Archive for the 'tourism' Category

The Cel­e­bra­tion of Light will becom­ing back to Van­cou­ver for 2010. This will be the 20th year where we have had such an event.

The Van­cou­ver Fire­works Fes­ti­val Soci­ety con­firmed that the days will be on July 21, July 24, July 28 and July 31 at Eng­lish Bay. The nations par­tic­i­pat­ing in this event have not yet been released — but will most likely include Canada and the United States.

Van­cou­ver Mayor Robert­son said “the fire­works have become one of Vancouver’s most beloved sum­mer events, and some­thing that fam­i­lies really look for­ward to. I’d like to thank the com­mu­nity for its unwa­ver­ing sup­port and the spon­sors for their con­tin­ued commitment.”

Update: The coun­tries that will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the events are:

• July 21 — United States @ 10pm
• July 24 — Spain @ 10pm
• July 28 — Mex­ico @ 10pm
• July 31 — People’s Repub­lic of China @ 10pm

Canada will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing this year. The main spon­sors are The Keg, Lon­don Drugs, HSBC, and Con­cord Pacific. Lis­ten to Shore 104FM for the music cor­re­spond­ing with the fireworks.

Tran­sit Information

Once again this year, the Cel­e­bra­tion of Lights will light up the sky over the city of Van­cou­ver on July 21, 24, 28 and 31. With lit­er­ally tens of thou­sands of peo­ple gath­er­ing for the spec­tac­u­lar on the shores of Eng­lish Bay and motor vehi­cle traf­fic severely restricted in the West End, pub­lic tran­sit is again the best option.

Coast Moun­tain Bus Com­pany will re-route its ser­vices away from the West End. As of 7:30pm, buses that nor­mally travel into the West End will go no fur­ther than Bur­rard and Davie; the #5 Rob­son will go as far as Rob­son and Den­man and then return via Den­man and Geor­gia. Note that there will be no east­bound ser­vice on Rob­son Street.

Start­ing at 9pm, #22 Macdonald/Knight will avoid Bur­rard Bridge and Corn­wall Avenue alto­gether, using 4th Avenue between Granville Bridge and Mac­don­ald in both directions.

Addi­tional buses will be staged at Bridge­port Sky­Train Sta­tion to han­dle crowds com­ing off the Canada Line: these will sup­ple­ment ser­vice as deemed nec­es­sary by tran­sit super­vi­sors on the scene.

West Van­cou­ver Tran­sit will stage approx­i­mately 15 addi­tional buses along Geor­gia near Den­man, to be used as required.

Sky­Train Expo and Mil­len­nium Lines ser­vice will oper­ate at rush hour lev­els from late after­noon through­out the evening on each date until crowds are cleared after the event. The last Expo Line train will leave Water­front at 1:16am, how­ever, we will run addi­tional trains if nec­es­sary to make sure that all cus­tomers already in the sta­tion at that time are able to get home.

Sky­Train Canada Line will oper­ate at rush-hour lev­els from late after­noon through­out the evening on each date of the fireworks.

To pre­vent “seat-camping”, there will be no pick­ups on inbound trains between Stadium-Chinatown and Water­front Sta­tions (Expo/Millennium Lines) and between Yaletown-Roundhouse and Water­front Sta­tions (Canada Line); inbound Canada Line pas­sen­gers will be required to get off at Yaletown-Roundhouse.

Cus­tomers who don’t already have a Fare­Card or Fare­Saver are encour­aged to pre-purchase their return fare prior to the event. This will avoid long line­ups at ticket vend­ing machines after­wards and facil­i­tate board­ing. Portable fare­boxes wil be set up at:

• Granville
• Bur­rard
• Bridge­port (before the event only)
• Yaletown-Roundhouse
• Van­cou­ver City Centre
• Water­front – Canada Line and Howe Street Entrance (after the event)

There will be no access to Water­front Sta­tion through the main entrance on Cor­dova Street except for per­sons with wheel­chairs or strollers and the only access to Granville Sta­tion after 10pm will be through the Dun­smuir Street entrance.

Cyclists rid­ing the train should arrive early, and bikes will not be allowed on any Sky­Train line leav­ing down­town Van­cou­ver from 10pm until the line­ups have cleared, which may be as late as 1am. Tran­sit staff and police may restrict bikes at any time in any direc­tion, depend­ing on crowd con­di­tions on the trains. This is for the safety and com­fort of all our passengers.

SeaBus will put all three ves­sels into oper­a­tion for the evening, pro­vid­ing 10-minute ser­vice from 6:30pm until 12:45am; then every 15 min­utes until the final depar­ture from Water­front sta­tion at 1:31am.

West Coast Express will run a spe­cial train for the finale, Sat­ur­day, July 31, leav­ing Mis­sion City at 7pm and return­ing from Water­front at 11:30pm.

Tran­sit police will be out in force to assist juris­dic­tional police in keep­ing order, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to tran­sit ser­vices, mak­ing sure that peo­ple of all ages are able to have a good time safely and securely. Tran­sit Police will enforce a zero-tolerance pol­icy for alco­hol and drugs on tran­sit vehi­cles.

The annual Cel­e­bra­tion of Lights is one of Metro Vancouver’s mar­quee attrac­tions, and TransLink is pleased to pro­vide cre­ative ser­vice lev­els to help keep it that way. It’s also most fun for the whole fam­ily when peo­ple enjoy them­selves respon­si­bly. Please remem­ber to “pack out what you pack in” so that the cleanup after­wards goes just as well as the event itself.

Source of tran­sit infor­ma­tion: http://www.translink.ca/