Vancouver Organizing Committee

Bombardier will construct 12,000 Olympic torches—one for each of the torchbearers

The Olympics are big, noisy, pushy and inconvenient for those in a hurry. Vancouver is just waking up to a taste of what it’s like to have an 800 tonne gorilla, and all his hairy friends (250,000 visitors, 10,000 media and, oh yeah, athletes) drop in for the month of February, 2010. Vancouver has just released some of its transportation plans for moving, slowly, around the city during the Games. Some 650 downtown blocks will be impacted either with commuter lanes, temporary pedestrian malls, parking bans or with sealed-off streets to protect the security of the athletes’ village, several sports venues and the waterfront media centre. The city’s effort is applauded by the Vancouver Organizing Committee, which is still confident the Games will be a riot, of, you know, fun.