Here’s a column I wrote for Business in Vancouver, published in July 2001. It’s my forecast for the built legacy we might have had from the Olympics.
Olympics could give city chance to reshape its future
Imagine Vancouver, 2010…
The heart, soul and centre of the Games in the city is to be found offshore, in the middle of the East Basin of False Creek, just west of Science World. Imagine a flame rising from a fountain… Oh, Sydney’s done that. Well then, imagine island platforms floating in the Creek, for medal presentations, for entertainment, for fireworks. Echoes of Expo 86.
A series of new parks surround the East Basin, places where the people gather, from the Plaza of Nations to the Cambie Bridge, all connected by a completed seawall which even in winter is a joyous swirl of bikes and blades. This is the face Vancouver presents to the world. And when the cameras pull back, there’s that stunning backdrop of mountains and highrises enveloped in the February mists.
On the southeast shore of the East Basin is the Athletes’ Village, within easy walking distance of events in the stadiums across the Creek. The Village itself is the realization of another dream, a demonstration of sustainable development the way Vancouver does it: high-density, downtown, diverse. Given that it will provide the social-housing component for subsequent development, it also fits with the IOC’s desire for legacies that make long-term sense, and for projects that are environmentally responsive and innovative, especially since the world is now more concerned about climate change than ever — the consequences of global warming evident on the slopes of Whistler.
Just south of the Village, along First Avenue, is the Olympic line — the downtown light-rail route that runs from the media centre at Canada Place through Gastown and Chinatown, linking the stadiums with the Village, and on to Granville Island and the museums at Vanier Park, where cultural events and exhibitions have been mounted to accompany the Games.
This rail line will be one of the great legacies of the Olympics, with branches into the high-tech developments rising on the Terminal Flats, connecting with Skytrain at Vancouver Community College and parallel to the Central Valley Greenway — a straight, flat and car-free connection from Burnaby Lake to False Creek.
There’s more. The Olympic line will have connections to the new heritage trolley route that circulates through the downtown peninsula along the major shopping streets from the West End to Yaletown. And new ferries will be docking at Canada Place and False Creek, part of a much grander system that provides service from the airport to Squamish.
It turns out that it’s faster to take people by water up Howe Sound than to drive. And the new rail link to Whistler takes people through some of the finest scenery in the region. It’s another legacy of the Games — a ferry service that turns English Bay into a larger version of False Creek. Now it will be possible to travel from the North Shore to the University of B.C. and downtown by water, served by connecting transit, which has finally been properly funded, given the priority of the Games.
In the end, despite the fears, it turns out there’s less problem with traffic during the Olympics than normal, even though there are many more people trying to get around. And the way people get around, on foot and bike, by ferry and rail, by bus and car — well, it certainly makes Vancouver a special place. And wasn’t that the point?
Actually, this is not so much an exercise of the imagination as one of priority-setting. All of these proposals are perfectly possible and can be done at a fraction of the cost of building a tunnel to the airport or widening the Sea-to-Sky Highway. It just depends on how we imagine ourselves and the kind of community we want to be.
Some very good ideas and foresight there. A few we have to, in hindsight, be thankful they didn’t follow and a few we ought to wish they had. The floating platforms would be great but weather contingent… it’s not like we don’t have the occasional windstorm and brutal rain in February, right? (Sure, we had great weather for these games but what if we had the kind of weather that washes sailboats up on Kits Beach and could attack unsheltered olympic flames and medal ceromonies?)
The Olympic Village is looking absolutely brilliant (if the rumours of its construction deficiencies prove unfounded).
The trolley is an idea whose time has come and gone and needs to come back. I got a pic of them taking the Bombardier away and how sad that was. It is truly an unrealized beaut of an idea. It does need to be extended down Main and on through Coal Harbour to Stanley Park. If not for the locals then for the tourists.
But if your whole post was about Traffic I think we can safely say that just putting the fear of gridlock into people is all that is needed. I drove everywhere and LOVED it! No traffic at all during those two plus weeks and parking was a breeze downtown. I know lots of people noticed that, too. Unfortunately that public transit legacy died the day after the closing ceremonies as we all faced the usual gridlock on major arteries. I miss the Olympic lanes on 12th and Broadway…
Well, at least our trials of bike lanes and other car dependent discouraging ideas are showing that we, as a society, can give up our wheels and still get around… (then again, I couldn’t for my business and I didn’t have to jam myself onto a skytrain or bus during those two weeks so maybe somebody has a totally different view on the whole scene).