BC road restrictions of Olympic proportions

VANCOUVER — A CTV advertisement for the Vancouver Winter Olympics has Canadian children across the country wishing for gold medals from our country’s athletes and asking the rest of the country to do the same — believe.

Similarly, the City of Vancouver is urging its transportation community to believe traffic delays will be kept to a minimum during the colossal international sporting event. As coined by Robert LeRoy Ripley, "believe it or not."

In preparation for the population and traffic boost that accompanies an Olympic event, Vancouver, as the host city, has developed an Olympic Transportation Plan (OTP), which includes changes to the downtown core’s truck routes and changes to the noise bylaws to allow off-peak deliveries.

"We’re facing a very challenging, but lucrative opportunity for the city," says Neal Peacocke, engineer-in-training with the City of Vancouver. "The saying at the city is its business as unusual."

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games officially span 17 days from Feb. 12 to 28. Many of the OTP changes, however, will kick-in this month leading up to the Games and some will continue into March during the Paralympic Winter Games.

A city held off on a proposal to restrict trucks longer than 50 feet from most of the downtown area to the hours between midnight and 6 a.m. 

Trucks won’t be turned away from most of the downtown
core, but carriers are asked to stay away during peak hours

The current bylaw, which is not enforced, is supposed to restrict vehicles of this length on a designated truck route in the downtown area between 7 am and 6 pm.

While the city can’t restrict what times deliveries can be made on most downtown arteries, it is encouraging carriers to make deliveries in the downtown core through the middle of the night. Alternatively, the city suggests between 6 a.m. and noon, the second best time slot option.

"Basically, for downtown, there’s a 24-hour relaxation of the noise bylaw, so deliveries should be done between midnight and 6 a.m., if possible," explains Peacocke.

A number of streets adjacent to Olympic Venues — BC Place, GM Place, Pacific Coliseum, Main Media Centre, and Vancouver Olympic Centre — will be closed to traffic. Commercial vehicles needing access to those streets for deliveries will require a permit.

Specifically, four downtown streets will be turned into pedestrian corridors with no vehicle traffic between noon and midnight — Granville Street, Robson Street, Beatty Street, and the Hamilton/Mainland corridor.

Due to the road closures, the city has added other streets to Vancouver’s truck route, including Hastings Street, Nelson Street and Smithe Street. As well, the city is considering allowing access to the Granville Bridge to straight trucks with a GVW less than 27,000 kg.

"The two major items are the Olympic Lanes and the No Stopping Lanes," notes Peacocke.

The No Stopping Lanes (pretty self-explanatory) are also in effect from Feb.4 to March 1, 24 hours a day, and override commercial loading zones. Truckers are urged to find alternative loading zones for deliveries, like side streets and back lanes.

"Enforcement will be extremely important to make these a success," adds Peacocke. "There will be more tow trucks and parking enforcement officers than you’ve probably ever seen."

So all it takes to get proper traffic oversight is securing multi-billion events?

Good to know.

Carriers will not require special permits to drive the streets of Vancouver, except to access Olympic Venue areas, and much of the traffic congestion in the region is expected to be isolated to the downtown core.

But it’s not going to be mild congestion. According to VANOC, the number of athletes and officials at the Games will be 6,100, about 10,000 members of the worldwide media will be running around, and the Games workforce totals another 55,000 people. 

As for traffic, there will about 4,500 VANOC-certified vehicles on the road and about 1,100 network buses introduced into the road network.

"The city has placed a lot of emphasis on promoting public transit," adds Peacocke.

While much of the human and vehicular traffic will be concentrated in Metro Vancouver, it won’t all be. Two hours north, up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, a number of events will be hosted in Whistler.

Beginning Feb. 11, travel along the highway will require a permit during peak hours, which are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Commercial truckers won’t actually need a permit to travel along the Sea-to-Sky Highway, but delays should probably be expected.

Line-ups at B.C.’s border crossings could also be longer during the Olympic Games. The Pacific Highway border crossing is the official port of entry for goods heading to Olympic Venues. While the province’s other border crossings will not be processing commercial goods destined for the Olympics, it is expected that traffic volumes will be similar to 95 percent of peak summer travel.

"We’re not experts on how you do your business," says Peacocke. "But hopefully with this information you can find methods to continue business."

Do you believe? Or not?