Arbutus Corridor Part 3 – CP Rail begins to remove gardens

Protesting the CP Rail removal of community gardens. Photo: Neal Jennings

On August 9th 2014, the VPSN organized a group hike along the Arbutus rail corridor. Just 5 days later, Canadian Pacific Railway started removing community gardens around 70th Avenue, and has subsequently been moving northward.

The Vancouver Courier published pictures of the initial garden clearance which you can view here. While ongoing, the timeline for the removal of specific community gardens at other sites is unclear.

Our experience is captured in a blog article written before the community garden clearances started, and highlights the optimism the corridor provoked in many of us just over a week ago. Even now after over a week of clearances, parts of the central and northern parts of the corridor remain as we found it, but we have no idea for how much longer. Gardeners along the entire route are scrambling to mitigate the damage to gardens and orchards by removing what they can.

Meanwhile, the City of Vancouver and CP Rail seem to be at loggerheads over the possibility of a land sale. At this point, there appears to be a sizeable difference in the valuation of the land. As well, it can be expected that any discussions around the purchase of this railway line/greenspace will continue to have an added pre-election political dimension.