I educated-guessed the prices that CP and Vancouver might be dickering with over the Arbutus rail corridor in my last post. Then Daphne Bramham at the Sun got off-the-record info confirming those prices. And now here’s me catching up on the story in today’s Globe.
I personally can hardly wait to see what CP will do next. For most companies I know, the mere thought of cameras rolling while their bulldozers mow down people’s flower gardens would be enough to make them blench. Others I talk to say CP really doesn’t care about public opinion — it’s not dependent on any level of government for support for its operations, so a bunch of people crying over their crushed dahlias is not going to matter one way or another.
But the CP spokesguy did sound somewhat conciliatory about the deadline in my story, saying there was no plan to go in on Friday at 7 a.m. to start dismantling people’s gardens.
Anyway, the intelligent, thoughtful comments on the last CP post have inspired me to put up this story. It was so great to see people talking about the history of the line and the various methods of valuation, instead of calling each other cretins. Is there something about rail lines that inspires higher-order thinking?
While you’re all here, any guesses on what might happen next and whether there’s a possible solution? Someone suggested to me privately that the city could offer CP the $20 million and put on a covenant or agreement saying if it were ever rezoned to residential/commercial development, then CP would get the full $100 million.