The Vancouver Examiner reports that opponents of freeway expansion are declaring a partial victory “with the announcement that the British Columbia Agricultural Land Commission turned down a Langley section of the road and overpass proposal.” The new freeway connector road and overpass was intended to feed traffic to an expanded Hwy 1 freeway – part of the Gateway freeway expansion scheme in Metro Vancouver.
“The commission felt the proposal ‘would negatively impact the agricultural capability and suitability of lands within the ALR… The responses to the criteria that the ALC asked for didn’t satisfy the Commission to the extent that the impacts to agriculture would be mitigated or offset sufficiently.'”
The Vancouver Environmental News Reporter reported last April that, “’Historic homes are being demolished, and ancient indigenous sites are under threat from the South Fraser Perimeter Road project here on the Fraser River bank,’ according to a media statement from the Council of Canadians and the GatewaySucks organizations.” The groups add that the highway would “greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions in BC.”
The Gatewaysucks.org website says, “The estimated $10 billion dollar (Gateway) proposal includes building the new freeway through BC’s best farmland and along the delicate banks of the Fraser River. Transportation is the largest source of climate changing emissions in BC, and accounts for most of the oil burned in Canada.”
On October 11, NEWS 1130 reported that, “Climate activists say they want the province to know it’s not too late to stop the South Fraser Perimeter Road from being built through Surrey. Protesters filled hundreds of bags with sand used in the project to build up a dike along the road to show water levels from global warming should be a bigger concern.”
Past campaign blogs on opposition to the South Fraser Freeway can be read at http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?s=%22south+fraser%22.
The Examiner article is at http://www.examiner.com/environmental-news-in-vancouver/south-fraser-perimeter-road-update.
