Vancouverites should expect “additional travel time” during the 2010 Olympic Games.

Today (March 11), Vanoc unveiled the first phase of its transportation plan for the Games. The organizing committee says its plan is 80 percent complete, with one of its main goals being getting cars off the road during the big event.

Want to drive downtown during the Games next year? Think again.

“Walking, cycling and taking transit will be the fastest ways to get around,” a page on the Vanoc Web site reads.

“Everyone is encouraged to ”˜know before they go’ by seeking out travel updates before travelling,” the page also states.

Drivers are being asked to “avoid the single occupant vehicle” and seek out rideshare/carpooling options, according to an eight-page fact sheet.

Vanoc predicts that the number of trips from all modes—walking, cycling, taking transit, and driving—to and within downtown Vancouver during the Games will rise by 30 percent over a 24-hour period in 2010.

Certain roads will be closed to the public, according to Vanoc, “to ensure the safety of athletes, officials, spectators, workforce and the general public”.

These are Expo and Pacific boulevards; Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts; Quebec Street (between Terminal Avenue and 2nd Avenue); Canada Place and Waterfront Road; Midlothian Avenue (between Dinmont Avenue and Ontario Street); and Renfrew Street (between East Hastings and McGill streets).

In all, 170 blocks of “Olympic lanes” will be created along portions of Burrard, Seymour, Howe, Pender, Cambie, Georgia, and Hastings streets, as well as Broadway.

The 2010 transportation plan, the fact sheet claims, will “establish a legacy of increased public transit capacity and use”.

Vanoc predicts an increase in daily transit trips from 730,000 to 960,000.