Olympic road closures will last one month: VANOC

The Olympic transportation plan to cut some road access will kick in two weeks before the Games begin in February 2010, meaningit will last the entire month, CBC News has learned.

British Columbians won't learn the full details of the plan until the end of this month, when transportation officials reveal plans to restrict traffic and parking and increase public transit for Metro Vancouver, the Sea to Sky Highway and Whistler.

Terry Wright, VANOC's vice-president of service operations, told CBC News the transportation plan has already been revised because of recent events in the Lower Mainland.

Wright said after witnessing how slowly the public switched to public transit after a fire shut down the Pattullo Bridge in January, VANOC decided it would have to launch the transportation changes almost two weeks before the Games in hopes of getting people out of their cars earlier and for a longer period of time.

"I think we all learned a lesson with the Pattullo Bridge. It took almost five days for habits to change and we were like, shoot. My transport people are saying we have got to start on [Feb. 1]," he said.

Dale Bracewell, VANOC's director of Olympic transportation, said the traffic chaos caused by December's heavy snowfall was also a wakeup call.

Snow removal costs reviewed

"We need to be able to remove that snow. That's something different we need to be ready to do for Games time," said Bracewell.

Following heavy snowfalls in December, many streets and sidewalks in Vancouver, including several main transportation routes, were never cleared of snow because of a lack of equipment

But upgrading the snow-clearing capacity could cost the city more than it has budgeted, and those costs are now being reviewed, Bracewell said.

In November, the City of Vancouver released its own map of temporary changes to the city's road network leading up to and during the two-week event.

The temporary changes will include pedestrian-only areas, security zones, on-street parking limitations and priority lanes for Olympic traffic.

The city plans to make pedestrian malls out of parts of Granville, Robson, Mainland, and Hamilton streets in the downtown core, and create priority lanes for Olympic traffic on Broadway, Hastings, West Georgia, Seymour and Howe streets.