When US Olympic Committee directors meet Thursday to likely choose their nominee to host the 2024 Games, they will likely find that the four competing proposals now have much in common.
All four bids — from Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles — will largely rely on existing and temporary facilities generally in or near the city’s center.
Boston’s bid, which touts the city itself as an Olympic park, is the most compact of the four, with most venues near public transportation stops.
Washington in 2012 unsuccessfully mounted a joint bid with Baltimore — some 40 miles away — but its bid this year narrows its focus to DC’s Beltway area. San Francisco’s bid, meanwhile, would keep 17 of its 26 venues within the city limits — a distinct change from its sprawling, and unsuccessful, proposal in 2012 that lost out to New York’s more confined grid.
And Los Angeles, the fourth contender, proposes to hold the most popular events, such as track and field, swimming, gymnastics, and basketball, at its downtown and Westside clusters.