Film and media production
Robert Alstead 
Starting tomorrow (1st January 2025), Modo members will have to pay a little more to drive an ICE car rather than an EV. Under changes to Modo’s “Innovation Fee”, announced by new CEO Sandra Philips at the beginning of this month, gas-powered or hybrid cars will incur a fee of $3 per trip, while the … Read more
Weird. That was my first thought when I looked at my most recent Modo invoice. I thought the calculations in my last blog post comparing different modes of travel between Vancouver and Langley were as thorough as I could get. I even created my own trip calculator in a spreadsheet because the official trip calculator … Read more
Getting around Vancouver without a car is getting easier these days for our family of four. We have our car share memberships – Modo and Evo – to fall back on, but generally our lifestyles remain happily car lite. We have good access to the city’s network of cycleways and we live near a couple … Read more
Vancouver just had its first ever public drone show, part of the Dragonboat Festival in False Creek. I was intrigued – I’ve never seen a live drone show – and this was a short walk from my house. So like many Vancouverites I stepped into the warm midsummer night on Saturday to enjoy the show … Read more
Back in January, I wrote a blog post about how I, and many other CIBC customers, were getting dinged by the bank for using a Visa credit card to buy gift cards. In my case, I was charged $5 plus interest for $10 worth of minutes with EVO car share. You can read about it … Read more
It’s just after 10pm, 2nd January. Post bed-time. There is peace in the house. I just wanted to take a few minutes to write some notes on the start of another January of no sugar, alcohol or caffeine. Can’t remember how many times we’ve done this now – possibly the fourth dry January for me, … Read more
Over Christmas I bought my wife some Evo miles. CIBC charged me a 45% bank charge and 20+% interest fee for the privilege of paying by Visa.
Consider this: a privately owned car can cost at least $10,000 a year, yet, for 95% of the time, it sits idle doing nothing, just slowly losing its value each and every day. Car sharing means you have use of a fleet of cars, without the responsibilities that go along with owning a car – … Read more
As someone who has advocated for better – as in safer – cycling conditions in our cities (e.g. see my film You Never Bike Alone) it might seem counter intuitive to do a series on cars. But car sharing is really more about using the car less. At least, in my case. We sold our … Read more
One of the beauties of living in Vancouver is that we have three ski resorts on our doorstep – Seymour Mountain, Grouse Mountain, and Cypress Mountain. Cypress Mountain, though the furthest away (28km), has been my go-to for years, being the largest of the three mountain resorts. The Cypress season just closed this past weekend, … Read more