In your face, Vancouver 2010!

For those of you who don't live in Vancouver. The city of Vancouver is renowned for its misery raining condition during Fall and Winter seasons.

Now, it is forecasted that we could break the all-time record for consecutive rainy days with 29 days on Monday, January 16. Read it here. I wonder how this is going to play out, especially with our successful bidding of 2010 Winter Olympic? With the weather conditions so unpredictable and flurries so infrequent, I wonder how are we going to host a memorable and successful Winter Olympics?

As you can probably deduce from my tone, I'm not much of a wintersports fan myself and I truly believe this whole Winter Olympic will just turn into a big nightmare and fiasco for Vancouvrites. First of all, due to an inflow of population to the city, both the property tax and values of goods and services will go up astronomically. Then, an increase in crime and call for essential services will soon follow. And, for those of you who commute daily by bus, car and bicycle, you think the traffic now is horrendous? Wait until it gets near and beyond 2010.

Vancouverites who support 2010 have never thought the costs of building a 2010 community and related Olympic facilities and securities will eventually come out of their pocket. If they would've realize that they wouldn't support it as much in the first place. I know it represents the pride of my city, but it's all good as long as I don't pay for it!

The supporter of 2010 may argue because we're living at the hosting city it'll be a lot cheaper and convenient for us, the permanent residence of Vancouver, to attend the Olympic and we may benefit from residential discounts. Dead wrong! Not only will the ticket prices skyrock, the Olympic officials would also be unwilling to provide differential pricing between the residents and foreigners. There's just no way of telling them apart and to the IOC, bottom line is everything!

The sudden burst of developmental projects also increases the risk of over-development. We've already witnessed one such event when a section of the road collapsed in downtown Vancouver. Incidents like this happens when the authority grant construction permit too fast without a proper review of the construction methodology. If the city grows too fast without proper planning we'll definitely see an increase in road congestion, overpopulated public facilities and an increase in accidents and crime. These are all some of the intrinsic negative side effects of an Olympic hosting city.

Unlike other Olympic cities, Vancouver doesn't have a very strong economy. The British Columbia economy is mainly based on tourism, fishery and lumber (with technology and manufacturing being minorities). With the high tariffs choking these industries, I wonder who will end up paying the bill? Together, with the lousy weather, we can't grind profits out of 2010 and we'll end up paying it ourselves.

Wake up, Vancouverites! No more Alice in Wonderland scenarios!

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