The Olympics Are Here!!!

We had the Olympic flame down our street this afternoon at lunchtime. The street was full of school kids out from their lessons to watch a spectical that we will probably never witness for the rest of our lives. I have to admit that the sense of excitement grew as the torch bearer gradually approached where we were standing in the crowd but I'm not sure I am overly excited about the overall event.

The traffic will probably be chaos in various parts of Metro Vancouver and I for one will be avoiding the bridge from the North Shore as much as possible. The authorities are encouraging people to use public transport as much as possible while warning of 1-2 hour line-ups at the Skytrain stations during peak periods. For "peak periods" read "most of the time, particularly at night". The two bridges from Vancouver to the North Shore (access to Whistler) will be a nightmare at rush hour as lanes are being claimed specifically for Olympic travel. We only have two lanes in each direction on both bridges normally and they are invariably clogged during rush hour so who knows what it will be like for the next 2-3 weeks.

Then we have to look at the expected costs for hosting this. The Provincial government are forking out millions along with the RCMP and as a result the funding for schools and hospitals have been cut while the government waits to see what the final costs actually are. That means no critical facility upgrades for any schools in BC or any hospitals.

Then there's the weather which is out of everyone's control, but we have no snow. None!! We are having to truck snow in from Manning Park at a cost of $150k and helicopter the stuff from the top of Cyprus Mountain at $10k per hour. And that's just for some of the events. The remainder of the alpine events will be at Whistler where the snow is a lot better.

To top it all we had deal with the process that was chosen for the ticket allocation. About 10% of the tickets were available to the public and they had to apply for them through a lottery. But you couldn't chose, say the hockey gold medal game and nothing else, you had to apply for a group of tickets for other events too and at huge costs. This has meant that people are trying to sell their unwanted tickets to friends as quickly as possible in the run up to the games. Then the authorities refused to let anyone sell their unwanted tickets on Craigslist or any other web site and warned that anyone who did buy tickets in this way would be prevented from entering the events. The tickets have the names of the people on them. At least that was the process until VANOC decided to let people sell their tickets as long as they used their own website and charged 10% of the price to both the seller and the buyer.

Then, on top of all that, you have to buy the official gear with either cash or a VISA. Guess why; 'cause VISA are one of the official sponsors.

The list goes on, but enjoy the games.

Peter