February 4th, 2010 from 3:45 – 5:45 pm

The 2010 Olympic Torch was lit in Greece on October 22nd  and flew to Canada to start its journey through more than 1,000 communities across Canada and totaling 45,000 km, which makes it the longest route in Olympic history! 

It will be entering Lions Bay en route to Whistler on February 4th starting at the Lions Bay Avenue exit and will travel up, over Harvey Creek onto Cross Creek Road, past the Village Hall and then down Centre Road and back onto the Sea to Sky Highway. This area needs to remain clear of parked cars on February 4th.

Residents are invited to come out and line both sides of the street of the Torch Relay route at 3:45pm. Volunteers will be handing out ribbons to create an Olympic sea of colour and visual unity of Lions Bay. Bring your pottery torches if you were lucky enough to make one.  

Once the Olympic torch has passed, we will follow the sounds of the bagpiper down to the Harvey Creek Underpass for a spectacular show where we can share and enjoy not only the Olympic spirit, but the great spirit of Lions Bay. There will be some local legacy unveilings, meeting of Olympians, music performances, snacks for all and fun surprising entertainment. For those wanting to continue late into the night there will be a family potluck dinner, at the Village Hall starting at 6 pm.

As we are the first location in Metro Vancouver, we are expecting a good media turnout, so lets show the world our Lions Bay spirit! You may follow the torch relay live at www.ctvolympics.ca/torch/follow-torch

Traffic Changes

The Harvey Creek Underpass will be closed to traffic from 3:30pm – 7pm.  Residents will still be able to enter the upper part of Lions Bay through the Lions Bay Avenue exit.  Cars heading North that need to get to lower Lions Bay Avenue will need to continue on to Brunswick and follow the detour signs to get back onto the highway heading South and enter from the Lions Bay Avenue exit.  Cars traveling South, needing to access Upper Lions Bay will need to take the Kelvin Grove exit and follow the detour signs to get back onto the highway heading North and exit at the central Lions Bay Avenue exit. 

Getting to the Event
This is a once in a life time historical event that we have been working on for the last eight months!  We hope that all residents will be able to make plans well in advance in order to join the celebrations. We are working on getting the school children in West Vancouver released early, so they can be back in Lions Bay for the event in a timely fashion.

Ideally we would like people to walk or take the bus, but understand that is not always possible and so we have some options to make it easier:

• Isleview Place and the Lions Bay CN Parking Lot are the parking areas for Brunswick residents.
  The school parking lot is for those residents, high up on Mountain, Sunset and Timbertop.
  For residents high up on Oceanview Road, you can park midway where Highview meets Oceanview Road.
  For Kelvin Grove residents, you may park at Tidewater Way near the Works Department and walk the trail to central Lions Bay.

There will be no ticketing or towing for this event unless your car is obstructing another, or causing an immediate danger. We will have traffic marshals helping people to park. If you are driving you can carpool with neighbors, or drop off nearby, keeping in mind we need to keep the torch route free of traffic.

There will be a community shuttle that will be doing drop offs to these four locations after the event.

Translink will still be running buses, but the 5:35 and 6:35 will be shuttle size to accommodate the detour, and make use of the bus stop outside the Village Hall. No traffic will be allowed through the underpass between 4:00pm and 7:00pm.

See you at the Lions Bay 2010 Olympic Torch Relay ~ February 4th!