The Boston bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics was officially submitted to the US Olympics Committee yesterday. And while details are sparse as to contents of the bid, the Boston committee's website does list six selection criteria that the USOC will use to compare the Boston bid to those of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington DC. Those criteria?

45,000 hotel rooms - organizers claim Boston clears this minimum, but the city's tourism bureau claims 30,000-plus. The chairman of the organizing committee claims the 45,000 are in Boston proper, and that 5,000 more rooms will be added to Boston's total from hotels under construction now.

An Olympic village that sleeps 16,500 and has a 5,000 person dining hall - talk is that this will be located on the UMass Boston-Bayside Expo Center parcel, which makes me wonder how athletes and the like will get from there to venues given the usual horrific traffic on the Southeast Expressway (more on how that might work later).

Also worth noting that the UMass-Boston master plan from 2009 (warning: large PDF!) only mentions 2,000 bed spaces. At 16,500 beds, the village could house the entire undergraduate population of the school with room to spare.

Operations space for over 15,000 media and broadcasters - I have no idea where this would go, and what talk there's been about the bid doesn't mention this. I'm guessing some mix of existing and new office space will cover this.

An international airport that can handle thousands of international travelers per day - Logan's international flights mostly come from Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe. This past October Logan saw just over 420,000 international passengers. So while the volume may not be a problem, the lack of direct flights from most of the world is a concern (though one that other hosts have likely encountered).

The biggest problem may be getting people from Logan to sites around the city, which leads us to the next criterion...

Public transportation services to venues, roadway closures to allow exclusive use for Games-related transportation - this is the topic of the most importance to Bostonians, as transportation infrastructure is already strained and may not be able to handle the additional load the Olympics would bring. The bid proposes to make the Games walkable, with most venues in or near the city center.

The road closures are perhaps more problematic, as traffic in Boston on a good day is challenging. Taking away a lane from the major thoroughfares (as happened in London with its Olympic lanes) is feasible but could completely screw up what little order there is in driving in the city currently.

A workforce of up to 200,000 - a potential drawback given our reasonably rosy employment numbers, but a number that could be reached by employing a large number of retirees and students. Students may well form the backbone of this workforce, as the timing and temporary nature of the Games does lend itself to be an ultimate summer job. Whether or not these are paid or volunteer positions is kind of an open question, though I did run across some talk of using international students as free interpreters.

There's no talk among these criteria about venues or cost, but from what's come out the Boston bid will lean on existing college facilities quite a bit, which helps with the walkable theme and keeps costs down. This is also where the use of college students as volunteers or low-cost workers is implied.

Where cost is concerned, the estimated costs seems to be in the $7.5 billion range. The money seems to be 60 percent revenues (tickets, broadcasts and international sponsorships) and 40 percent other sponsorships (local biotech firms are mentioned in this context quite a bit, not sure why they'd pony up over $3 billion for this). The organizers swear up and down that no public funds will be used outside of infrastructure improvements. Considering the federal government just pledged $1 billion for a Green Line extension that will cover less than half of the total cost, you can see where this might go.

Without more specifics it's hard to tell if this bid is really feasible, or how it measures up against the other bids. But at this point, the Boston bid seems to at least meet the minimum requirements.