had Covid when he collapsed while running in 1984. And Haile Gebrselassie and Justine Henin withdrawal shows they were just cowards in Beijing 2008?
- zh3 2y ago
  I was working there off and on in the early 80's - everyone was moaning about it, claiming to have "smog withdrawal" whwn they went off to the San Gabriel mountains at the weekend. Coming from London though, little to complain about here (at least on the air quality side of things).
gamblor956 2y ago
I can’t believe LA was picked as the spot to showcase on an international level. LA is the only host in Olympics history to have been selected by default, a feat it has accomplished every single time it has "won" the Olympics. (for the 1932, 1984, and 2028 Olympics, LA was the only bidder). LA is, paradoxically, the reason that cities/countries go crazy spending money on the Olympics: despite being an undesired host, LA is the only city in Olympics history to have made a profit every time it has hosted. (The profits from the 1984 games are still funding youth sports programs in the LA area today.) This is because LA has such a large athletics scene that only two or three venues needed to be built for the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, and all of these venues remained in use after the Olympics. Almost all of these venues are still around today (except for the 1984 velodrome).
mixmastamyk 2y ago
> smog June gloom is not smog. CA has some of the strictest emission controls since the 90s at least. Electric cars are plentiful. It’s not the 70s any longer. Now a fire can and does happen occasionally but that is far from a given at any particular time.
sofixa 2y ago
> International visitors will be greatly disappointed at how terrible this country’s public transportation infrastructure The 2026 World Cup will be the first hit. People from all around the world will have to go to stadia in the middle of nowhere in seas of parking lots, without any or any good transit options for getting there. Combine with the very expensive prices of everything, local cultural expectations that will not sit well with everyone (tipping iPads for self-servicing yourself), and I personally think a lot of people will absolutely hate it, which will also cloud the Olympics' perception before they even start.

by xyst 2y ago

playingalong 2y ago

Car free or not. There will be tons of public transportation extraordinary options running during the Olympics. There is simply no other option to move all these people around - athletes and their crew, service people for the venues, journalists, etc. etc. Not to mention the spectators.

dmurray 2y ago
That's not public transportation."Mass transportation", maybe. Shuttling athletes and their minders from the Olympic village to the venues is a different set of challenges from delivering a city's residents to their places of work, school and recreation day in, day out.
Ekaros 2y ago
I have been thinking. Should we actually move towards reducing people involved? Like ban all spectators, just stream televise them. Journalist can get their interviews over Teams meetings. No need for dignitaries to be present either. Basically you need only athletes, maybe coaches and support staff. For catering, well develop some efficient meals that don't need heating and produce them off-site. All this would save lot on very many things, both in emissions and in costs.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Some events already take place at distant locations. I think they are planning on hosting the softball events out in oklahoma for this olympics.
- ibash 2y ago
  You know, we can solve all the problems if we get rid of the athletes…
- sofixa 2y ago
  Even better, let's move all the competitions to VR/Wii, that way it can all be streamed and requires much less infrastructure.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Also those expensive and big opening and closing ceremonies. Why not just do it all with generative AI. Soon no one would even notice difference, just imagine the savings.

tacticalturtle 2y ago

> I can’t believe LA was picked as the spot to showcase on an international level. It’s because they’ve done it relatively recently and efficiently, and no other city wants the hassle. They have the 2028 slot because Boston pulled out, after half the city’s politicians revolted against the idea

dageshi 2y ago

Paris and LA were the only two cities who bid for the Olympics in 2017. They got the 2024 and 2028 Olympics respectively. I'm not sure any other city in the US wants to host the Olympics. I'm not sure there's many cities in the entire world that want to host it at this point...

addicted 2y ago
I mean look at Paris. The city’s residents emptied out. This is still ok in Europe, especially France, which have a culture of weeks long summer vacations, so it wasn’t as much of a disruption as timing the vacation right. I’m not sure how well it will work for the residents of LA when US residents have no such limitation. OTOH, LA is large and broken up enough enough that it may not be very noticeable for the residents as long as they remain in their residential areas.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > I mean look at Paris. The city’s residents emptied out Some of them did, but lots remained at least for some parts. The venues, fan zones, streets and cafés/bars/restaurants were full with people dressed in French colours.
Kon-Peki 2y ago
People in Brazil were convicted for money laundering related to buying votes for Rio 2016. The US refused to submit a bid for the 2020 games because the IOC was demanding more money. Tokyo, which had the strongest 2016 bid according to the IOC grading process, took 2 runoffs to win the bid for 2020 with some pretty shady voting patterns. So yeah, it’s no surprise that hardly any city wants to bother with the IOC.

duxup 2y ago

>The smog in that region was awful. That was the concern in 1984. I believe the air quality in 1984 generally was far worse, and the Olympics did fine.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
People forget we had an olympics in beijing...
undersuit 2y ago
Steve Ovett must've been lying or had Covid when he collapsed while running in 1984. And Haile Gebrselassie and Justine Henin withdrawal shows they were just cowards in Beijing 2008?
zh3 2y ago
I was working there off and on in the early 80's - everyone was moaning about it, claiming to have "smog withdrawal" whwn they went off to the San Gabriel mountains at the weekend. Coming from London though, little to complain about here (at least on the air quality side of things).

gamblor956 2y ago

I can’t believe LA was picked as the spot to showcase on an international level. LA is the only host in Olympics history to have been selected by default, a feat it has accomplished every single time it has "won" the Olympics. (for the 1932, 1984, and 2028 Olympics, LA was the only bidder). LA is, paradoxically, the reason that cities/countries go crazy spending money on the Olympics: despite being an undesired host, LA is the only city in Olympics history to have made a profit every time it has hosted. (The profits from the 1984 games are still funding youth sports programs in the LA area today.) This is because LA has such a large athletics scene that only two or three venues needed to be built for the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, and all of these venues remained in use after the Olympics. Almost all of these venues are still around today (except for the 1984 velodrome).

mixmastamyk 2y ago

> smog June gloom is not smog. CA has some of the strictest emission controls since the 90s at least. Electric cars are plentiful. It’s not the 70s any longer. Now a fire can and does happen occasionally but that is far from a given at any particular time.

sofixa 2y ago

> International visitors will be greatly disappointed at how terrible this country’s public transportation infrastructure The 2026 World Cup will be the first hit. People from all around the world will have to go to stadia in the middle of nowhere in seas of parking lots, without any or any good transit options for getting there. Combine with the very expensive prices of everything, local cultural expectations that will not sit well with everyone (tipping iPads for self-servicing yourself), and I personally think a lot of people will absolutely hate it, which will also cloud the Olympics' perception before they even start.