Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

No parking lot at Function Junction

Olympic organizers have withdrawn their application for a temporary parking lot at the entrance to Whistler.

Olympic organizers have withdrawn their application for a temporary parking lot at the entrance to Whistler.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games (VANOC) had planned to park cars near the side of the highway on the First Nations land in Function Junction.

The organization would not provide any details this week about where alternative parking for the athletes' village may go, issuing this statement about the Function Junction lands:

"VANOC, in consultation with its partners, determined that the timeline for approvals and site preparations was too tight to complete the project in time for the Games. Other parking solutions have been found," said Dick Vollet, vice president of mountain venues.

The five-acre site was slated to be cleared by VANOC and laid with crush gravel to accommodate additional vehicles associated with the operations of the athletes' village. It was not clear in the application how many cars could have been parked on the site.

Squamish Nation Chief Gibby Jacob said at the time that the deal was "a positive thing for us."

He was not available for comment before deadline this week.

VANOC is also planning to use the BCBC lands, the former highway maintenance yard opposite Alta Vista, as a fleet vehicle parking hub.

The land was once owned by the Squamish and Lil'wat Nations but is now owned by the municipality. VANOC, as per an earlier agreement with the First Nations, will be using about 100 parking spaces there during the Olympic Games, bumping that up to 150 spaces during the Paralympic Games.

The land will be used as parking from Nov. 1 to March 31.