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CP suspends track work (aka ripping out gardens) while talks on with city

August 27th, 2014 · 28 Comments

This just out from city hall this morning:

Track work suspended for talks between City and CP Rail

 

Senior officials at the City of Vancouver and CP Rail have agreed to meet to discuss the future of the Arbutus Corridor.

 

While the two sides meet, CP Rail has agreed to suspend all track maintenance work along the Arbutus Corridor for the next two to three weeks

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Kirk

    Oh gawd. I still can’t believe our mayor is offering our tax dollars to these people whining about their turnips. It be cheaper to just split the $20M amongst these squatters so they can go out and buy bok choy. And, I have no illusion that LaPointe is any better. Both sides are trying to capitalize on those poor defenseless rhubarbs.

    I’m still waiting for solutions to the tent city. I don’t see the Robertson or LaPointe going down there everyday to pose for the cameras.

    http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Tent+city+Oppenheimer+Park+grows+unimpeded/10141908/story.html

    News that matters to Vancouverites:
    Broccoli without a home.

    News that doesn’t matter:
    People without a home.

    Seriously, though, I think developers are pushing Vision and the NPA to get this land. That’s why basil has become the city’s top priority.

    Btw, did the police ever figure out who burnt down the CP Rail train bridge by the Oak Street bridge?

  • teririch

    @Kirk:

    You are correct the no councilors, Vision, NPA or Green have been seen at the tent city site since July 22.

    According to reports – City Staff are negotiating.

    Make one wonder what the others are occupying themselves with and the Mayor is top of that list.

  • Bill

    @teririch #2

    “According to reports – City Staff are negotiating.”

    That’s great. People who contribute nothing economically are backing up their demands for more subsidies by conducting an illegal occupation of a City park and the City is “negotiating”. There should be no “negotiations” until the park is vacated.

    But don’t be too hard on the Mayor. If President Obama can maintain his golf game while his foreign policies destabilize the world, surely the Mayor is entitled to enjoy his summer without being interrupted by a trifle like the occupation of a city park.

  • teririch

    @Bill #3:

    You could kind of see the writing on the wall when the Vision Vancouver dominated City Council opted to acknowledge that the City of Vancouver sits on unceded FN territory.

    My opinion: it was a purley political to help them in their want/need/desire to halt Kinder Morgan and tanker traffic etc versus being a genuine gesture.

    They opened a legal door that I don’t think the city is ready to fight – not before an election.

  • Jay

    3 – “That’s great. People who contribute nothing economically…”

    Not entirely true. They do create jobs.

    I am wondering though about these homeless counts that are always going up it seems. Do these increases in homeless counts stem from SRO evictions, or are these newcomers from outside the city? I always hear that Vancouver is a favoured destination for homeless people from all over, so I wonder what percentage of our homeless problem originates from out of province. Are there any stats?

  • Bill

    “Not entirely true. They do create jobs.”

    So do criminals but I don’t really think that is a positive contribution to the economy.

  • bar

    I can just imagine the city falling over itself to negotiate with CP or someone else if it were East side vegetable gardens getting ripped up. They’d have their chequebooks out in no time. Just like they spend millions of dollars on bicycle lanes in East Van. Oh wait…

  • Kirk

    @jenables 7
    I remember when Vancouver changed for me. Years ago, I was reading Vancouver Magazine, and I saw the very first ad for silicon breast implants. I think people even wrote letters to the editor over that.

    Remember when Vancouverites laughed at the shallowness of LA Story?

  • Bill

    @Jenables

    I am not saying we should just ignore people that are having difficulties in providing for themselves the basic necessities as I believe as a society we have an obligation to provide assistance. We should be looking at ways to help people support themselves (like a negative income tax so that people have an incentive to work and not lose all benefits by doing so) rather than just supporting a subsistence living. However, I do not believe that people that cannot support themselves have the right to demand food and shelter and with no strings attached. (which may include mandatory drug treatment). People who do not help themselves should not fare better than the working poor who are making every effort to be self-sufficient.

    I would be surprised that with our desirable climate alone we did not have an influx of homeless from other parts of Canada. And even the NDP discovered when they enhanced welfare benefits in 1991 that the number of people on welfare increased 30% before they reformed the reforms in 1995. Again, you cannot make not working more attractive than working.

  • Chris Keam

    While Bill rues the lack of poorhouses and exhibits 19th c ideology, those who think about the real issues we face understand that scarcity as a motivating reason to work is rapidly becoming less and less true, and the big question will be how do we spend our time when we have everything we need largely provided for us.
    Part 1/2

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/06/pew-robots-future-jobs/

  • Chris Keam

    Part 2

    Thankfully the right to food and shelter remains with us… a symbol of humanity and compassion we should be expanding rather than trying to erase.

    http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25

  • teririch

    @Bill and Jenables:

    From when I was volunteering in the DTES, I can tell you that there is a portion of the population that have come from elsewhere – including Manitoba, Sask, up north , USA etc.

    I would venture about 40% of the homeless pop are not from Vancouver or the Lower Mainland or even BC.

    The reasons for coming to Vancouver vary – but our climate is one of them.

  • TKO

    A discussion thread that originated with an article about train tracks ended up with posts about: madatory drug testing, homelessness, and… bicycle lanes!

    Only in Vancouver.

  • Kirk

    @teririch 14

    40% isn’t too surprising. Vancouver in general is about 40% foreign immigrant. If you include Canadians from outside Vancouver, it’s a lot higher.

    Going back to the CP discussion, my pure (albeit cynical) speculation is that it’ll go like this:
    1. City will continue to publicize this.
    2. Then they’ll claim the public overwhelmingly supports the purchase of the land, citing an Insights West poll.
    3. City will buy the land for $100M.
    4. City will claim to look for partners to recoup the money.
    5. Concord Pacific will offer to help out by developing some of the land. But, they’ll need relaxation on height requirements to make it feasible.
    6. Tower will be approved.
    7. Bike lane gets added.
    8. Garden space added.
    9. City gets money back.
    10. Touted as win-win.

    If NPA wins, change Concord to Rob MacDonald.

  • Bill

    @Chris Keam

    The measure of society’s humanity is the willingness of those who have more to share with those that have less and not the ability of those who have less to confiscate what they want from those who have more.

    Your idea that robots will eliminate the need for anyone to work has no relevance to anyone alive today so we’ll just put it aside with your other fanciful ideas like open borders, unilateral disarmament and 500 year plans.

  • Chris Keam

    “Your idea that robots will eliminate the need for anyone to work has no relevance to anyone alive today”

    LOL

    “He’s not the only one predicting this gloomy scenario for workers. In January, the Economist ran a big profile naming over a dozen jobs sure to be taken over by robots in the next 20 years, including telemarketers, accountants and retail workers.”

    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-bots-are-taking-away-jobs-2014-3#ixzz3BjByw7Qm

    I could spend the rest of my afternoon linking to articles that point out how automation is very real and very important in terms of understanding future labour markets.

  • Bill

    @CK

    There is a big difference between automation having an impact on how we work and not having to work at all.

  • Chris Keam

    Bill:

    You have no idea of the challenges our children will face and no desire to find out. It is, as I mentioned a ‘big question’ and largely beyond your ken. Little wonder this trend, being discussed and worried over by people who choose to use their intelligence, scares you to the point of denial.

  • Chris Keam

    For those who actually give a crap about the future work prospects of those largely without advanced skills, such as (to generalize) people who are currently unemployed and living in tent cities all over North America — here is the Pew Research report.

    http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/

    “The vast majority of respondents to the 2014 Future of the Internet canvassing anticipate that robotics and artificial intelligence will permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025, with huge implications for a range of industries such as health care, transport and logistics, customer service, and home maintenance. But even as they are largely consistent in their predictions for the evolution of technology itself, they are deeply divided on how advances in AI and robotics will impact the economic and employment picture over the next decade.”

    It’s all very good and pious to rue the fact that some can live without employment and not starve to death. The reality we should be worried about is what choices those people make when there aren’t any jobs for them to do at all. There is no Project Bootstrap (oblig. Simpsons ref.) and a world where employment simply isn’t an option for millions is one where social breakdown is a distinct reality.

  • rph

    @Kirk #16. The only point I would add to your list, is that social/low income/affordable rental housing will get thrown somewhere into the mix.

    Of course affordable may very well end up being “what people can afford”, and the social housing will end up accommodating well behaved seniors rather than the misbehaved hard-to-house.

  • teririch

    “Your idea that robots will eliminate the need for anyone to work has no relevance to anyone alive today”

    Hey, I saw that movie – loved it actually, Wall-E.

    All those obese people floating around in automated chairs doing noting – robots did it all. They didn’t even have to think.

  • teririch

    @Kirk #16:

    LOL!

    I think you are dead on the money with that scenario.

  • F.H.Leghorn

    Finally CK admits it. He is a robot. Explains a lot.

  • Jenables

    Lol, in the future the only jobs will be robots, or robot apologists (I.e dust off that communications degree!)

    Bill my point really was more that it’s easy to work and be homeless here. We can probably all agree that there isn’t loads of permanent full time work that allow people to be paid in a way that they can put down a damage deposit and first months rent. Or they can do that and not eat or take the bus. Sometimes I feel like people just assume some people should be absorbed into the system, but they shouldn’t HAVE to be. Many at the tent city have been waiting years and years for bc housing to find accommodations. They are people, like you and me. Some bad, some good, some mentally ill, some drug addicted, some alcoholics. I’d be very surprised if you told me that didn’t comprise various people in your life, be it watching a friends child be diagnosed with schizophrenia, knowing your wife’s friend pops too many pills, talking a friend out of driving drunk, watching someone take on a cause they believe in or shaking your head at unscrupulous business tactics.

    Picking not working over working? It’s REALLY not that simple, and implies there is a choice. You can work, receive no subsidy, struggle to pay your rent and bills and have nothing left over to buy food I’m going to encourage you to really think about it. Working on minimum wage.

  • Jenables

    Kirk that L.A. story clip is priceless!! But it’s like that times 1000 here! I think I need to watch that movie.

  • Kirk

    @rph 22

    Ah, yes. Thanks for the reminder. That’ll be worth extra height and density too.