Jimmy Golen and Philip Marcelo, Associated Press, January 22, 2015
BOSTON (AP) — Sailing in Boston Harbor. Baseball at Fenway Park. Beach volleyball on Boston Common, the oldest public park in the United States.
The organizers of Boston's Olympic bid revealed their plans for the 2024 Summer Games on Wednesday. Those plans include a pedestrian boulevard along a channel running to a temporary Olympic stadium that would serve as the event's "front yard," and existing or upgraded public transportation to shuttle fans between the university and waterfront venues.
"It's really about envisioning what the future is, what 2030 is, and then translating that into a games plan for 2024," said David Manfredi, an architect who is the co-chair of the Boston 2024 planning committee. "We believe Boston is the right size city for the Olympics. It's a great historic city, a beautiful city and a really walkable city."
Boston now goes up against potential bids from Rome, Paris, Germany and South Africa. The IOC is scheduled to make its decision in 2017.
The operating budget for the games would be $4.7 billion, money that would come from broadcast revenues, sponsorships and ticket sales. The bid itself includes $3.4 billion to get the city ready, much of it to build the athletes' village at UMass-Boston, a media headquarters near the South Boston waterfront and a temporary Olympic stadium just south of downtown.
Although the bid promises not to rely "on a single tax dollar," it is dependent on more than $5.2 billion in public transportation and infrastructure projects already planned or underway in the Boston area. And the federal government would be expected to chip in on security.
Boston would be the most compact games in modern times, Manfredi said. Twenty-eight of 33 proposed venues would be within 6.2 miles of the athletes' village, which is planned for the waterfront campus of UMass-Boston.
"We can plan a walkable games, we can plan a transit-oriented games," he said. "It supports the idea that Boston, the city of Boston, is the Olympic Park."
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This article was written by Jimmy Golen and Philip Marcelo from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
