I went out this morning to see a few of our Paralympic transit hosts in action!

As there are just two Paralympic sports being held in the Vancouver area, our transit hosts are being deployed at just a few key locations in the region, working in shifts timed to match the events. All the hosts are staff from TransLink and its family of companies, and about 40-50 in total are working as hosts for the Paralympics.

Ice sledge hockey is held at UBC’s Thunderbird Arena, and there are 12 extra buses working on the 99 B-Line route to help ferry people to UBC Loop. Transit supervisors are out there managing the traffic, and transit hosts are helping people find their way to Thunderbird Arena.

Terry and Lise above are from CMBC, and were happy to get out and host for the Paralympics—they weren’t able to host during the Olympics since they work in key positions at Vancouver’s main bus depot. Lise was having a great time talking to operators and helping visitors out. She even ran into someone she used to work with, and hadn’t seen in 13 years!

It was fairly quiet out at the loop. Most people arriving were students, with just a few Paralympic visitors heading for the hockey game at 10.

Broadway-City Hall Station

Broadway-City Hall Station was also quite quiet at around 9 a.m. Wheelchair curling, which is held out at King Edward Station, didn’t start until 12:30 p.m., so more people were heading out toward UBC.

I asked if there were many Paralympic inquiries, and Marta and Barb said they had received in fact questions on an enormous range of subjects, including “How do you get to Vancouver Community College?”

I spoke too soon, however: these two fellows came up soon afterward and asked how to get to UBC for the ice sledge hockey game. Marta helped them get on their way!

That’s it for today: tomorrow, King Edward!