The Livable Blog

The hard work of South Fraser Action Network organizers has paid off, not only with a standing room crowd but also with the article below in the Province Newspaper.

Some interesting points:

Both South Delta MLA Vicki Huntington and North Delta MLA Guy Gentner attended the meeting and spoke very strongly for re-allocating the Gateway billions to real priorities such as transit, housing and healthcare.

Stephen Rees emphasized that "The recent worldwide recession has created huge amounts of excess shipping capacity at west-coast North American ports. . . . and the probability that we'll see a resurgence in north-Pacific container shipping is slim and none."

My presentation focused on two points that have stopped many freeway projects in the past, well after contracts have been signed and construction started. In some instances freeways projects have been abandoned even after much of the construction has been completed, even after the overpasses have been built and some sections paved. so don't give up, not even on Highway 1!

The list of freeway revolts is huge, and many have been successful resulting in a large number of ghost freeways - monuments to the success of grassroots organizations in opposing motordum.

Photo - Cows on the Goat Path Expressway stopped due to local opposition even after the overpasses were built and the ground graded for the separated lanes. CC www.alpsroads.net

Of course, many of these projects are listed as being canceled due to lack of funds. But a lack of funds for freeway expansion is often the result of pressure put on politicians by grassroots groups to spend money on better things during an economic squeeze.

Perimeter route skirts round issues

Economic shift may make South Fraser connector redundant

By Brian Lewis, The Province January 17, 2010

Even though preliminary work on the $1.1-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road is well under way -- already carving up farmland, destroying homes and disrupting neighbourhoods and wilderness areas in Delta and Surrey -- its opponents refuse to give up.

In stronger voices they're asking: Why is this 40-kilometre, four-lane truck freeway being built?

Bulldozed through by the Campbell government despite staunch local opposition, the freeway's primary purpose is to provide a new container-truck link between Deltaport and Hwy. 1. Proponents also say it will improve general traffic flows south of the Fraser.

However, that rationale is becoming increasingly dubious, especially against a backdrop of the slowing global economy -- which is also changing structurally -- together with rising costs in high-priority items on the home front, such as health care.

These types of concerns were expressed Saturday when the South Fraser Action Network held a town-hall meeting in Ladner and talked about the project's many social, environmental and economic impacts.

"No, it's not too late to stop the SFPR, because the major contracts have not been let and only the pre-load is being done," meeting organizer Inger Kam told me.

[snip]

"There is nothing done so far that is not reversible," says Vancouver-based transportation economist Stephen Rees, a graduate of the London School of Economics and one of the keynote speakers Saturday.

"When this road was planned, the world was a different place," he says. "The recent worldwide recession has created huge amounts of excess shipping capacity at west-coast North American ports.

"In my view, this is not a minor blip -- and the probability that we'll see a resurgence in north-Pacific container shipping is slim and none."

[snip]

Another speaker, transportation planning consultant Eric Doherty, says there are many examples in the U.S. and elsewhere of partially completed freeway projects being stopped due to public opposition and budget constraints.

"Those two factors come up time and again in U.S. examples, and now we have them here with the SFPR," he adds.

Doherty also says it makes more sense to electrify the existing rail system that serves Deltaport to reduce pollution, rather than expand the diesel trucking fleet. Barges on the Fraser River could also be utilized.

"I think the entire road is intellectually dishonest, especially when there are good alternatives to it," notes independent South Delta MLA Vicki Huntington, whose upset win in that riding last spring was due to voter dissatisfaction with Victoria.

"Obviously, big business and a powerful trucking lobby run this province, not the people," she adds.

blewis@theprovince.com
The Province

Full text at http://www.theprovince.com/business/Perimeter+route+skirts+round+issues/2451837/story.html