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Archive for the ‘Vancouver’ Category

Going on right now (it’s 8:09pm PST) is the Paralympic Torch Relay. In fact, it’s passing right beneath my window! And it will be back in about half an hour! This torch run is somewhat different than the Olympic relay, but it is just as moving and heartwarming, if not more so. This flame was not kindled by rays of sunshine from far away Greece; this flame has been brought forth anew every morning of the relay. This morning it was re-lit by members of the Musquem First Nation for the last time. Overnight the flame will move throughout the heart of downtown Vancouver on a community relay that circuits Robson St, Granville St, Smithe/Haro St and Bute St. The relay will continue until 2pm tomorrow, at which time it will move to BC Place Stadium for the opening ceremonies. If you are able to, do yourself a favour and stop and see (and even follow for a bit) the torch run.

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The Canada Line - A beautiful jewel in Vancouver's transportation network

The cauldron in Coal Harbour has been extinguished, the Olympic flag has been lowered and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games have ended. That means  two things; it’s time for me to start doing some blogging again, and some of those posts will be in reference or reaction to all the articles and editorials now asking the question ‘What will the legacy of these Games be?’ It’s Tuesday already, so I am behind already. As a lowly, pajama clad blogger though I feel that I was more than entitled to some rest; I figure the pros out there will have the necessary bases covered. Derek Moscato is assuredly a pro. He has a regular column in Metro Vancouver that focuses on urban issues, transportation, architecture and economics. I always enjoy his work and generally find myself in agreement with most of his assessments.  His column from Monday is no different, as he gets directly to the point and says that the legacy of these games should be transit.

The points that he makes are clear and concise, but the most important one is the first one he lists:

Rapid transit — in the form of light metro — is pivotal to the growth of this region. Let’s stop arguing about the merits of rapid transit technologies in the Tri-Cities, or out to UBC, and get on with expanding our already successful SkyTrain network. In the end, it was the Canada and SkyTrain lines that did the heavy lifting for the Olympics, with the Canada Line moving millions between competition sites and downtown destinations. Ditto for SkyTrain, especially close to the stadiums

I couldn’t agree more. The Canada Line was a shining workhorse throughout the games and everyone in Vancouver should be extremely proud of this piece of backbone infrastructure. It seems that the Vancouver Games won’t be able to shake the ‘$6 billion’ price tag that the media has afixed to it. If people realize and appreciate that a third of that cost is associated with the Canada Line I won’t be so perturbed by the fuzzy math that generates that $6 billion figure.

What I am really looking forward to is seeing some transit numbers post games. Typically TransLink moves some 750,000 people around on any given day. During the Olympics that number more than doubled to 1.6 million. Myself, Derek and anyone else concerned with transportation policy in the GVRD eagerly hope to see some numbers showing that people who switched to transit during the games are sticking with it afterward. Hopefully TransLink will have some of those numbers for us by the end of the week.

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The flame screams out "Let me free!" photo courtesy of Steven Johnson

Today is certainly a big day for Canada at these games as the Womens hockey team will go for gold later this afternoon. Womens curling semifinals have just finished, the men will play later today, three Canadian men will jump in the aerials final tonight and Joanie Rochette will skate in the final flight in the ladies individual figure skating competition. Three more days of competition remain after today that are sure to also contain many Olympic highlights. As we near the end of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, the retrospective analysis has begun.

In a piece in yesterdays Vancouver Sun, Jeff Lee notes the surprise of VANOC officials over the exuberant outpouring of national pride from Canadians and their enthusiastic support of the games. It’s nice that they’ve been pleasantly surprised, but it’s important to note that their surprise is at least partially a function of the huge amount of negative (often inaccurate or misleading) press coverage the games have received, both before and during their execution. As someone who is generally pro-Olympics and has put some effort into push back against false arguments from Olympic detractors, I may have spent more time than most listening to negative press. But if the organizing committee, by default the games biggest cheerleaders, were apprehensive that Canadians wouldn’t get behind winning gold medals at home and Olympic hockey, I think it’s fair to say that the negative stories had reached a saturation point.

Something else Lee noted that  illustrates this story very specifically is the handling of the Olympic Cauldron. Fearing all the press about protesters, VANOC felt the need to hide the cauldron behind a chainlink fence extremely far back from the Cauldron with a large phalanx of police officers milling about, both within the enclosed area (along with the lucky few who due to volunteering or knowing the right people are able to have an unobstructed view) and outside. VANOC CEO John Furlong said they were blown away by the desire of the people to see the flame. I say that’s baloney. The flame is an enduring symbol and being drawn to fire has to be one of the oldest human instincts around. I think VANOC had higher expectations of the numbers of protesters and demonstrations that would occur based on the media narrative and needlessly increased security based on that. The enormous outcry from the public about the cauldron forced VANOC to act, although their fix, installing a plexiglass section in the fence and constructing an elevated viewing platform is still wanting. Paul Sullivan writing in the Metro had a much better idea last week suggesting completely removing the fence, putting up a velvet rope and staffing as many serge clad mounties as needed to provide security directly around the flame. Let VANOC’s shortsightedness due to media distortions serve as a lesson to future hosts (I’m looking at you London.)

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I am a newer resident of Vancouver, and was only 10 years old when the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in ’94 and rioting erupted throughout the streets. I don’t have any direct memories of that event, but it is easy to feel the remembrance of that shameful incident this city collectively has as we inch closer to the one of the most anticipated hockey games this country has ever seen; Canada’s mens hockey team wraps up Olympic round robin play this afternoon at 4:30PT/7:30ET when they face the United States of America. I feel that it is no accident this particular game was scheduled for a Sunday, as opposed to a Friday or Saturday; liquor stores close earlier and I presume officials are also hoping that many revelers will remember to go to work Monday morning and restrain their intake of celebratory libations (a futile hope in my mind).

The nervousness of Olympic officials was put on display before Sunday as a jittery Vancouver Police Department made a request to the BC Liquor Control and Licensing Branch to order the closing of liquor stores city wide at 7pm as opposed to the typical time of 11pm. The order affected both public and private stores, but did not extend to off rack sales at pubs and bars. This measure was apparently in response to the events of Friday night in downtown Vancouver. The particulars of those ‘events’ are another matter. I was downtown on Robson and Granville on Friday night. It was busy. There were plenty of people in the streets. Many of those folks were drunk. As far as I know from my own anecdotal gatherings, as well as what I can find in published news reports there was no inciting event that turned the large, festive and yes, intoxicated crowd disruptive or violent. They simply remained a large, festive and drunken crowd; and that’s it. I am sure that there would have been some individual isolated incidents of assaults of varying natures, but that is par for the course for a weekend night on Granville Street. More notable to me is what appears to be an extremely low level of unfortunate events given the massive influx of people celebrating in the city.

There is no doubt that the police have been lenient in terms of enforcing public intoxication laws. I think they are to be commended for this. It is a good thing for police to be able to exercise their powers with a certain amount of discretion. If the police are becoming concerned that they levels of public intoxication are approaching levels that are becoming dangerous then why would they not begin to enforce intoxication laws just a bit more than the stance they have previously taken? Did we not spend an obscene level of money on security for reasons just like this? For his part, convicted drunk driver Gordon Campbell told CTV News the early store closures were necessary, saying:

“There’s a huge number of people downtown and we have to make sure everything goes well for everyone [...] I think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

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With one run remaining in the womens skeleton, Great Britain’s Amy Williams is ahead of Canada’s Melissa Hollingsworth by 0.54 seconds. This is an extremely large lead in a gravity sport such as the skeleton. I’m hoping that if Williams is able to hold on for the gold, the British press can stop taking a shit on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I’ve been to busy and engaged with the city of Vancouver and the fabulous party that has been going on that is the games to follow much of the media response to the games so far, but I have still been hearing peripherally that Fleet Street’s knives are out. The only way possible to be covering these games thus far in a completely negative light would be if one went in with the intention to do so. Paul Sullivan had a nice piece in this morning’s Metro Vancouver noting that the US media has certainly changed their tune since American domination of the medal count has become the normal day to day story. Great Britain’s medal drought will soon be over. One hopes that will also be the case for the negative coverage for the sake of negative coverage from the British press.

Update: Amy Williams of Great Britain laid down an excellent 54 second flat fourth run in the womens final run of the skeleton just now to capture the gold medal. Kerstin Szymkowiak of Germany had a fabulous final run to jump into 2nd place to claim the silver, with Anja Huber, also of Germany finishing in the bronze medal position. Canada’s Melissa Hollingsworth had an amazing start to her final run, but had a few sketchy turns. She still managed to place 5th in an extremely strong womens field. The final two runs in the mens skeleton are up next. CTV’s Olympic webpage will have the coverage live in HD, where Canada’s Jon Montgomery currently sits in second place after two runs 0.26 seconds behind Martins Dukurs of Latvia.

Update II: After the third run Canada’s Jon Montgomery sits in second 0.18 seconds behind Latvia’s Martins Dukurs in the mens skeleton. CTV will broadcast the final run live or you can watch in almost real time at CTV’s webpage.

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Jennifer Heil of Canada jumps off the ramp to take first place during the finals Women's Moguls at Sauze d'Oulx, Italy, 2006. (AP / Peter Dejong)

In just over an hour the womens mogul competition’s final round will begin. At the conclusion of the event Canada stands an extremely strong chance of winning it’s first Olympic gold medal, both of these games and on home soil. Should that be the case, it would most likely be from Jennifer Heil claiming first place. Jen is the reigning Olympic champion, as well as being currently ranked first in the World Cup standings. Jen is an amazing athelete and accomplished young woman. She currently lives in Montreal where she is an economics student.

Canada has two other women competing in the final round who are both medal threats. After the qualifying round Kristi Richards was in fourth place, with Chloe Dafour-Lapointe sitting in ninth. The qualifying round merely sets the start order for the finals, so it is a brand new competition, and there are even multiple podium places possible for Canada. Should Heil (or one of the other Canadian ladies) win gold, look for a party tonight in Vancouver that will be talked about many years from now. Go Canada Go!!

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Paint stained broken window at Hudsons Bay Company in downtown Vancouver (my picture)

This morning while watching the luge training runs and having breakfast, James Duthie (CTV daytime host) interrupted to tell me they were receiving reports of rioting at the Hudsons Bay Company downtown location, even referencing the ’94 riots that occurred in this city when the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup riots. Figuring that CTV would not interrupt their broadcast to mention a small protest from only a few score of people (the number of protesters I’ve been expecting) I grabbed my camera and walked on over.

Whatever had been happening had already moved on by the time I reached the HBC building; all that remained were some red paint splashes, a few broken eggs and a handful of smashed display windows. After snapping a few pics I tried to find someone who had been there when the protesters were; the one person I was able to talk to guessed there were between 100 and 200 protesters, which is rather modest, but around what I would have expected. It should of course be noted that this is a secondhand estimate and people in general are terrible at estimating the size of a crowd.

Making my way back to my cold bacon, I passed a group of police, and just as I did a call came through on the radio for any available officers to go to Pender and Cordova Streets. The officers were able to commandeer a cab, but having run out the door without any cash I hopped on the next bus. This did afford me a lovely chance to chat with two extremely sweet elderly ladies, but once again any crowds that had been formed had already been dispersed by a swath of officers in riot gear by the time I had arrived. The only protest sign I could still see was one decrying the noise at night that hosting the games will cause.

Do these protesters not realize that violent and destructive protests do nothing but undermine their positions? Vancouverites as a whole are extremely sympathetic to the urban issues that Olympic protesters say they are advocating for, but have little patience for groups (many who are not residents of the city) resorting to destruction to underline a point (which neglects to account for those protesters who have no point to make and are purely interested in clashing with authorities.) My note to protest leaders; ‘Break Stuff’ is a mediocre song from a mediocre band, not a dissenting opinion. Should you continue to make it a plank of your protests, any relevant points you may have to make will be lost.

Police in riot gear congregate on Cordova St. after dispersing Olympic protesters (my photo)

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Students at W. Earle Miller Public School

In an editorial comment from Wednesday’s Metro Vancouver, Paul Sullivan outlined his five reasons to not ‘Believe’ in the Olympic Games. While I can appreciate the jab at CTV, the Canadian broadcaster for the games, I find little else to agree with in his reasons. Lets take his points one by one.

Number 5: Sullivan says “The Olympic mascots are endangered or non-existent species [...] Somehow this says it all.” I have no idea what this says. Yes, the Olympic mascots are hybrids of endangered and mythical creatures. The animals that are threatened or endangered have not reached that point because of the Olympics. To my mind, all this says is that VANOC is conscientious of the amazing wildlife that BC is privy too. What does highlighting that fact say? If anything it brings further needed attention to animal populations under threat.

Number 4: “The Games will cost at least $6 billion [...] what are we going to do with a $104.9 million toboggan slide?” The first point to note with this claim is the standard tactic of anti-Olympic voices citing the figure of $6 billion as the cost of the games. As I’ve pointed out before, that number includes the construction costs of the Canada Line, the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvements, construction of the Vancouver Convention Centre, improvements to the Port Mann bridge and the construction of the Pitt River bridge. I strongly suspect that most, if not all of these infrastructure projects would have been undertaken were Vancouver not playing host to the games. They certainly are not ‘but for’ the Olympics. I should hope that any Vancouver resident is at a bare minimum proud of the fabulous new Canada Line. At a cost of $1.7 billion the rail line represents almost 30% of the oft quoted $6 billion figure; it is worth every penny and happy to have that argument with Sullivan. It baffles me how people seem to treat the $6 billion as money that is just lost. Do I really need to point out that these are investments? There is a reason that the latest quarterly growth figures from the Conference Board of Canada have BC atop the pack in terms of economic performance. I presume I don’t need to explicitly state why this is. I imagine that with the bobsled track we will see stronger luge, bobsled and skeleton teams in the future, as well as a new yearly World Cup event in Whistler. Wait for it; I expect that will bring a positive economic impact to the community.

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John Robertson of PIVOT Legal Society (photo from The Tyee)

While it will be easy enough to find red (and white) in Vancouver this February, PIVOT Legal Society is hoping that you notice the colour for a different reason, as they kick off a new campaign aimed at highlighting homelessness in the city. I have frequently said that there is much more value in co-opting the Olympic platform to attempt to shine a spotlight on any given issue than directly protesting against the Games. PIVOT’s latest strategy seems be following in that line of thought exactly.

In 2008, a BC Court ruling struck down a Victoria city bylaw that prevented the homeless from erecting tents in city parks for shelter. The court ruling found that if adequate shelter from the elements could not be found (ie. in shelter spaces) then homeless citizens have the right to provide themselves some shelter with tents. In December of 2009 the BC Court of Appeals upheld this ruling. With that right affirmed, PIVOT will be distributing up to 500 red tents amongst members of Vancouver’s homeless population. Not only will they afford some basic protection, erecting the tents will be a very visible case of exercising the rights affirmed by last December’s appeal court ruling. It is no mistake that PIVOT’s latest endeavour coincides with the Olympic games. The city will be flooded with media from around the world. As Canadians we should be ashamed at the idea of removing these people from sight during a big international celebration. Vancouver is an amazing place that I feel is most deserving of all the attention it garners as a livable city. That should not obscure the fact that the city has a significant homeless population. In fact, it calls for a reaction that is completely opposite; one that says not only do we recognize there is a problem, but we are going to work to improve the situation. At the very least, this latest campaign forces the city (and world) to be cognizant of the problem.

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Australian banner hangs outside the athletes village in Vancouver (Image by the CBC)

Towards the end of last week, in an incredibly tone deaf move, the International Olympic Committee sent word to the Australian Olympic team that the large banner the team had suspended outside their rooms at the athletes village needed to be removed, citing their rules against allowing non-sponsored trademark images to profit from the games. The banner, a cartoon boxing kangaroo on a green background that also features the Southern Cross that is present on the national flag has served as a longtime mascot for the Australian team at both summer and winter games. How the IOC was not able to see that their request was the only possible action they could take that would cause an increase of profits from the sale of the non sanctioned flag is beyond me, but that has nonetheless happened. As of this Sunday the banner was still hanging outside the village and a local flag shop has been fielding numerous calls from city residents looking to purchase the flag in solidarity with the Australian team. Australian team officials have indicated that should they receive an official request in writing from the IOC the banner will be removed. Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts has indicated the city of Surrey would find a prominent place to display the banner should it’s removal from the village come to pass.

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Photo from Mr. Macias' Twitter Account

On Saturday, after undergoing several hours of questioning from Canadian customs officials, Martin Macias Jr., an activist with ties to the Olympic Resistance Network attempting to travel to Vancouver to cover and participate in various anti-Olympic protests and rallies, elected to return to the US instead of remaining in Canadian custody. The above linked to CTV news report does indicate that Macias was the given the choice to remain detained in Canada and await trial for withholding information. Being a working student, this was not an option for Macias and he returned to the States. The ORN reports that Macias has no criminal record that they are aware of.

While the decision to grant entry to the country ultimately lies with Canada Border Services, I am of the opinion that we should only be turning people away with just cause; as of right now there does not appear to be any in the case of Mr. Macias. Personally, I have a much different viewpoint of the Games than the members of the Olympic Resistance Network, but I completely defend their rights to participate in peaceful protest (although other tactics have been espoused by the group), as well as report on it. The city, VANOC and ISU have all been slow in the past when addressing free speech concerns. While this is a slightly different case, in that it involves a US citizen travelling across our border, it still falls into the same broad category, and Canada Border Services joins that group of organizations engaging in poor information management that only serves to make them look bad. With the ORN hosting a two day conference (or ‘convergence’ as they term it) set to begin on February 10th we can be certain that Mr. Macias will not be the only one with a negative Olympic voice attempting to enter the country. One certainly hopes that they will have better luck than Mr. Macias had should there be no overt reason to deny them entry. Border services have currently indicated that the specifics of Macias’s case cannot be discussed due to privacy concerns; with the agency indicating that “Canada’s admissibility requirements will not change for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic games” a better accounting of the reasons for denying entry to Macias are certainly in order.

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As we’ve moved into the homestretch of final preparations for the Olympic Games, which kick off with the opening ceremonies here in Vancouver on February 12th, the city has been doing a fantastic of installing user friendly information displays that will aid visitors to the city for the games and beyond. At SkyTrain station’s new, detailed yet easy to read transit maps have been put in place. Additionally, a single new typeface has been used for all signs, bringing a coherence to the train system that was previously missing.

At major street corners around the downtown core new information/map displays have been erected in the past few weeks. Here’s one that is near my place:

The graphic is clean and easy to follow along with. Points of interest and venues are noted as well as transit hubs and pedestrian corridors. My personal favourite piece of information is the circle that is centred on the ‘You Are Here’ mark with the radius of the circle representing 15 minutes of walking time. It’s unfortunate that it has taken the Olympics coming to town, but residents and visitors are benefactors both of these kinds of improvements and I sincerely hope they will be maintained post games.

That being said, some of the simplest signage is the most important. Last night I took a stroll through the Granville St. Entertainment District. This a stretch downtown that has some of Vancouver’s most recognizable music venues, like the Vogue Theatre and The Commodore Ballroom, as well many clubs, bars and eateries. Were I not a resident of the city, I would have had no idea where I was when I crossed both Nelson St. and Smithe St., as there was not a street sign to be found at either of these intersections.  Granville St. has been under reconstruction for many years and is just in the final stages of completion. My hope is that the street signs are one of the last touches still to be put up. It would be a shame if all the great pains the city has gone to present useful and relevant information to those travelling through the city centre were undermined by the lack of adequate street signs on some of Vancouver’s main thoroughfares.

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