It’s just a matter of time before the soil in Penny Hurt’s remaining garden falls away after Canadian Pacific crews cleared a third of her garden along its rail line.
Her raspberry plots are hanging at the edge of a steep cliff where a pile of rock and wood debris have collected since the March 4 removal work by crews at Maple and East Boulevard broke the rock wall that held up the garden. Hurt quickly tried to salvage the remaining plots by installing 2x4 lumber to hold back the soil from tumbling down the slope. She’s waiting for CP to clear the debris before deciding how she will further stabilize the soil.
CP spokesperson Jeremy Berry said in a statement to the Courier that it will continue to clear the corridor for the next one to two weeks.
Each of Hurt’s neighbour gardeners are facing different challenges with surviving sections of their plots. “They’re sorry to see things go but they understand CP Rail are within their legal rights,” said Hurt.
Days after the removal work by CP, Hurt continued planting onions and peas on the plot her family has managed since 1982. “CP made no effort to keep up their property at all. It was just left to grow the weeds. In about ’92, the last freight train ran and continuing on,” reminisced Hurt.
Howard Normann, the Vancouver Park Board’s manager of urban forestry, says approximately 15 to 20 smaller trees out of 60 tagged trees were moved by residents to salvage them. Twenty-five larger trees still need to be relocated to McCleery Golf Course by March 11. The park board is covering costs associated with the project.
But some trees have already been lost.
“Some trees we just can’t save,” he said. “From an economic standpoint, they are in no condition to be saved. They either have broken branches or are diseased or are too large. There are trees that have been planted against walls. There are trees that have been planted on angles. So we’re picking the healthiest trees and there are some, unfortunately, that can’t be saved.”
The City of Vancouver filed a court injunction in October 2014 after talks between the city and CP about the sale of the land broke down. The city offered to buy it for no more than $20 million, with a plan to preserve it as greenway or to use it as a transportation corridor. CP, however, claimed the line through Vancouver’s West Side is worth $100 million due to its growth potential.
After negotiations came to a standstill in the fall, residents living along the corridor became infuriated when the rail company started bulldozing gardens along the Marpole section of the rail line. In November, CP agreed to pause work on the corridor while legal proceedings were underway.
By January, the Supreme Court of B.C. ruled in CP’s favour and dismissed the city’s application to halt clearing gardens and other obstructions along the Arbutus Corridor. Clearing work resumed in February.
