You Should Know is a growing collection of longer-format reads with historical bents. Each story focuses on a fascinating thing about Vancouver (or its surroundings) that every local and visitor should know about. Explore the YSK archive here.
The American cultural influence came early to the city and was not just confined to popular culture. Like all good citizens of the British Commonwealth, B.C. drivers started out travelling on the left side of the road. This put us out of sync with our neighbours to the south. A Vancouver Sun “This Week in History” article from 2016 explained that after many years of lobbying, the British Columbia Automobile Club finally convinced the Government to bring the Province in line with Washington State and the rest of North America in 1921.
Vancouver’s conversion was delayed a year due to the time it took to retrofit the streetcar system, so it wasn’t until 6 A.M., January 1, 1922, that Vancouver drivers finally made the switch to the right. Vancouver has the distinction of being the last city on the continent to abandon the British left-driving system.
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Is this just a Coles note version of this Vancouver Sun piece from 2016?
===The province’s Automobile Club had been lobbying for eight years to bring B.C. and Vancouver in line with Washington state and the rest of North America.===
===But because of the retrofitting that had to be made to streetcars and tracks, the change in Vancouver was delayed a year.===
===Vancouver was the last city on the continent to abandon the old British standard.===
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/week+history+switching+from+left+right+thing/11625241/story.html
Thanks for your curious comment, Curious. It was an oversight on my part. I was working on two different versions of that whole piece, and I guess the reference got inadvertently left out of my final submission. My bad! The corrected version is above.
This piece was extracted from a larger article I submitted about 5 things you may not know about Vancouver history… so it does have a “Coles notes” vibe to it… facts you could recite at cocktail parties.
Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Curious, I promise to be more careful.
Interestingly enough after that 1922 change, there were apparently no car accidents the next day.
The street scene looking north on Granville street. On the left the Colonial theatre. The old post office also on the left with the clock tower, this building is still standing.
I guess, as usual, we’re not considering Newfoundland, which practiced left-hand driving until 1947?
in fact, BC was one of the first provinces to switch. Followed by New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI. Vancouver would have been the first city to switch to a right-hand drive.
Yeah I don’t know why you said Vancouver was the last to switch so many times since that’s false information. Like said above it was one of the first followed by Newfoundland in 1947.
Newfoundland didn’t join Canada until 1949 though, correct?
In Buenos Aires people drove on the left until 1946.
This is a pretty False article all around and it shows how little research was done when it was written. The province of Prince Edward Island didn’t switch over until 1924 and quite a number of years later January 2, 1947 Newfoundland switch over to driving on the right side of the road. Pretty poor journalism there folks – all you need is Google to get it right