Flickr photo by Rob Hernandez

Originally slated to open a couple of months from now, the line is done early, and will open to the public on August 17th and for fun, you can ride it for free between 1PM and 9PM!

All 16 stations on the line, between waterfront station downtown, Richmond Center, and the airport, will be up and running. And the Expo rocket ship statue is back at Cambie and 6th Ave – here’s hoping they remembered to put the Expo time capsule back.

Where to get on;
-Waterfront
-Vancouver – City Center
-Yaletown – Roundhouse
-Olympic Village (Cambie and 6th)
-Broadway – City Hall (Broadway and Cambie)
-King Edward (Cambie and 24th)
-Oakridge – 41th (Oakridge Mall)
-Langara – 49th (Cambie and 49th)
-Marine Drive (Cambie and Marine)
-Bridgeport (SPLIT)

(YVR)
-Templeton
-Sea Island Centre
-YVR – Airport

(RICHMOND)
-Aberdeen
-Lansdowne
-Richmond – Brighouse

[VIA TransLink]

Well, that’s a crappy way to start the news day – The Vancouver Fireworks Festival Society has announced that sponsor funding wasn’t able to make up the $4 million required to hold the event this year.

The Vancouver Sun has the full article here [VS], which outlines some details on the event. The fireworks event, notable as being the largest fireworks festival in the world, has been going for 18 years, draws 350,000 on each of the four nights every year, and generates $37 million.

Reaction has been mixed, with some arguing that the people downtown are happy to see the event go and other wondering why the government (at all three levels) don’t step in to help.

I dismiss the first as being a not uncommon, selfish attitude – while it’s true the event does disrupt the downtown core and those that live there suffer various inconveniences, it should be said again; $37 million to downtown businesses (plus whatever those people selling pop and water on their lawns get) and top-ranking, world-class event. There’s something important about having a world-class event and while some people might be happier without them, cities are diminished when they’re gone. Kart racing anyone?

As for the second point, you can probably thank the Olympics. A great deal of money has already been committed to finance this one-off, world-class event, most of which will be held in an entirely different town. In any other year, even the municipal government might have been able to top up the pot, but this is the final 11 months run-up to the 2010 Olympics.

I’d like to float a suggestion that perhaps one world-class event, one that will fade over time (for example, is Vancouver still dining out on Expo 86? No, no we’re not) might consider saving Vancouver’s other world-class event, the one that will ideally return every Summer for years to come. I suspect that this is a fantasy world and those organizing the Olympics are more than happy to see it die, but imagine it; The Vancouver Celebration of Light, presented by The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics! Part of the event is turned into a giant press event – a sneak peak of the Olympic torch, which is ceremoniously used to set off the fireworks, which end with five fireworks exploding into the Olympic rings!

But until then, I guess I better find something else to do with my August.

There’s a few things that I’m tired of hearing about around town. Be warned these five things are on notice.

5) The Hollow Tree in Stanley Park [gm]:  It’s a tree, it was killed by God.  That’s the way nature works.  If it was torn down to put up a Starbucks, yeah then we can have some sort of fit about that.  It’s not a metaphor, it’s a damn tree.  Get over it.

4) The dollar: I get it, it’s crazy that our dollar is so strong against the American one.  Yet it’s been like that for months now.  You can also add any story about how Product X is so much cheaper in the US now because of the dollars’ values.  We all get it.  It’s boring now.

3) The Canucks: Let’s just ignore the losers and hopefully they’ll all return to Sweden and never come back.  Instead let’s talk about (soon-to-be) former Canuck Trevor Linden [bb] whose far more interesting.  Though keep it to a minimum, he’s getting pretty close to going on the list to.  Remember he’s a hockey player, he only walks on frozen water.  For a team that actually wins something try the Whitecaps [wcfc].

2) How the Olympics are destroying everything: People were homeless before we won the Olympics and they’d still be homeless afterwards.  Let’s be honest we as a society don’t give a shit about the problem of the homeless, and if 2010 was not going to be in Vancouver all the money spent on the Olympics would not instead have been used to feed and clothe those who need it.  The money probably would have been spent on magic beans, ferries that we’ll never use or a space program.  The Olympics make an easy target because it’s billions spent on things like watching men in superhero costumes slide down a frozen tube in a piece of fiberglass, but they’re nowhere near the root cause of the problem.  Show some intelligence and try to find that root instead of just raging against the wrong machine.

1) How the Olympics are really going to revitalize the city:  Right because the thing holding back Richmond from becoming a world class suburb was the fact that it didn’t have a giant speed skating rink. 

The CBC [cbc] informed me that the city was celebrating the completion of the Canada Line tunnel today, bringing the most patriotic Skytrain line that much closer to completion.  Here’s five more things that we’re celebrating today.  Please insert sarcastic quotes where appropriate.

5)The Canucks loss to the Blackhawks [cbc]: Face it we’re not a city that’s comfortable with a winning NHL team, and so these overtime losses are making us feel safe.  When the team’s winning we start getting into debates with each other on the Skytrain and in line at the movies about ontology.  Now we no longer have to worry about Anselm and his arguments.

4)The Olympics are coming: Why did we have a two year pre-Olympic celebration and not a two year minus one month pre-Olympic celebration?  Is it just me or do the rest of you feel your very neutrons vibrating with eager anticipation?  If I get much more excited I might dissipate.

3)More Pickton [vs]: I have to pick the first season up on DVD before watching next year’s.

2) Conrad Black is going to jail [gs]: Happy days.  No sarcastic quotation marks needed here.

1) The Canucks again [exn]: They might not be able to beat an NHL team, but boy they can wipe the floor with the Hives.

The pre-Olympic hype kicked off with a concert featuring Ron Sexsmith and Feist playing alongside the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Here are five random thoughts that popped into my head during the show.

5) My math might be off, but isn’t 2008 two years too early for the Olmypics?

4) Ben Mulroney hosting? What they couldn’t get Justin Trudeau? Are Ben’s writers on strike too, because he’s painfully unfunny?

3) Three songs from Ron Sexsmith, I thought he was supposed to be a co-headliner. Jesus, Jorane got more stage time.

2) I understand not getting press credentials, because we all know this internet thing is just a fad, but please if I’m taking a photo without disturbing anyone else and without a flash do we really need ushers converging on me like I just snuck outside food into a movie theatre.

1) Who taught Feist how to rock? And why doesn’t she do that on her albums?

Bonus) I really need to go see the VSO at some point. They’re quite good.

photo.jpg

Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I suspected that the kids would love the new Olympic Mascots and after seeing them interacting with the public at The Bay today I guess I’ve been proven right. Kids freaking love the three mascots, and seeing them in person seemed to be a treat for children.

Granted it’s possible that kids are dumb and The Bay could have wheeled out any sort of animals and as long as they had big eyes and plush exteriors kids would have fallen for them, but for the intended purpose the ones choosen to represent our Olympics seem to work.

When I say actually pretty good I mean that they’re shockingly good. Olympic mascots don’t exactly have a history of being memorable, interesting or anything more than a way of selling some t-shirts but these are actually pretty cute. Which is to say they’re going to sell a lot of t-shirts. They’re really kid friendly and are pretty Vancouver specific, as opposed to say a giant spring or squiggle.

From the CBC [cbc]:

Miga is a mythical First Nations sea bear that is part killer whale and part Kermode spirit bear, “who lives in the ocean with her family pod, beyond Vancouver Island, near Tofino, British Columbia,” according to a VANOC press release.

Quatchi is a “young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada.”

The third mascot, Sumi, an animal-guardian spirit, is a Thunderbird that wears the hat of an orca. Sumi will be the mascot of the Paralympics.

Maybe it’s a case of lowered expectations, and I’m sure my praise of them is not going to be universal.

I was out east last week, and being in Montreal [mbm] reminded me of something that I’ve noticed before in other cities, the fact that sometimes an event or a period of time comes to define the city in such a way that the city seems and feels locked in that time period.

Edmonton feels like it’s still in the 1908s’ when the Oilers were winning Stanley Cups and West Edmonton Mall had just opened. Montreal feels like 1976 when they had the Olympics. Winnipeg largely feels, at least if you spend your time in the downtown core as opposed to the burbs, like 1919 just before the General Strike. Part of the reason for this, especially in the cases of Edmonton and Montreal, is that lots of money was poured into Edmonton during the oil boom of the ’80s for development, and the same with Montreal to prepare for the Olympics.

Vancouver has largely been pushed forward by an economic boom, and influx of money and people from around the Pacific Rim. Bits of it, such as the Skytrain lines and the area around Science World, seem like 1986 but for the most part it’s hard to apply a specific era to the city. Still will 2010 possibly be the high water mark in the development for Vancouver and the beginning of its nadir?

IMG_1234-vancouver-strike

Originally uploaded by VancouverGo.

Metroblogging Vancouver can exclusively reveal that there is a contract on the table between the city and the union that should end the strike. The CBC reported earlier today that the union had gone back to bargain with the city [cbc] and this is the fruits of their labour. Most of the hold up has centred around when the contract will end, with the union wanting it to end just before the Olympics (giving them the upper hand in the next round of bargaining) and the city wanting it to end after, and as such any compromise is going to centre around the period of the Olympics.

The Details of the New Contract

- the contract will extend beyond the Olympics, ending one month after the close of the 2010 Games

- all city employees will be given two extra paid days off during the Games in which they’ll have free admission to any of the events. Their shifts will be staffed by members of the Finnish Nordic Combined team [wp]

- the city of Vancouver promises to not allow live performances by Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk during a period running from one month before to one month after the Olympic Games

- The mayor promises to put the full weight of the city behind getting Skijöring [wp] another chance as an Olympic Demonstration Sport

- The Union agrees to trade their dental plan for a free keg of beer at all of their future meetings

- City Employees will no longer have to go through the yearly Blood Trials (or cha’Dich) in order to maintain their seniority

- The idea to house Olympic athletes in the homes of City Employees to save on the costs of building the Olympic Village has been nixed. Housing British Red Coats however is still mandatory

- City Employees will no longer have to refer to the city as “Vancouver the home of the Coca-Cola 2010 Winter Olympics” while on duty, they however still do have to refer to Mayor Sam Sullivan as “Smokey” [wp]

These are of course simply the highlights. In any negotiation such as this there is a lot of give and take, and by the time the ink is dry and the press are alerted some small details here may have been changed. Keeping checking back here for more updates as we have news.