The Editor,
You know that spring is here when you hear news of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. Although the cherries are late this year due to our seemingly never-ending winter, very soon they will come, brightening up our urban landscape.
Of particular interest to me is the group of lovely, early-flowering Whitcomb Higan cherry trees surrounding the Terry Fox statue at the Terry Fox Library at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Mary Hill Road in Port Coquitlam. Enjoy them this year, folks, as this could be the last year of their existence.
Many residents were outraged at the recent loss of so many trees to make room for the new PoCo recreation complex. While many trees were cut down and numerous others dug up and replanted, there are yet more trees to come down.
Plans are in place to further remove the Fox statue cherry trees along with several of the oaks on Mary Hill to provide access for a new driveway at the front entrance of the new complex. While the loss of the several oaks is necessary to provide road access, I believe the cherries on the corner can and should be retained and incorporated into the new plaza entrance design.
This new plaza will make for an impressive entrance area, changing the character of that corner in many ways. Certainly, it will become much busier with both traffic and pedestrians, and by retaining the cherry trees, will provide a quieting effect to buffer the two.
I believe the city did what it could to protect and/or transplant trees considering the scope of the project and the priority to keep the ice arenas operating during the construction. It is not too late to make the right decision and retain most, if not all, of the beautiful flowering cherries at Wilson and Mary Hill.
Bill Herbst, Port Coquitlam
