Vancouver in Winter

We have just arrived in Vancouver for a couple of days as the start to our six week holiday. Vancouver, Canada is an exceptionally clean city focussed on the environment. The first thing we noticed was that all the taxis are Toyota’s and over 2/3 of them are the Prius. Have you ever tried to fit luggage for three people, especially two teenage girls, into a Prius and then squash a six foot three inch bloke in the front? Squishy isn’t quite the word for it.

The Prius Taxi we had was 6 years old, had over 850,000km on the clock and drove pretty good. The driver had replaced the brakes and the batteries, with those from a wreck and he couldn’t rave enough about it. He has had absolutely no problems with it and he reckoned that it was heaps cheaper to run than his last taxi. His next taxi which he has already bought is the Pruis 3 and he was keeping the exisiting taxi as a runaround for his wife (with 850,000km on the clock).

The other thing you notice is not only the abundance of Prius taxis but the general public has adopted them as well. They are everywhere, along with Honda Insights.

Vancouver is an energy concious city with the sky rail busses running on electricity and I have to say effeciently and clean.

Surprisingly though there are few big American pick up trucks here.

After a quick visit to the Mountain Equipment Co-op for some winter gear we settled in for a few days to adjust to the different time zone.