vancouver = incredible

So I was just in Vancouver the last 3 days, and it was absolutely amazing! I've been to Vancouver many many times before, and this time I felt like a tourist. You could see the pride in Canadians, and could tell all the tourists were completely stunned at how beautiful Vancouver is. It was an incredible experience just be in the midst of it all - the pride and the craziness... and I loved every second of it.

So of course while I was there, I was looking around to see if I noticed any changes in the city trying to be greener for the Games. From what I saw I was actually extremely impressed with the city.

First thing I noticed was the transit. This whole time VANOC has been trying to get both locals and tourists to travel smart by emphasizing using public transit during the 2010 Games. I definately think people started realizing that - hey the Games are coming whether you want them to or not... the streets are going to be rediculously busy... parking is costly and going to be hard to find... and really the transit system in the city is not so bad. Of course you can expect tourists to be taking the public transit, but from what I saw, locals seemed to be doing the "smart thing" too. Actually according to todays "The Province" there was apparently an overwhelming record for transit use last week with an estimated 1.5 million skytrain riders in a single day and more than 5,000 bicycles on the street. Even last night, there were people lined up for blocks waiting to board the skytrain downtown at every station. It was nuts! Yesterday I had lunch with Kevin Krueger in the mall in downtown Vancouver (beside the point) and he told me that the numbers they have of people using the new Canada Line, they didn't expect to see until 2020! That's incredible. VANOC brought in extra trains so you're never waiting for it for literally more than a minute, so why not take the greener, cheaper, and actually faster option?

Secondly, I'll also add that I was impressed to see how clean the streets were staying with millions of people walking downtown. It's a small thing, but it was nice to see they had put up large green and blue garbage bags around the bases of trees on the sidewalks. One for garbage and the other for recyclables - very convienant! Well done Vancouver!
-This is a picture I took Friday in downtown Vancouver