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VANOC’s Gameplan becoming a little clearer

People living in and around Olympic venues will be able to buy their groceries, get gas, pick up and drop off their kids at school, and ski on both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains during the 2010 Winter Games.

People living in and around Olympic venues will be able to buy their groceries, get gas, pick up and drop off their kids at school, and ski on both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains during the 2010 Winter Games.

The resort community will be packed to capacity with visitors and workers, a standing-only crowd at MY Millennium Place was told Tuesday night at the first public meeting hosted by Olympic officials to explain how the event will impact their lives on a day-to-day basis.

“It won’t be business as usual,” Maureen Douglas, VANOC’s director of community relations, told the crowd of over 250.

“We (Whistler) do welcome the world every day but we are not usually hosting 80 countries every day.”

For example there will be next to no public parking in Whistler, so people will have to plan how they shop and businesses will have to plan how they get their supplies.

Workers who live in Pemberton and Squamish will have to take public transit to work in Whistler. VANOC is working with transit partners to put dozens more buses to work to keep people out of their cars and off the roads.

VANOC wants as little traffic as possible on the highways so that the hundreds of buses it uses to bring spectators in and out of Whistler have the roads to themselves.

However, said Douglas, VANOC has decided that drivers will not need a permit to use the highway at Games time. Instead Olympic organizers will set up a web portal where people can learn the best times to drive and how long it should take to reach a destination.

VANOC’s transportation plan will be released early in 2009, several months after it was expected to be ready.

Talks are taking place on transportation issues with community stakeholders and more are planned said Douglas. Part of those discussions will include how people who want to ski can get to Whistler without using their cars.

And details are still being worked out on how Sea to Sky residents will get their event tickets and get to Vancouver venues.

Lower Mainland venues will also see traffic restrictions, with some roads becoming pedestrian only for Games time.

Community buy-in to the event is crucial if it’s to be a success.

“The most important partner we have is you, the community,” Douglas told the crowd.

She said VANOC is hoping that people who come to the meetings get a snapshot of what life will be like, understand that planning is still going on, and realize they can ask questions and get answers from Games’ organizers at the get-togethers and through the 2010 website.

“We really want attendees to get a sense of the day-to-day flow of the Games, recognizing that we are still planning so this is a snapshot in time,” she said.

Whistler residents learned that the alpine venue on Whistler Mountain at Creekside would be taken over by VANOC in August of 2009. The gondola there will close to the public for all of February. However, all the shops in the area will be open to the public.

The venue will open to the media as early as 5:30 a.m., spectators will arrive later, with the venue closing around 3:30 p.m. Any Olympic deliveries will be done in the early morning hours.

The sliding centre on Blackcomb Mountain will take over public parking lots 6, 7 and 8 in February.

The venue will be handed over to the group that will run it as a legacy April 1, 2010.

It will open up around 3 p.m. at Games time, with events starting around 9 p.m. Closing will be about 10:30 p.m. and deliveries will also be overnight.

Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley will be closed to the public starting February 2010. Load into the venue will start around 6 a.m. and wind down will be around 5 p.m. Deliveries will be in the early evening and morning.

The media broadcast centre, which will be in the Telus Conference Centre, will be up and running 24 hours a day and will cater to between 5,000 and 7,000 people. VANOC will take it over in January 2010 and return it April 4.

Whistler Village will remain fully open to pedestrians except for the Celebration Plaza, which will be gated and only open to ticket holders and accredited personnel. The Celebration Plaza will be closed during the Paralympics to prepare for the closing ceremonies of that event.

All of this means Whistler will be in full operations 24-hours a day so there will be more noise and more congestion. It’s likely many businesses, such as the grocery stores, will be open 24-hours a day, so more workers will be needed.

Security in Whistler will be full force said Corporal Manon Chouinard of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (VISU).

“It is like planning 17 Superbowls in a row,” she said.

However, security will not be highly visible as VISNU wants the focus to be on Games and not guns said Chouinard.

For many at the meeting though much of the information was not new and did not answer their questions.

“I thought it was the same presentation I have seen many times over with very little new information,” said Jim Watts, who manages 15 private parking lots in Whistler.

“I was a little upset that they would have us sit through an hour and half of material that pretty much everyone there had already seen before, and I think most people there were hungry for new information.

“There was a bit of new information there, but not a lot and I think they could have cut it down to half an hour.”

Watts went there hoping to find out when the public parking lots, slated to be the Olympic transportation hub, would be closed to drivers. The information will impact how his parking lot owner clients manage their property, he said.

Already there is some concern about how the parking lot at Marketplace will manage people trying to park there to go to the Celebration Plaza, said Watts.

Said Charlie Doyle: “ I think I was hoping for a little more meat on bones.

“It was pretty vague still — just assurances.”

  However, long time local Garry Watson said the presentation was comprehensive.

“I think they were addressing most things that were on people’s minds — I was very impressed,” he said. “I take great confidence in the planning they are doing. The devil is getting the details out.”

VANOC will host several similar meetings in the coming months at venue sites.

For more information on Whistler’s Game Plan go to http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/OrganizingCommittee/PublicCommunications/GamePlan/Schedule .