Create your own Vectorial!

What's a Vectorial?! It's those crazy lights over the head of False Creek from the Downtown side on the Kits side that light up the night sky!

photo by Susan Gittins on flickr.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susangittins/

Check it out and you can even create your own light show for all of Vancouver to see!

City of Vancouver Tour

Great New Pictures from Canada Place

Canada Place, home to the International Media Centre, has installed new "lighting", if you can call it that, putting images and colours associated with the Olympics along the iconic sails that make up the roof of the convention centre.

See all the pictures here.

The City of Vancouver

“Vancouver City” music video is an artistic collaboration between Innerlife Project and TimeLapseHD. Linda Ganzini’s beautiful and haunting vocals blend with the unique musical style of Serge Chubinski-Orlov who produced and wrote Vancouver City. For more information and music downloads go to www.innerlifeproject.com
These time lapses are shot with a 12 mega pixel digital single lens reflex cameras. Original resolution is 6 times better then HD (high definition). The images have been resized for HD and are much better quality then shown here on YouTube. Video clips are for sale. For more information contact us at TimeLapseHD@hotmail.com. Thanks and enjoy!

Vancouver Olympic Line Streetcar Service Starts Tomorrow

Running through the Athletes village with stops at the Canada Line and Granville Island, Vancouverites and our visitors, will have a chance to ride a brand-new-to-us form of transportation, the streetcar.



The actual cars are on loan from Brussels, Belgium, but the city has plans to increase streetcar transit options greatly in the coming years. One evidence of the future plans includes the sidewalk in the central meridian of Pacific Avenue, that will one day be home to another streetcar line.

Canada Line :: Video Tour

Here's a video of the Canada Line.

Canada Line Opens Today

In 30 minutes the official, inaugural rides of the Canada Line will begin.

This $2B rapid transit project, not officially tied to the Vancouver 2010 Games bid or budget, will modernize transportation along the North-South corridor from Richmond, Vancouver International Airport, and the City Center.

Congrats Vancouver.



Picture from News1130.com of Dignitaries riding the train earlier today.

Vancouver World's Most Livable City?

Here's a little Conde Nast Traveller video on Vancouver.

Coming to Vancouver through YVR...

If you're coming to Vancouver by air you'll get to experience Vancouver International Airport or YVR as it's known.

YVR has spent millions of dollars over the last ten years expanding, renovating, and enhancing itself.

As we approach 2010 the airport really is in a great state and will be a wonderfully, welcoming port of entry for visitors.

Check out this video explaining a bit of the architecture used in the terminal.

New Translink Website

For the 2010 Olympic Games all attendees are going to be encouraged to use public transportation to get to and from events.  The Greater Vancouver Regional District's (GVRD) transportaton authority, Translink, has updated their website.

Click here for more info.

Summa Donna Vancouver 2010

If there's one thing Vancouver is known for it is certainly NOT for partying.  

Yes we had considerable excitement in 1994 when the Vancouver Canucks made it to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals versus the New York Rangers, but other than that, we're actually pretty boring.  I mean take a look at the scenery... we're too busy chilling at the beach, mountain biking down the coastal mountains, golfing year round, and dodging rain drops to do too much partying.  

Yet the IOC has somehow gotten a different perspective than "No Fun City" as is often touted.  So they've encouraged VANOC to tone down the partying side of the 17-day Vancouver 2010 Olympics, especially considering the current global economic climate.

Read there full article here.

p.s. Simma Donna refers to Simmer Down Now, an SNL sketch.

New 2010 Map!

In order to help you to find what you want to find we've created a new Google Map that lists all of the competition venues, celebration sites, media centres, athletes' villages, and more!

We're going to be added many more "Olympic Locations" to the map as time goes on so check back often.

View the map here.

City to Host Transportation Plan Open House

The City of Vancouver recently released its Host City Olympic transportation plan for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which includes locations of Olympic lanes, parking restrictions, pedestrian corridors and more within Vancouver.

The City will be holding an open house on March 30, 2009 - with information booths and staff available - to answer any questions that residents and businesses might have about the plan, including details on how the downtown pedestrian corridors will function during the 2010 Winter Games.

Monday, March 30, 2009
4 - 7 pm

Main floor Promenade
Vancouver Public Library – Central Branch
350 West Georgia Street

More information on temporary changes to the City’s road network during the 2010 Winter Games is also available on the City’s Host City website at Vancouver.ca.

Vancouver's Athletes Village Claims First Victim

The Vancouver city official in charge of overseeing the Athletes Village has resigned, reports suggest.

Jody Andrew's departure has been abrupt and there is no word yet of who is in line to replace him.

Read more on his departure here.

More information on the beleaguered Olympic Village here.

2010 Vancouver Athletes Village Commentary

Photo by eyesplash mikul

We feel it necessary to comment on the myriad of articles hitting the presses in ever increasing numbers over the past while, most of which seem to be painting a very dire picture of what could happen with the Vancouver Athletes Village.

First off, when the plan was formulated, no one could have fathomed that a global credit crisis of the magnitude we are all seeing would have come to fruition.

Secondly, no one would have thought that the Vancouver real estate market would have slowed down as quickly as it has.

That being said, the numbers being referenced for potential liability for the City of Vancouver, should the proverbial excrement really hit the fan are completely sensationalized and the reporting of them is at best irresponsible. So to make a little better sense of the numbers please consider the following:

• $1B - total approx. cost of the Olympic Village
• $200M - approx. value of the 250 condos already pre-sold with 20% deposits
• 10% - approx. drop in real estate prices from the peak value in May 2008
• Millennium Group of Companies had to put up other properties as security for the South East False Creek Lands the Olympic Village is being constructed on (SEFC valued at $150M)
  

You may have seen numbers of anywhere from $800M to $1B being what the city could be liable for.

Yes... if the condos being built can not be sold for as little as $1, then the city would be on the hook for a large chunck of change, likely in the neighbourhood of $800M. Though the city would gain the property securitized from the Mellinnium Group of Companies and the liklihood of the condos not being marketable at any price is nil.

So if we assume that the prices for the condos end up being 20% less than previous projections, on average, we can assume that there is a max potential shortfall of approximately $200M between the City of Vancouver and Millenium Group of Companies. A far cry from the $1B numbers being thrown around by juvenile reporters. (I might point out that it seems that most of the sensationalist articles are coming from the CanWest news service that did not win the bid to broadcast the Olympics... hmmm.)

My understanding is that this shortfall would primarily fall on Mellinnium Groups shoulders, though in all liklihood the city would be out at least $50-100M.

That being said a fantastic new neighbourhood will be born... so will the city really lose anything?

Massive 2010 Road Closures Expected

Read more here.

Athletes village to get $100-million loan

The city of Vancouver is providing up to $100M to the developer of Millennium Water, what the world will know as the Athlete's Village during the 2010 Olympics.

The funds will be a loan to help cover cost overruns and other shortfalls.

Read more here.

2010 Cultural Olympiad

Tomorrow VANOC is set to announce the full line-up for the 2010 cultural olympiad which will run from February 1 through March 21.

Over those 7 weeks many world-class cultural performances will descend on Vancouver & Whistler in addition to the thousands of world-class athletes.

Previously announced performances include Ronnie Burkett's Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy and Montreal Danse's On the Ice of Labrador Feb. 1-8 and March 3-7 respectively at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

Read more in our forums where we'll update as news is available.

30 days left...

It's been nearly a week since you've been able to start working on your application for 2010 tickets and you now have 30 days left to complete your app as of the writing of this post.

Make sure you get the tickets you want and complete your application today.

Don't forget to figure out your accommodation, you can either post a rental offering or place a rental want ad on our FREE forums.

Vancouver's Olympic Village in Trouble?

Amid the current global financial credit crisis rumours are starting to swirl that the Vancouver Athletes Village being constructed by Millennium Development Corp. on the shores of South East False Creek could be in serious financial trouble.

Fortress Investment Group, a large private-equity establishment out of New York who provided much of the funds has apparently been monitoring the project and their reported cost overruns very closely.

The City of Vancouver also recently held an emergency review of the project since they are apparently on the hook to completely the $1B project should the current financing methods be recalled.

Read more on these major rumours here.