Symbolic protest for final home

Monday, March 02, 2009

Vancouver 24 hours

It was the last house to go down in Bridgeview to make way for the South Fraser Perimeter Road in Surrey, but residents didn't let it go without a fight.

Gatewaysucks.org organized a protest yesterday in a symbolic effort to stop the demolition of the final house in the "transitional area" at the corner of 124th Street and 116th Avenue.

Between a heap of sand, train tracks and a handful of protesters with signs reading "truck you Mr. Falcon," the man expropriated from his home took the last of his belongings, according to Carmen Mills, Gatewaysucks.org community organizer.

"The project is destructive," Mills said.

Bernadette Keenan, a local resident for 17 years, is worried for the neighbourhood children's health as two elementary schools are about half a block away from the site.

"There is just one reason after another why this is such a bad idea," Keenan said. "If a freeway was here already, regulations wouldn't permit them to even build a school here."

Keenan said she wants the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to put in transit and cancel the freeway project.

However, Kevin Falcon, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, said the ministry went through five years of public consultations, and the project will take trucks out of the neighbourhood.

"The air quality and emissions will be improved as a result," Falcon contended.

More from this campaign
A group of people marching down the street, protesting Kinder Morgan and the Trans Mountain pipeline. End of image description.
Anti Kinder Morgan Pipeline Protest Rally and March, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Photo credit: Michael Wheatley
Gas flaring in northeastern B.C. blankets the sky with black smoke.
Gas flaring in northeastern B.C. blankets the sky with black smoke. [Peter McCartney]