Dear Mayor Campbell:

Re: Car free day in Vancouver

One step at a time coupled with determination and consistency is a sound approach in terms of environment improvement. Your determination to reduce the traffic congestion and improve the quality of the air in Vancouver was obvious when you first announced this strategy on the car free day on Sept. 22, 2005 in Gastown. I am glad that I live in one of the seven Canadian cities that has embraced this approach. Since the activity of our company is related to the environmental concerns of our customers, I am absolutely positive that this approach will be embraced by the majority of the people. Indeed I have witnessed in the last 2 years how more and more people are choosing an environmental form of transportation because our company is directly involved with them. Read more...

Our company, Greenwit Technologies, was established in 2002 and started working on the design and the engineering of Light Electric Vehicles (LEV). Shortly after the amendment for LEV in the BC motor vehicle act was enacted at the end of 2002 we imported the first electric scooters and bicycles in Vancouver. You may remember that our company donated electric bicycles to the City of Vancouver in the beginning of 2003. I apologize if you weren’t satisfied with their performance since this industry was not mature enough and we were not working with the best manufacturers at that time. Our company was also suffering a lot because there was no awareness of the existence of this type of alternative transportation in Canada. Now, two years later, we have created a waiting list of people to purchase electric scooters between the time we sold one container full and are waiting for the delivery of the next one. There are now more than a half a dozen stores in Vancouver exclusively retailing products for this viable means of transportation. The electric bicycles and scooters are already noticeable, quietly breezing by, on Vancouver streets.

I was so surprised when I found out that none of the companies related in some way to LEV were invited to the car free day. In fact our company also wouldn’t have known about this day if we hadn't been invited by CBC Radio (which was actually not authorized to invite participants). We just “smuggled” our electric bikes, scooters and skateboards to the Car Free festival and were lucky that nobody asked us to leave. This was the second time we have been disappointed after Better Environmental Sound Transportation (BEST) promoted alternatives to car transportation during the bike month this year. There was not a single word in their mass promotions for alternative transportation about the existence of LEV.

The use of LEV is already a world wide trend. Using a conventional bicycle is a perfect alternative for people willing to bike, but LEV are the best possible alternative forms of transportation in that they provide similar conveniences to those that drivers have when using their cars. LEV have been proven as a reliable and viable means of transportation because they are extremely economic in their energy consumption, they are quiet and they literally don’t require any maintenance. We are glad that our customers realize that and consider them to be a real alternative to their combustion engine vehicles. Our company is proud that by selling one electric bike or electric scooter at a time we make a small contribution to the improvement of the environment.

Greenwit Technologies Ltd. will be glad to donate more electric bikes and scooters to the City of Vancouver with the confidence that they can be used in substitution for normal combustible engine powered vehicles.
Respectfully,

Steve Miloshev M. Sc.
Greenwit Technologies