Arbutus Greenway

Arbutus Greenway: character zones

By City of Vancouver

View sketches of each character zone

  • Zone 1

    By City of Vancouver

    Community gardens are a big part of the experience in this zone, while local parks provide a place a place to pause, relax, and play.

  • Zone 2

    By City of Vancouver

    Provides a series of garden rooms for seating, public art, and native planting.

  • Zone 3

    By City of Vancouver

    This area is defined by landscaped nooks for people to sit, relax, and enjoy the views to English Bay and the mountains.

  • Zone 4

    By City of Vancouver

    The design for this zone adds more landscaping to the existing tree canopy to create a Pacific Northwest forest-like experience. Lookout points celebrate views of the North Shore mountains.

  • Zone 5

    By City of Vancouver

    A variety of seating areas and informal landscaped areas.

  • Zone 6

    By City of Vancouver

    This zone celebrates the existing Victory Gardens on the eastside of the greenway, using wildflowers and native plantings to enhance biodiversity.

  • Zone 7

    By City of Vancouver

    Zone 7 features a variety of recreational opportunities, such as giant chess, ping pong, and bocce, and includes a small community gathering area at West 60th Ave.

  • Zone 8

    By City of Vancouver

    A fully-accessible lookout tower with views to the Fraser River Delta and Vancouver International Airport is the major feature in this zone.

The Arbutus Greenway will be a defining element of Vancouver’s urban landscape as a vibrant and beautiful public space for walking, cycling, and streetcar.

The Arbutus Greenway is one of several walking and biking paths we're developing to encourage people to use active and sustainable modes of transportation. 

The project, which started in 2016, currently has a temporary asphalt path and attracts thousands of people every day, providing people an opportunity to walk, bike, roll from False Creek to the Fraser River. In light of its success, in 2018, City Council endorsed enhancing the path to give people of all ages and abilities places to gather and rest and enjoy the surrounding landscape.

Project area

What's happeningArbutus Greenway improvements

The Arbutus Greenway has become a popular and well-used walking, rolling and cycling path, and remains an important part of our city-building plans. While COVID-19 has led us to adjust spending on capital projects, it has also underscored how important walking and biking paths are to people's well-being.

Currently, we're focused on urgent needs along the Arbutus Greenway, such as making key safety improvements and continuing to improve network connections to the greenway, and coordinating with the new Arbutus SkyTrain Station and adjacent development. Staff will explore advancing detailed design work for some Character Zones in the next capital plan, which begins in 2023.

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