Homeless in Vancouver: Google Maps Street View car is back in Vancouver

Four days ago, on May 5, I saw a Google Maps Street View car speeding eastbound through the 1400 block of West Broadway.

Today (May 9) I photographed the same car—or its twin—with the same distinctive Google markings and panoramic camera mast.

This was at 2:13 p.m. as it passed me going west in the 1100 block of the back alley between West 10th and West 11th avenues. It exited the alley on Alder Street, turned right and I lost sight of it.

Google cars and Fairview alleys haven't changed much in two years

It was two years ago, on May 1, 2014, that I last saw and photographed a Google Maps Street View car in Fairview.

That time I was lucky. I photographed it first in a back alley and caught up with it again a few blocks later stopped at an intersection.

I only managed to get one photo of today’s Google Maps Street View car but it was enough to tell me that it might as well have been the same one that I saw two years ago.

It was the same model of Subaru Impreza, with the exact same markings and camera mast. It also had Ontario licence plates that shared the same four letter prefix as the Ontario plates on the 2014 car.

However, that’s as far as the similarities went. The last three numbers of the licence plate were definitely different.