About

The Gateway 40 Network is a collaborative project of more than 30 community groups dedicated to a liveable Lower Mainland of B.C.

You might enjoy helping out those who are actively fighting to stop the Gateway developments and save the environment.

90,000 new members join the Gateway 40 Network – The Coalition of Senior Citizens Organizations of BC – www.coscobc.ca – has joined the fight against the GATEWAY PROJECT of the Ministry of Transportation.

The Council of Senior Citizens of BC know that more highway lanes mean more pollution and more pollution is devastating to seniors. They understand, too, that exposing younger people to these pollution levels increases the level of disease health care costs they will experience when they reach their senior years. This is a highly experienced campaign organization, lots of retired professionals who have been fighting the Campbell government for 7 years.

The addition of the seniors network marks the expansion of the Gateway battle province-wide.  Gateway 40 will be working with the COSCO executive to deliver our economic and environmental health messages through the 125 Council of Seniors groups across BC in the months leading up to the next provincial election, as we take across the province our message about Gordon Campbell’s promised devastation to Fraser Valley communities, destruction of some of the most biodiverse wildlife habitat on the continent,  destruction of thousands of acres of farmland during  a global food security crisis and destruction of first nations sacred sites.

Gateway Network (40 organizations and growing) current members include ACORN Community Services; Against Port Expansion (APE); BC NDP Agriculture Committee; BC Great Blue Heron Society; Birdland Residents Association; Boundary Bay Conservation Committee; Bridgeview in Motion; Burns Bog Conservation Society; Canadian Action Party; Canadian Auto Workers, local 111 (bus drivers); Central Valley Naturalists; Delta Residents for a Healthy Community; East Ladner Residents Association; Federation of BC Naturalists; Fraser River Coalition; Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition; Green Party of BC; Langara Students for Sustainable Transportation; Langley Conservation Network; Livable Region Coalition (Langley Chapter); Port Mann Community Association; SmartGrowth BC; Student Action for the Environment (SAFE) – Kwantlen Students; Sunbury Neighbourhood Association; Surrey Environmental Partners; Soil and Water Conservation Assoc of BC; There is Another Way – Hoover/Naas; Western Canada Wilderness Committee; and White Rock/South Surrey Naturalists

Western Canada Wilderness Committee:

APE (Against Port Expansion) is a Delta organization educating local citizens about the negative impacts of the proposed massive expansion at Deltaport and the effects Gateway will have on their quality of life. APE urges people to contact their elected provincial and federal politicians tell them why they are against these developments.

The Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC) is a non-profit charitable organization that addresses environmental issues in British Columbia, with a particular focus on urban communities in Lower Mainland and the Georgia Basin. It recently published a research report that concluded that the Gatway Program would greatly increase Greenhouse Gas emissions

Livable Region Coalition (LRC), whose founding members include the David Suzuki Foundation; SPEC; Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST); Smart Growth BC; BC Sustainable Energy Coalition; Burke Mountain Naturalists; Eagle Bluffs Coalition; Sierra Club of Canada (BC Chapter) Transport 2000 BC; and West End Residents Association. LRC also welcomes individuals. They promote effective solutions to traffic congestion by supporting regional growth strategies which include public transit investments and reductions in air pollution. Members support the GVRD’s Livable Region Strategic Plan, and are opposed to the Gateway highway expansion projects.

Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST)

“Since 1991, BEST has been offering innovative programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and to inform people about the environmental, health and community issues surrounding transportation. Our programs encourage and motivate people to cycle, walk, carpool, and use public transit more often.”

Gatewaysucks is a small (but growing) group of individuals who are in their own words “ticked off” about The Gateway Project. “We are dedicated to firing up roots-level resistance to this destructive greed-driven plan, and to networking the many organizations and individuals who are working at every level to find genuine solutions. Gatewaysucks is 100 percent volunteer organized and implemented. We do this work because we cannot imagine NOT doing it – and because it’s fun”.

Sunbury Neighbourhood Association

Please accept our apologies to groups working to stop Gateway that were inadvertently missed.

4 Responses so far »

  1. 1

    Mary Frances Hill said,

    September 14, 2008 @ 6:53 pm

    Hi,

    I’m doing a story today about a group, called GetMovingBC, which is suggesting that Vancouver has a desperate lack of bridges and bridge lanes.

    I would need someone from any of your groups to give a comment about that, and perhaps about the group itself.

    Today (Sunday) is my deadline, so if someone could call me I’d be eternally grateful!

    Mary Frances Hill
    Vancouver Sun
    604- 605-2366

    Reply
  2. 2

    stopgateway said,

    September 14, 2008 @ 10:55 pm

    Good afternoon, Ms Hill;

    The Georgia Straight actually wrote a series of exposees about Get Moving BC – which is an Astroturf group made up of BC Liberals pretending to be a grassroots organization.

    Below is an email sent to the House of Commons and Senate a year and a half ago. Additionally, I direct you to the Sightline Institute
    http://www.sightline.org/research/energy/res_pubs/climate-analysis-gge-new-lanes-10-07

    We endure a lot of “we need infrastructure” arguments from Boards of Trade and governments, which give regrettably little consideration to what infrastructure means. This morning I listened to Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows MLA Michael Sather on Shaw TV talking about the woeful inadequacies of the Golden Ears Bridge (one of the pieces of the Gateway Project we haven’t opposed) is going to exacerbate transportation problems because it doesn’t have adequate connections.

    Mostly, though, the sustainable transportation advocates in the region recognize that Gateway is unsustainable transportation program that is sucking out of the public purse funds that should be used to provide seriously needed expansion in public transportation.

    Dr. Larry Frank (Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation, UBC) – well, you can see him on the videos.

    SFU’s Environmental Economist Mark Jaccard believes Gateway should not proceed, that it does not make economic sense.

    http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=29291b19-8ec2-4ee6-b289-e3c9577e3dc8

    We’re in a situation where the only people who support the Gateway project are the truckers, the big car dealerships, like Pattison, the developers who can’t wait for the property around the road construction to open up – and the politicians who are on their payroll, like Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts and Highways Minister Kevin Falcon.

    The Provincial Government’s own technical studies tell them children will likely die from diesel particulate poisoning – and that seems to be okay with them, as long as they get the donations to keep them in power.

    It is unconscionable.

    Donna Passmore

    Reply
  3. 3

    stopgateway said,

    September 15, 2008 @ 2:49 am

    Here are the attachments and letters I mention above:

    Environment Canada’s concerns with SFPR:

    Click to access environmentcanadaaug142007.pdf

    Letter to House of Commons:
    To members of the House of Commons and Senate of Canada:

    I write to you on behalf of Gateway 40, a network of 40 environmental,
    conservation, agricultural, health, transportation, planning, education
    and neighbourhood organizations in the south Fraser (from Richmond to
    Abbotsford) region of British Columbia to urge you to stop federal tax
    dollars from investing in the destruction of your region through support
    for the BC Government’s transportation plan, the Gateway Program.

    This transportation plan is being imposed upon a region that does not
    want it. The City of Vancouver, the City of Burnaby, the City of Delta –
    even the Greater Vancouver Vancouver Regional District – have all said
    NO to Gateway. Nevertheless, Stephen Harper and David Emerson have
    promised hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support.

    As taxpayers we are offended by this extremely unwise expenditure of
    money.

    The BC government has underinvested in public transportation for more
    than 15 years, and public transit service in this region has become a
    serious handicap ecologically, economically and in terms of safety.
    Instead of making the massive investment required to bring our transit
    service up to date, the BC government is making minimal investments in
    public transportation and spending the lions share of federal funding
    building highways and bridges the people don’t want. A poll recently
    commissioned by Canada’s oldest environmental organization, the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation, concluded that 73% of British Columbians would prefer to see the money spent on transit improvements instead of twinning Highway #1 and the Port Mann Bridge.

    As you will see from the attached “Gateway to Cancer” newspaper
    clipping, the BC government’s own literature acknowledges this program
    will cause an increase in deaths of children. Why are you investing our
    tax dollars in that end?

    This same newspaper article quotes the Gateway Program’s position that “with increased air pollution there can possibly be increased employment (eg. in the health sector) because of the economic activity associated with correcting the results of its impacts.” As taxpayers we know that health care is not a profitable business. As residents of a region with a severe shortage of medical professionals, as residents of a region that has already seen pediatric asthma rates quadruple in one decade alone, we are duly alarmed by this glib attitude towards the health – the very lives – of our children.

    As citizens of a region facing a food security crisis within the next 15
    years (and I refer you to the
    http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/resmgmt/Food_Self_Reliance/BCFoodSelfReliance_Report.pdf report from the BC government), we are extremely concerned by the South Fraser Perimeter Road and Deltaport’s destruction of nearly 1500 acres of the best farmland in the country. We are concerned that a region that already loses up to 25% of its farmgate crops to ground level ozone is going to take an agricultural and economic bath from elevated pollution from Gateway.

    As citizens of a region that boasts some of the richest biodiversity on
    the continent, we are extremely concerned by science that tells us the
    expansion of Deltaport will likely render our south coast Orcas extinct.
    We are concerned that this transportation plan is proceeding even while
    the Canadian Wildlife Service issue hunting permits to destroy 40,000
    snow geese, because we have already destroyed so much habitat that this region can no longer support the 5 million birds that make Boundary Bay Canada’s internationally recognized Important Bird Area.

    As citizens of a region that believed all three levels of government
    partners who signed onto the protective covenants for Burns Bog, we are concerned by the scientists who tell us the South Fraser Perimeter Road will alter the hydrology of this critically important ecosystem, and
    impose on its numerous at-risk species a level of pollution they cannot
    tolerate.

    As consumers who believe that small business is the backbone of our
    economy, we are concerned that this big business transportation scheme sounds the death knell for thousands of entrepreneurs in the historic village of Ladner, the family business businesses of Sunbury and the cultural centre of Commercial Drive.

    As citizens that value our heritage – and the living reminders of it –
    we are concerned by the Gateway Program’s plans to wantonly destroy
    hundreds of heritage homes and farms and see this region’s pioneers
    thrown off their land. (see Delta residents video below).

    As taxpayers we are concerned that the BC government’s P3 lawyer has
    made $1.9 million in profits from selling the Ministry of Transportation
    a contaminated site, while hundreds of families are being brutally
    expropriated and driven unwillingly from their homes, their communities.

    The bottom line is that the Gateway Program and expansion of Deltaport are not needed. The BC government’s own studies concluded that by putting buses across the Port Mann Bridge RIGHT NOW, they would effect a 35% decrease in congestion. By making the necessary investments to bring our public transit service across the region up to date, we could dramatically increase that percentage. Pretty good considering their own studies also acknowledge that Highway #1 will be fully congested again within a few years’ time. Here footage of David Emerson acknowledging the same thing during a recent visit to Vancouver.

    Finally, it is not too late to save Roberts Bank and the mouth of the
    Fraser River. Prince Rupert’s Port has many environmental and
    transportation advantages over Delta, as you will see from the attached
    Powerpoint discussion. The region need experience no economic hardship, no shortage of commercial goods. Instead, we distribute the economic activity to benefit all and reduce impacts by spreading them around.

    Academics, scientists, politicians at all levels of government – and the
    taxpayers of this region – oppose the Gateway Program. Why is our
    federal government investing in it?

    If your travels bring you to this region, we would be delighted to meet
    with you, give you a tour of our special part of the world and talk to
    you about our concerns. In the meantime, we beg you to put the brakes on any federal funding to the expansion of Deltaport and the Gateway Program.

    With thanks and kind regards,

    Donna Passmore

    Coordinator, Gateway 40 Network

    Reply

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