DELTA – Today, 200 concerned community members took over an active construction site on the banks of the Fraser River in Delta (between 10749 and 10739, River Road), obstructing work on a key portion of the contentious South Fraser Perimeter Road freeway. They planted trees on the road bed and set up a full campsite on Friday April 22 - International Mother Earth Day. About 25 are currently camped out, vowing to stay and stop the freeway they call a ‘climate crime.’ They expect that the camp will grow as as word of the blockade spreads.
"Gateway's goal
with the South Fraser Perimeter Highway is to triple truck traffic. What
they don't tell you is that means triple the pollution, too," says North
Delta resident Richelle Giberson. "I live three doors up from where this
freeway is slated to go. My windows get coated in black soot from the
truck exhaust already; it scares me to think about what it could be like
in a few years.”
“We are planting
these trees on the freeway route to demonstrate that we are fed up with
battling asthma and cancers,” explains PJ Lilley, a Surrey
organizer with StopThePave.org.
“As a mom with kids
at a school near the highway ‘fall-out zone’, I want to see a stop to
the insanity of paving over our last green spaces on the Fraser River
just to bring more trucks and pollution to our communities. Christy
Clark’s government is not putting ‘families first’, money must go to
transit, schools and health care instead.”
The province is
spending an estimated $2 billion on the new South Fraser freeway and is
planning to spend up to $1 billion more
on the North Fraser Perimeter Road through New Westminster.
Meanwhile, this week, Translink is cutting bus service.
"TransLink has
cut bus service to save a few million, and meanwhile the province is
spending billions on freeways which increase our dependency on cars and
tar sands oil," explains Bob Ages of the
Council of Canadians national board. “1950’s thinking won’t solve the
problems of the 21st century.”
"We must stop
spending public money to make the climate crisis worse, and shift the
money to solutions like public transit and electric trains" says Eric
Doherty with the Council of Canadians Vancouver / Burnaby Chapter. “It’s
time for all concerned people to take a stand against these freeway
projects that are cooking our planet.”
The freeway site
occupation is an initiative of local residents and climate justice
activists from StopThePave.org, local Council of Canadians chapters, and
the Critical Criminology Working Group at Kwantlen University, and is
endorsed by the over 20 groups listed at
www.StopThePave.org
Media
Inquiries:
PJ
Lilley, Surrey mother, member of StopthePave.org (CAMP INFO LINE) 604
355 2771
The Leader - newsroom@surreyleader.com
The Now - tzillich@thenownewspaper.com
The Province - provletters@png.canwest.com
The Vancouver Sun - sunletters@png.canwest.com