Metro schools offer parking lots for Olympics; In return, students and staff will have opportunities to get involved in the 2010 Games
The Vancouver Sun
Sat 25 Oct 2008
Page: A4
Section: Westcoast News
Byline: Derrick Penner
Source: Vancouver Sun

Parking lots at six Metro Vancouver post-secondary schools will serve as official Olympic park-and-ride spots during the 2010 Games, Vancouver Olympic organizers said Friday.

The institutions are offering use of their parking lots under the community contributor program that Vanoc, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has created to fill some of its needs for facilities during the 2010 Olympics.

Donna Wilson, Vanoc's executive vice-president of human resources, said some of the institutions will be meeting spots where Games spectators can park and catch their bus to Whistler. Others will direct spectators to city venues.

"[Parking] was one of the key elements for sure," Wilson added in an interview.

"[The schools] will be part of the whole transportation plan," she added. "And the other really strong element for us is on the workforce side of things."

The schools will also offer Vanoc meeting rooms and storage space. And as much as they can allow during the run up to the Games, they will make classroom space available to help train Vanoc's army of volunteers.

And Wilson added that Vanoc wants to talk to students at the institutions to try and get more of them signed on as Games-time employees or volunteers.

So far, BCIT, Capilano University, Douglas College, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Langara College are among the first institutions to sign on in a package that Wilson said would have cost Vanoc millions of dollars to put together without the agreements.

However, the actual cost to the institutions "will not be that material," according to BCIT president Don Wright, while they will gain some benefits.

BCIT is providing some 3,000 of its 4,000 parking spaces to the effort. Wright said they are able to do so since BCIT had already made the decision to break from classes during the Games by calling an early and extended spring break.

But in return, Wright added, BCIT's students and staff will have opportunities to get involved in the Games as volunteers, perhaps in ways that build on their education and career aspirations.