Freeway expansion protest

A small group of activists staged a protest in East Vancouver on Thursday against the province's plans to widen Highway 1 and twin the Port Mann Bridge.

They say the government's $3-billion Gateway plan for an expanded highway system will mean more cars on the road and worsen air pollution in the Lower Mainland.

And the protesters say the province hasn't left room for any meaningful public consultation

• LINK: B.C. government Gateway project

The project announced by Premier Gordon Campbell this week would widen the freeway to six lanes from Langley to the bridge and to eight lanes through Burnaby and Vancouver. It also includes a new Pitt River Bridge and new roads north and south of the Fraser River.

The government says twinning the Port Mann will create room to allow public transit cross the Fraser, something that hasn't happened for the past two decades.

• FROM JAN. 31, 2006: Highway expansion plans unveiled by premier

But Paige Dampier of Citizens Concerned with Highway Expansion isn't convinced that the additional transit will happen.

"They've said they'll make room for it, but they've made no commitment it will happen, and that concerns us greatly."

The protesters also had a cardboard sculpture of Kevin Falcon, showing the transportation minister riding backwards on a donkey.

"We're saying this morning that Kevin Falcon is looking the wrong way towards solutions to congestion in the Lower Mainland," said Dampier.

• LINK: Citizens Concerned with Highway Expansion

Falcon has announced there will be 18 months of public consultation across the Lower Mainland. But he says those meetings are to discuss the details of the highway, not whether it will happen.

The fight against more freeways in the Lower Mainland is an old one. In the 1970s, Mike Harcourt led the successful fight against a plan to put a freeway through Chinatown.

He, of course, went on to become the mayor of Vancouver and then the premier of B.C.

• INTERVIEW: The Early Edition's Rick Cluff speaks with David Fields of Citizens Concerned with Highway Expansion.