Are we really ready for 2010?

Vancouver won the bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which is pretty exciting news, despite serious misgivings many Vancouverites have about the sense of spending so much money on an Olympics when our Province is in such an economic mess. Those who rallied so strongly for the games to be here are the ones who stand to make the most money from the events. The rest of us are a little worried about our tax dollars going toward building curling rinks instead of healthcare.

I'm sure there will be some really good infrastructure things that come out of us hosting the Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler - such as improvements to the scary Sea-to-Sky highway between the two cities, plus the proposed rapid transit line to Richmond. I suppose it will put Vancouver on the world map as a city capable of being more than picturesque but they've got a long way to go before we could ever consider ourselves "world class".

For example, they recently changed the city bylaws allowing bars and clubs to be open until 4 AM. That's pretty cool, but our public transit can't support those kinds of hours. The Skytrain still stops running at 1:15 - which was lame when the bars closed at 2 AM, and is even lamer now. There are a couple late night bus lines but they're extremely limited routes. Basically the choices for late-night revellers are still driving or expensive, hard-to-obtain taxis.

An even more telling example is that the traditional Canada Day fireworks on July 1 this year were cancelled because they were too popular! and the local police didn't think they could handle the crowds. How the hell can we host the Olympics when we can't even celebrate our National Holiday? Can you imagine an American city cancelling the 4th of July because too many people wanted to celebrate? Someone would be lynched. But, since we're Canadian, and laid-back West coasters to boot, we just shook our heads. It boggles the mind.

Can we get our shit together in 7 years? Let's hope so, because the world will be watching.