Fixing the MBTA and hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics: two things Boston can’t and won’t stop talking about — and for good reason.

Despite the heavy volume of angry tweets, when one asks visitors or newcomers, anyone capable of forming an unbiased opinion about this city’s public transportation system, about their experiences with the T, the general consensus is often: “The T is great! You can take it every place in the city you need to go.”

The Olympics, likewise, seem to create a similar disconnect. One would be hard pressed to find as many reports bashing the Games themselves as reports regarding the economic risk of hosting the half-month-long sporting spectacle. In general, Boston, much like the rest of the world, loves the idea of the Olympics, and people will always tune in to watch the event on TV, phone and tablet screens.

Boston is now the epicenter for debates on both polarizing topics: How can we improve the T? and Could Boston host the 2024 Summer Olympics? For better or worse, the MBTA and the Olympics will be, until the USOC officially submits a Boston bid and the International Olympic Committee chooses a 2024 host city, painstakingly intertwined with each other.

Related: We Have Reached Peak Boston Olympics Bashing.

Boston needs the T to function like a world-class transit system, if it is ever to be considered a “world-class city.” In order for individuals to enjoy the Olympics, one city has to agree to taking on the responsibility. And both are major, major headaches. But, as The New Yorker suggests, “The Olympic Games have never been interested in Democracy.”

Continues The New Yorker :

America’s hope for 2024, the country’s chance to get back in the Olympic game. President Obama quickly issued a statement in support of Boston’s bid, joining a chorus ranging from Nancy Pelosi to Mitt Romney, whose successful role in leading the preparations for the Salt Lake City Games helped to relaunch his political career. Being against a Boston Olympics is now, suddenly, the same thing as being against an American one.

In Boston, that narrative seems to be a bit more narrow: Being against a Boston Olympics is now, suddenly, the same thing as being against improving the MBTA.

It’s unclear as to why the Olympics, specifically, are necessary for future T improvements. But the fact is: Regardless of whether one hates or loves the idea of Boston hosting in 2024, if one wants the T to get its act together, the 2024 Olympics may be the best way to make that happen.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the state’s Department of Transportation (MassDOT) unveiled one year ago a 10-year capital plan for the T, rolling out this map of what Boston’s public transit system could look like in the process:

The map prominently includes one key new feature: The rapid-transit Indigo Line, which would connect the Back Bay to South Boston’s Seaport District, and create alternative transit links to South Station and North Station other than commuter rail, subway or bus service. Also included on the map is West Station, which, after derailing temporarily, was announced by former Governor Deval Patrick last September.

Station construction, infrastructure improvements and equipment purchases for both West Station and the Indigo Line are part of the $13 billion sum committed by the state over the next 10 years to fund transportation projects.

Another $674 million of that $13 billion pool has been dedicated to the Green Line Extension, which will extend Green Line service to Somerville and Medford, creating a total of six new stations and relocating the existing Lechmere Station in East Cambridge. Add the nearly $1 billion in federal funding committed toward the GLX, and this project will cost roughly $1.7 billion.

There are formal plans for the Indigo Line, West Station and the GLX, which private Olympic investments could assist with. But Fred Salvucci, who launched the Big Dig and was instrumental in remaking the Red and Orange Lines, says a Boston Olympics could allow for much, much more.

“We’re lucky here. We have the potential for growth,” Salvucci told WGBH. “We’re seeing it in the Innovation District and Kendall and Longwood; there’s groundbreakings all the time. … It’s not hypothetical — this economy wants to grow. But if we fail to serve it with access, it’ll choke that growth.”

Salvucci mentioned potentially extending the Red Line out to Route 128, from Alewife Station in North Cambridge, as well as expanding Blue Line service to Lynn. Referencing the ongoing Longfellow Bridge project, Salvucci continued:

They’re rebuilding a bridge that’s over a century old that holds up the Red Line, and a lot of cars and pedestrians and bikes. The Longfellow should kind of give us the confidence that, “Yeah, this is a big challenge, but we’re capable of doing it.”

While a Red Line extension to Route 128 seems, at this time, a hypothetical possibility, potential plans for the Blue Line are more real: Wentworth students in July unveiled a 3.5-mile extension, which calls for an estimated $1.5 billion in new station costs and a total price tag of $3.3 billion.

Finally, there’s the CSX Line, which the Krafts – the family behind the New England Patriots – worked tediously (or perhaps sketchily) to purchase in order to open up daily commuter rail service to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, a potential 2024 Olympic soccer venue. This may be the clearest example of how private investment would help both fund the Olympics and improve public transportation: The rail road the Krafts plan to purchase would, if Boston hosts the Games, link Gillette Stadium to a potential new stadium the Krafts are looking to build in South Boston.

Expanded service, new rapid transit lines, commuter trains connecting bustling, potential Olympic, destinations – all of these would be welcomed with open arms by Bostonians. The state has already committed heavy funding totals for future T projects but, in the event money suddenly runs dry, it would be back to square one.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says taxpayer money will not be used to fund the estimated $4.5 billion Olympics costs; Bostonians wouldn’t want to pay for it anyway. What they do want is better transportation, though, and the Olympics may be the ticket.

Map via MassDOT; Rendering via Boston 2024

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