Stop the South Fraser Perimeter Road

The South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) freeway should be cancelled. This multi-billion dollar boondoggle is both environmentally devastating and detrimental to human health. Furthermore, extensive studies show that widened highways encourage sprawling development and increase the number of trips made by car. Traffic volume increases and new lanes quickly fill up. Within a few years, congestion is worse than before, as the region becomes more car dependent. The Alex Fraser Bridge, built to combat congestion on Highways 1 and 99, was expected to take seven years to reach capacity. It was congested within nine months and has remained that way.

The SFPR would:

• Destroy important salmon habitat and potential parkland along the Fraser River
• Cause immediate traffic chaos during construction, and increase congestion over the long term
• Encourage sprawling, car-dependent development including big-box stores on agricultural land
• Increase air pollution and smog, exacerbating health problems such as cancer and asthma
• Increase greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change
• Reduce funds available for public transit and other priorities.

On top of all that, the SFPR is also an unacceptable debt-financed project in a province already 6 billion dollars in debt!

BC's new premier Christy Clark has pledged to tackle the debt and put families first. And yet this freeway would pass dozens of elementary schools and public parks drastically increasing exposure to harmful toxins for our young people.