The powers-that-be sure seem to be marking the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games as a case study in short-sighted thinking, nickel and diming, and the wrong-headed belief that corners cut won't show up on the big day. The most obvious example of Olympic stupidity from the Vancouver organizers (and there's been a few) is the decision to make the Olympic ski-jump facility a temporary structure.

Yes, that's right, they're going to spend a whole wack of cash designing this thing, smoothing the mountain around it, doing the engineering, trucking up the iron and wood and fiberglass and electronics, they'll build the entire thing so it's beautiful and world standard, then they'll use it for a few weeks before junking it all and selling it as scrap.

Pique is a weekly news magazine in Whistler. The March 15 issue has a couple of useful articles:

VANOC seeks partners for Olympic apparel. The subtitle is, "If you can design, manufacture and distribute items, here’s your Olympic opportunity."

There was also this letter to the editor, which makes an important point:

Irony on rails

As we bask in he glow of the 2006 Olympics, I find it ironic that the advertisements that played during the TV coverage were boastful of the trains (and planes) of Bombardier Corp. The irony being that we have no commuter service by train to Whistler, Canadian made or otherwise.

With all that was made of the last road closures due to accidents you would think that a train system put in place prior to and during the Olympics would be a great legacy afterward. It could be a showcase for Bombardier and fall right in line with the "Green Games" that we so much want to show off.

The other obvious benefit is that a train is not affected by the weather, bad road conditions and poor drivers that so often cause the highway to shut down.

Keith Auchinachie
Whistler

The March 17, 2006 issue of the Epoch Times includes this article: Vancouver Olympics Already Stirring Controversy. The primary focus is on the request from VANOC for another $110 million from the federal and provincial governments.

Olympic flag-raising events at Vancouver City Hall on February 28 and March 2 drew large crowds of protesters, concerned about some specific environment damage associated with preparations for the 2010 Olympics.

However, this group of protesters bore little resemblance to the granola-eating stereotype. Most of them were from West Vancouver, which is one of the most affluent municipalities in North America. And they had a point.

The contentious issue is an area of West Vancouver called Eagleridge Bluffs, and it starts with Route 99, the "Sea to Sky" highway that runs from West Vancouver to Squamish, Whistler, and Lillooet. This road has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous that goes back long before the 2010 Olympics were conceived. The primary problem is the rugged terrain it goes through, but anyone who's familiar with it will tell you that inebriated skiers returning from Whistler after the slopes close, combined with often inclement weather and lax law enforcement, are a major contributor.

Downhill and cross-country skiing, biathlon, bobsled, and ski jumping competition will take place in the Whistler area.

Pleas to the Provincial government from residents of communities along the Sea to Sky Highway to step up traffic enforcement have been falling on deaf ears. (The same government discontinued passenger rail service through this corridor in 2003, but that's a story for another day.) The same government has, however, addressed the problem of capacity. Their plan (there's a web site about it at http://www.seatoskyimprovements.ca/) is to widen most of the stretch from West Vancouver to Squamish to four lanes.

The big problem is, this widening will destroy Eagleridge Bluffs. It isn't just a matter of turning an attractive area into an unattractive one. Eagleridge Bluffs is a nesting area for bald eagles, and cutting down the arbutus trees will eliminate a rare ecosystem. The Mininstry of Transportations's own report to the provincial Assessment Office stated that Eagleridge Bluffs and the Larsen Creek Wetlands are "extremely rare, unique, highly susceptible to disturbance and regionally rare."

What's more, the opponents of the widening (and these opponents include West Vancouver City Council and the Greater Vancouver Regional District) have been consistently promoting an alternative; a tunnel under Eagleridge Bluffs. They claim that doing this would add only $15 million to the cost, and this additional cost is easily justified by lower maintenance costs, fewer accidents, and a vastly reduced environmental impact.

The bid submitted by Vancouver for the 2010 games contained a promise that the games would be sustainable. The government of British Columbia should be getting some hard questions about this promise with regard to Eagleridge Bluffs. The Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs has a very good site at http://www.eagleridgebluffs.ca/.

I'm mostly neutral on the subject of Todd Bertuzzi, but I do believe that wearing an ice hockey sweater and a pair of skates does not give anyone any sort of immunity from the laws and rules that govern human behaviour.

I feel compelled to say that the people who raised objections to Bertuzzi's participation in the 2006 Winter Games now have a right to say, "I told you so." This group of people includes the Canadian Olympic Committee; the ice hockey team was chosen by Hockey Canada, as in Wayne Gretsky and Pat Quinn.

In the mens ice hockey quarterfinal game, Canada and Russia were scoreless after two periods. Early in the third period, Bertuzzi took an interference penalty. While he was sitting in the penalty box, Alexander Ovechkin scored what turned out to be the winning goal.