They are cutting down the trees on Granville Street

for what it's worth cuttingdown trees makes me sad too. (but I dont even like it when leaves fall of my plants at home) I have a real connection with plant life. 

I wonder if the city has plans to do any greening to 'make up' for this?  

The trees on Granville Mall will be replaced with new trees when the road is restored after Canada Line Construction in conjunction with the Granville Mall Redesign project.
  The Park Board is responsible for street trees in Vancouver. There are over 130,000 street trees in Vancouver; about 1100 of these trees are replaced each year for various reasons, but an additional 3500 new trees are also planted each year.

Hi,

Thanks for this info.

How many street trees, if any, are fruit bearing, such as apples or pears?

Thanks,

Al 

Al Pasternak

Biosa[tm] Bokashi Composting
++indoor, odour free & more
http://www.greatday.ca

Do you know about the Fruit Tree Project?

They would probably have a good handle on this. I imagine that most of the trees cared for by the Park Board are not fruit bearing, while trees cared for by private residents are. I say this because I imagine that fruit bearing trees require more care and maintenance and the park board probably limits the number of fruit bearing trees it plants for this reason.   

Thanks for responding to my concerns, City of Vancouver.  I am sure there are many trees that need to be replaced throughout the city each day, and when I wrote this post I was mostly responding to the emotional effect of seeing the trees cut down.  

 As long as the Granville Street Redesign has a sufficent allocation for "green" then I am sure I will be happy with the result.  I think it is important to remember that while transportation is important for a city, so are trees and plants important for the health, mental and physical, of the cities inhabitants.

Scott Robarts
http://www.blinkdesigns.ca

Hi Kate,

I know about the Fruit Tree Project and from what I have seen in the back alleys in my neighbourhood, many trees drop their fruit unharvested. Since Vancouver Is developing a Food Policy, it makes sense to consider the long term and multiple use of street trees. Planting fruit trees on streets was suggested by Alan DeGenova a few years ago.

Plants for a Future has a list of plants [not all are trees] - many of which can grow naturally in Vancouver - which have the 5/5 usefulness rating. This means that they can be used for food, dyes, medicine, firewood and more. I would consider it sustainable insurance policy.

I'd like to hear directly from CE user City of Vancouver about this.:-)

granola girl: I'd like to hear your views about the PFAF list and if there any of the plants on the list that you would consider invasive.

Regards,

Al

Al Pasternak

Biosa[tm] Bokashi Composting
++indoor, odour free & more
http://www.greatday.ca

I'm all for change and improvements- but Vancouver has some serious problems with indecisiveness.

I was walking along Granville Street yesterday and saw all the stumps of the removed trees. They're a strange height at waist level- I can only guess that's for safety reasons but it makes it look even more depressing. I couldn't help but notice that a few of the trees were maybe two years old at best. What a waste... but it's even worse for the old beauties that we'll never see again for another 40 years when the new ones grow up.

I was just having a look at the plans for Granville street's redesign and although some of it does look like it'll be quite nice, I can't help but wonder about a couple of things. For example, why do we need new bus shelters already? If I remember correctly there were some newer ones placed along Granville only a few years ago. According to the design plan though, these ones aren't going to "match", so it's best that they're done away with.

I hope the city reuses the ones they're removing from Granville Street elsewhere in the city, that's all I can say.

I feel like the last few years I've been watching this city build, tear down and rebuilt itself more than a few times over. (Another transit example- building the B-LINE bus route and then proceeding to rip out sections of it only a couple of years later for the Canada Line) I guess that's growing pains for you, but it's quite sad to see how much has been wasted while we figure it out.

I just hope this new Granville street plan actually sticks for a while and isn't just to show off during the Olympics.

But whatever, I'm just an observer, what do I know. Those people active in the city planning don't seem to know much more than I do sometimes though.

It is so depressing to see Granville street the way it is. I haven’t seen the new plans for Granville street but when will this city have a pedestrian only street. I know they plan to have some for the Olympics but we should have a permanent street dedicated to pedestrians only. I think Granville between nelson and Georgia would be perfect. They could have kiosks down the center of it. When will Vancouver have grow some more character.

On Saturday I took the bus downtown. As a turned the corner to walk down the Granville Mall I immediately was aware that something was different ... the mall just didn't look right! Suddenly I noticed that all the trees had been cut down! I was horrified! This a week after Concord Pacific cut all the trees on the north side of False Creek! I had to ask myself ... what is happening to my green city?

I hope they plan to replace these trees on the Mall before the Olympics! It would not look good for all the tourists. In the meantime it is a pretty depressing site for all of us that live here.

Sorry, I had to laugh at this.... "...the emotional effect of seeing trees cut down..." ?? Are you serious? Geez, suck it up and be a man. Yeah, trees are nice but, geez already, they're just trees. If this is all it takes to cause you emotional trama, I'd sure hate to be next to you when an earthquake (or any other 'real' catastrophe) strikes.

for the record it would make me cry to see trees cut down like that too. living things may not have feelings the same way you and i do, but trees literally breathe life into our lungs - how could we be that separate from them?