PR Log (Press Release) –
Dec 19, 2009 – Surrey and Delta, BC – On the final day of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, local residents hung a series of community banners over government billboards used to promote the $1-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR), part of the province's controversial Gateway freeway expansion program.
In recent months, the billboards have been erected throughout the region featuring contradictory claims about the supposed benefits of the project, such as “reducing congestion” and “strengthening the economy”.
Regarding congestion, Premier Gordon Campbell said in 2003 at GVRD Council of Councils, “you cannot build your way out of congestion”. Adding four lanes of pavement to our communities would add thousands of new vehicles and new trips to fill the new capacity. The Provincial and Federal governments have provided massive investments to the Port in Prince Rupert to develop its container handling abilities, yet the Prince Rupert port is being used at less than half of its capacity. This calls into question the billions being spent on port and freeway expansion in Delta, while the Province delays or cancels critical social programs such as:
-School Seismic Upgrades (jobs, safety, education)
-Seniors Health Care (jobs, health, respect for the people who built this Province)
-LiveSmartBC (programs to help reduce greenhouse gases in homes and businesses)
Our Premier and Prime Minister are in Copenhagen claiming to work toward a global climate treaty, yet at home they are paving farmland (90 hectares of the best farmland in Canada), paving Burns Bog (the largest carbon sink in the Lower Mainland), and paving the banks of the Fraser River (endangering the most important salmon-bearing river in North America). Even the government's own studies say that the Gateway freeways will increase GHG emissions by over 160,000 tonnes per year, over 11 times the claimed reduction for the $2 billion Canada Line.
The community messages we have posted on the Gateway billboards are:
-Transit Not Truck Routes (King George Hwy at Patullo Bridge)
-Homes Not Highways (River Road under the Alex Fraser Bridge, near a neighbourhood of homes being demolished for the SFPR)
-Peatland Not Pavement (River Road at Huston Road, near Burns Bog)
-Farms Not Freeways (Hwy 17 at Hwy 10, near Delta farmland being bulldozed for the SFPR)
For pictures see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43367159@N07/sets/721576227 ...
and
http://flickr.com/photos/badfreeway/
For video see: http://youtube.com/badfreeway
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