I probably know this situation better than the rest of you

Firstly, there was no 'rustic peaceful walking path'. The Arbutus Line was an extant railway line, though disused since the early 00's it was not abandoned . The walkers were trespassing and the gardeners were squatting. The gardens were destroyed by Canadian Pacific as a tactic to try to push the city into buying the line (they were also threatening to use it for crew training and car storage).

Secondly, the path is a temporary path. It is not the final design, as it was laid down quickly to activate the corridor after the city's purchase as soon as the rail came up. The final path is an ongoing planning process that will result in a less crude design.

Lastly, when the paving was going down, the city temporarily halted pavement after some area aesthetes complained that it was too ugly and let those nasty cyclists in. Pavement resumed after a far bigger outcry from the city's wider cycling community, from disability advocates, and others who did not want the city's $50 million purchase to go towards being just a few rich neighbourhoods' goodie.

Today the path is well used by pedestrians and cyclists (where it makes the best bike route north/south through the West Side, thanks to steam-train grades and good neighbourhood linkages. While I would personally have preferred the continued use of the corridor for transportation, passengers have had use of the adjacent trolleybus line since the 1950s and the parallel street is uncongested. This is not an outrageous project