Congratulations, Boston. The United States Olympic Committee has chosen you to represent the country in the world competition to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

But is this really something you want to be congratulated about?

According to The Daily Beast, in 2012 London had an original bid budget of about $4 billion. But the final cost ended up being about $20 billion. Boston 2024, the group organizing the city’s bid, is saying that the Games 10 years from now will only cost $4.5 billion.

Really?

Will Jennings, a professor of political science at the University of Southampton in England, told Time magazine that the average cost overrun for staging the Olympics has been 200 percent since 1976. This doesn’t look good for Boston.

Even taking Boston 2024’s projection of $4.5 billion at face value, an additional $5 billion is estimated to be needed for infrastructure improvements.

That brings the bare minimum required to host the Games to $9.5 billion.

Boston 2024 officials have rationalized a huge chunk of this, saying the improvements would have happened anyway so it won’t count as a cost for hosting the Olympics.

But even if this is true, some of the money will end up being used for the infrastructural needs of the Olympics.

“One can only hope that the jump from $2 billion to $15 billion for the cost of the Big Dig would not be replicated by hosting the Olympics,” Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist told CNBC in an online article published on Jan. 13. The reference was to Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project that The Boston Globe, in 2008, estimated won’t be paid for until 2038.

If $2 billion became $15 billion for the rerouting of Interstate 93 and the construction of a tunnel and a bridge, just imagine how much $4.5 billion would become for hosting the biggest sporting event in the world.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh promised, during a news conference on Jan 9, that he won’t spend any tax money on the Games. But that does not include the $5 billion needed to improve infrastructure. So tax money will only be used for the infrastructure upgrades.

How the mayor will handle the Olympic Games without using tax money, heaven only knows.

Boston 2024 is planning to use Fenway Park, the city’s many colleges, and maybe even TD Garden.

But there is an issue here. These places are not exactly within walking distance of each other. So that means driving and public transportation will be the main sources of getting around.

If you know Boston, you know that driving there is not easy, to say the least. Roads will go one way and then change directions. One-way streets are all over the place.

And public transportation can be a mess, so don’t pin your hopes here.

Daniel Pritchard’s frustrated Tweet on Feb. 4 was printed in The Boston Globe: “Overheard on #MBTA: Commuter rail got stranded median opposite a highway channel and a Red Line was on fire. we can’t wait for a #Olympics.”

If Boston can’t handle its own winter, how will the “T” be a realistic source of transportation during the Olympics?

It’s true that the Olympics would be held during the summer, but problems with the “T” aren’t exactly isolated.

Boston can barely handle orientation weekend for its colleges. How do you plan on fitting enough people for the Summer Olympics?

Boston 2024 plans on building a temporary Olympic stadium around Widett Circle in South Boston. This stadium will be torn down after the Games.

Don’t forget this is the Olympics we are talking about here. The stadium needs to be presentable and look like an Olympic stadium. This isn’t going to be cheap.

Benjamin Flowers, an associate professor of architecture at Georgia Tech, told The Boston Globe in an online article on Jan. 15 that a 60,000-seat stadium would be so large that you shouldn’t even call it a temporary stadium.

“What they are really saying is, build a full-on stadium and then demolish it,” professor Flowers said. “It strikes me as a curious proposition to suggest investing the many hundreds of millions it would take to do that to then demolish it.”

Bottom line, you’re telling us this won’t hurt the economy of Boston to not only build a stadium to seat 60,000, but to tear it down after? This is completely outrageous.

Boston will have 32 months to convince the International Olympic Committee that it is the most worthy host among applicants from around the world. So there is still a good chance Boston won’t be the next Olympic sucker.

Rome wants it. The Eternal City can have it. Buona fortuna.