Olympic road closures drive office workers home

As Olympic road closures limit vehicle access to downtown Vancouver, many office workers are getting ready to work from home by using internet technology to hook into their virtual workplaces.

On Friday, the Georgia and Dunsmuir Street Viaducts were shut down to traffic because of their proximity to two of the main Olympic venues, BC Place and Canada Hockey Place. The viaducts normallycarry about 50,000 vehicles a dayin and out ofthe downtown core from East Vancouver.

Earlier this week, Olympic lanes and parking restrictions also came into effect in preparation for the opening of the 2010 Winter Games on Feb. 12.

Dale Bracewell, Vancouver's director of Olympic transportation,said the goal is to reduce traffic in the downtown core by 30 per cent during the Games.

ButbyThursday, only afour per cent reduction had been recorded, well short of the interim goal of 25 per cent, although the morning rush hour was starting to slow down as commuters switched to public transit, he said.

'We're going to take well over a1,000 cars off the road.' Telus spokesman Shawn Hall

"The morning rush hour period into downtown we have seen over 10 per cent reduction for the last couple of weeks," said Bracewell.

"At the same time we have seen significant increasing numbers on transit, both Canada Line, Seabus and we have seen some really good cycling numbers across our False Creek bridges into downtown," he said.

Let the tele-commute begin

Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said about 1,000 employees from the company's Seymour Street building, which is just blocks from the Olympic zone, will be telecommuting.

The company is also planning to park some of its service vans and send its downtown technicians out on foot with handcarts during the Games.

"We're going to take well over a1,000 cars off the road and a lot of people out of the buses and trains to free up space," said Hall.

It's all possible because of the proliferation of high-speed internet service to residential homes, allowing employees to tie into the company computer network with a secure connectionfrom home, Hall said.

Hedoes admit, however, thatsomething is lost when people are not face to face.

"You know we're going to lose the collaboration that can only happen when you're stopping by each other's offices," said Hall.

"But it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's only happening once. We want to help the Olympics be successful while at the same time maintaining productivity, so we're going to make it work."

Cam Davies, who works for Business Objects, a large software company also located in the centre of the Olympic action downtown, said half of their employees are now punching the clock at home.

They'll be using the internet video phone services such as Skype or WebEx for teleconferences to maintain virtual face-to-face contact, he said.

More closures planned

Further road closures around the curling venue at Riley Park in East Vancouver come into effect on Feb. 10, and around the Pacific Coliseum on Feb. 13.

One-day road closures will shut down the Cambie Bridge and many streets around BC Place on Feb. 10, 12 and 28.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway, which connects Vancouver and Whistler, will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to all traffic heading north of Squamish, except those with an Olympic permit, during the Olympic Games.