Gardeners along the Arbutus Corridor can breathe a short sigh of relief as Canadian Pacific announced it will stop clearing trespassing garden plots along its rail line for the next two to three weeks.
CP spokesperson Breanne Feigel released an email statement to the Courier Wednesday that it is meeting with the City of Vancouver “to discuss the future of the Arbutus Corridor.”
The letter continues saying, “In acknowledgment of this, CP will suspend any track maintenance work along the corridor for the next 2 - 3 weeks. If a reasonable solution has not been found in this timeframe, CP will resume work in preparation for rail operations.”
Interview requests were denied by both CP and the city on the details of the negotiations with both saying the discussions are “confidential.”
Given the initial destruction of garden plots along the Arbutus line in Marpole, some gardeners further north along East Boulevard are “nervous” about CP’s sporadic clearances. “There’s no real logic to what they’re doing and that’s what’s scary, because they didn’t give any warning for the gardens that they did destroy,” said Arbutus Victory Gardens’ patch owner Paul Kendal.
Prior to CP’s announcement, Kendal spotted tractors moving further north along the Arbutus Corridor from 70th Avenue in Marpole to West 64th Avenue in Kerrisdale.
