A Vancouver School Board decision on whether to close schools during the 2010 Winter Olympics could be crucial for the Games' transportation plan.
Board chair Patti Bacchus told 24 hours four options will be considered at tonight's meeting: Leaving all schools open, closing secondary schools only; closing schools affected by Olympic traffic restrictions; or moving March break to Games time. West Vancouver and Sea-to-Sky school districts have announced Olympic closures.
"We heard some arguments that kids would get more out of the Olympics by being in school, using the Olympics in a whole variety of ranges from science to math," Bacchus said.
A July 7, 2008 memo from City of Vancouver transportation engineer Christopher Darwent to Olympic transportation director Dale Bracewell, obtained by 24 hours under Freedom of Information, said "if the K-12 March break were to occur during Games time, a reduction in background traffic similar to the expected increase from the Olympic overlay [five per cent] may be realized."
Approximately 600,000 school-related trips are made on weekdays "which results in more than 300,000 vehicle driver and passenger trips throughout the region and up to 67,000 vehicle driver and passenger trips to/from Vancouver."
Bob Mackin writes for 24 hours and appears regularly on the Hook.
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Skywalker
3 years ago
A contradiction.
Just wait till the teachers decide toi go on strike. Then every day out of school will be a disaster for education. For a sports event designed to make Campbell look good we spare no expense and never worry about disrupting education and nary a peep from the media. Ahhh politics in BC.
mwatkins
3 years ago
600,000 trips on a weekday? Impossible
Vancouver has a population of 600,000. There are perhaps at most 100,000 Vancouver-area persons that visit a school daily or weekly (when night classes are in session) during an average week.
Perhaps 600,000 is a valid number if looked at metro-wide, but it can't possibly be accurate, on a daily basis, for the City of Vancouver alone (which has approximately 54,000 day time students in classes).
I am not in favour of shutting down education for the Olympics. While our family is easily able to handle the child care responsibility, a great many families are not.
Keeping children and their working parents home during the Olympics is the last thing a weak (and it still will be weak next year) economy needs.
School carries on when transportation is impacted by major snowfall and other weather events and it should carry on during the 2010 games.
runner
3 years ago
they need the school buses for the athletes
Another possible reason for closing the schools as discussed in the school staff lounges is that VANOC needs the kids' buses to move the athletes instead. How else are the particpants going to get between the athletes' village and the venues?
Such a use would be entirely coincidental to the school closures, of course.
Has there been any outside "encouragement" given to the VSB to make a choice regarding school closures? Who would be served by a decision to close schools? How will their decision impact and pressure other Lower Mainland or province-wide school districts to march in step?
***And core to any question of school closure is that Campbell legislated schools to be a Mandatory Service. ***
That was for the benefit of children, right? Certainly not so schools can provide day-care (mwatkins alludes to this in the above comments "... our family is easily able to handle the child care responsibility, a great many families are not") and certainly not to take away teachers' right to strike. How does closing schools for the Olympics serve children? I guess that one can also go the way of the legislated balanced provincial budget.
Grumpy
3 years ago
To hell with the Olympics(TM)
I am tired of the Olympics; I am tired of the goody two-shoes reporting by CanWest Global (so much so I now watch American news!); I am tired of the protesters; I am tired of the RAV Line; I am tired of the Sea to Sky Highway; I am tired of the whole damned thing.
This Olympic gig is nothing more than an excuse to spend huge sums of money on pet projects, land development, and pampered athletes.
To hell with the Olympics!
quarry bay
3 years ago
Grumpy.........
Don`t worry my freind,we are going to party like it`s 1999 on may 13th.
Campbell is already being laughed at over his throne speech,Campbell is stuck with his carbon tax and fuel is going up fast.
Just wait until the Obama stimulus kicks in,expect 1.30 plus a liter within 2 months.
Campbell will have to wear the millstone and it will sink him.
The last Mustel poll was/convenient,conveniently 3 weeks after the last Mustel.
I have no doubt they got the results they claim on the 750 random phone calls but.....
you have to understand that the dialers were GIVEN THE LIST,and if you know who to call,well you can figure out the rest.
West Vancouver BC Liberal MLA Joan Mctire has a pretty COZY RELATIONSHIP with Mustel,wink nod,wink nod.
The green vote has abandoned Campbell,they never did trust him,the fiscal conservative vote will stay home or vote for WILF HANNI and the conservative party.
Vicki Huntington will win in Delta(independent)
Burnaby is going all orange,Vancouver island will be 100% orange.
Surrey/coquitlam/ maple ridge/ and 3 more interior ridings.
I have conservative seat count right now after all the internal polls
49--NDP
1--independent
35-Liberal
sunshine coast girl
3 years ago
I'm glad to see that the VSB
has come to their senses and decided to NOT close schools for the Olympics. It's one thing to close a school because teachers are striking for $$ or poor teaching conditions and quite another to close them for a two week party that no one will be able to attend. Course I see that West Van will be closing theirs. What a surprise, eh?