Vancouver View -- Port for the Olympics, VANOC Banned Words, More $ from City

Transport Blueprint Delay

The Vancouver 2010 transportation plan has been delayed yet again.

The blueprint for moving people around the Olympic theatre was originally expected by the end of 2007. In July, VANOC said it would be out in January 2009. On Monday, VANOC CEO John Furlong said it would be published in “spring 2009.”

“There's a lot of different players involved in it, there's a lot to it,” Furlong said. He said VANOC is “finessing and fine-tuning” its contract with TransLink, the body that oversees public transit and major roads and bridges.

VANOC contracted Gameday Management Group of Orlando, Fla., to oversee motorcoach logistics. VANOC CEO John Furlong and friends inagurate the partnership with Port Metro Vancouver. (ATR/B.Mackin)

Port Joins VANOC Suppliers

Port Metro Vancouver is now a Vancouver 2010 official supplier Monday. The sponsorship allows VANOC access to $3 million to $15 million worth of Port-owned property and facilities, such as roads, parkades and parts of Canada Place, site of the Main Press Centre for the 2010 Games.

Vancouver is the first seaside host for a Winter Olympics since Oslo 1952.

The president of the British Columbia Trucking Association said truckers hauling containers to and from the port will be impacted by Games traffic and security issues in the downtown peninsula.

Paul Landry said truckers will have to work longer hours or overnight shifts. “I’d say things are going to be fairly challenged,” Landry says.

But the president of Canada’s biggest port said the 2010 Winter Olympics won’t disrupt operations. "Everything will be perfectly normal from the marine component," said Port Metro Vancouver’s Capt. Gordon Houston, who is expected to retire by year-end.

"The marine world will work well." Houston said it would be business as usual during the Games, albeit with an enhanced RCMP presence for security.

City Council Opens Olympic Wallet Again

Vancouver city council is expected to pass $13 million of Olympic-related spending proposals at its Tuesday meeting. Robson Square without ice rink. (ATR)

The biggest item calls for $8.5 million for roads, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, furnishings, trees and plants at the Vancouver Olympic Village at Southeast False Creek.

City council is also expected to rubber stamp expansion of the Robson Square ice rink, which was closed in a 2000 round of provincial government cutbacks. Olympic sponsor GE pledged $1.6 million to reopen it for the Games. Robson Square will be the provincial hospitality and promotion site and venue for the non-accredited media centre in 2010.

Denver Dreamers Scope Vancouver Olympics

A Denver delegation pondering a possible bid for the Winter Olympics arrives Wednesday for a three-day fact-finding mission. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will be among the 165-person Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce leadership exchange.

The group tours the Richmond Oval speedskating arena Wednesday and meets Thursday with Premier Gordon Campbell and VANOC CEO John Furlong.

Denver remains the only city in Olympic history to abandon the Games. In 1970, Denver won the 1976 Winter Olympics, beating three other candidates, including Vancouver/Garibaldi. Two years later, Colorado voters balked at Olympic-related tax increases, forcing the IOC to move the Games to Innsbruck, Austria.

Salt Lake Veteran Shares Business Ideas

A key public relations advisor from Salt Lake 2002 is the next guest in the RBC 2010 Legacies Now Speaker Series.

Jaime Rupert was internal account leader for Coltrin and Associates, the public relations agency of record for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee from 1999-2002.

She has come north to work for Reputations Corporation, which has helped VANOC with some presentations and represents IOC global information technology sponsor, Atos Origin.

Rupert speaks Oct. 1 at a Vancouver Board of Trade lunch and appears on an Oct. 2 noon webcast via 2010legaciesnow.com.

Her presentation includes case studies on B.C. companies positioning themselves for Olympic niche glory: Lumby’s Aspenware, which makes birch and aspen flatware under the WUN Cutlery brand; Abbotsford’s Coretection, maker of Coreshorts to prevent pelvic, hip and groin injuries; and Thomas Special FX, the North Vancouver film and TV production equipment and props house which also peddles “faux snow.”

VANOC’s Banned List

The Vancouver 2010 volunteer training guide includes a list of three-dozen terms that won’t be allowed.

The official My Games Training manual includes forbidden anachronisms like cripple, spastic, lunatic, crazy, nuts, retarded, idiot and mongoloid.

Acceptable terms include “person with...” a disability, mobility impairment or mental illness and “person who is...” deaf, blind, hard-of-hearing or visually impaired.

“Words we use sometimes paint a picture of people with disabilities as victims or sufferers. Most are not; they live with their disability, rather than being defined by it,” said the section.

“People with disabilities are people first, treat them no differently than any other customer.”

The list of disallowed words includes the popular 1990s politically correct “physically challenged or differently-abled.”

Even the seemingly innocuous word “patient” is banned in favor of “person with a disability, client or consumer of medical services.”

The VANOC guide is decidedly more sensitive than the controversial handbook issued by BOCOG. Beijing 2008 volunteers were advised that “some physically disabled” people have “unusual personalities” and can be “unsocial and introspective” and “stubborn and controlling.”

Alberta Rides the Rails to Games

All aboard for what could be the first rolling hospitality site in Olympic history. The Rocky Mountaineer plies three routes from B.C. to Alberta during the summer. (Rocky Mountaineer Vacations)

The Canadian province of Alberta has contracted brand.LIVE event management to charter an eight-car Rocky Mountaineer train to carry guests from North Vancouver to Whistler during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The one-way trip is three hours.

Rocky Mountaineer runs spring to fall trips to the Canadian Rocky Mountains and day-trips on the Sea-to-Sky corridor. It offered rolling stock to VANOC, but only motorcoaches will be used for official Games transport.

"We don't operate during the winter, so it's great utilization of our equipment." said Ian Robertson, Rocky Mountaineer Vacations' corporate communications and public affairs.

"It gives us an opportunity to partner with Alberta, a strong tourism partner of ours."

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.

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