"Stop the Pave" community action

I'm starting to hear reports today on CBC radio about the community protest on the South Fraser freeway construction site.

On Friday (Earth Day) I cycled out to Delta with a friendly convoy of activists/cyclists/permaculturists/media reps meeting up with the protest march organized by the Stop the Pave folks.

The South Fraser freeway is just part of an extensive plan around the lower mainland to construct major freeways through sensitive communities/agricultural land/ecological sites in order to "ease traffic congestion" to the ports/city centres. As usual, billions of dollars are freely distributed for backwards-thinking projects, ignoring transit/rail/tugboat options that would provide more sustainable solutions.

Protestors are camping onsite over the Easter weekend, and plan to disrupt work on Tuesday. I guess we'll hear more then. Highway projects such as this have been stopped before, even at this stage. It's not just a local issue--although residents in the area have obvious health/environmental concerns.

For me, it's an "if not now, when?" issue. Do we keep powering through economic priorities until we all go up in smoke? Or do we start factoring in survival issues, and recognize that we are quite mistaken in the belief that "economy-first" thinking protects our comforts/lifestyle/standard of living.

What are we willing to sacrifice to keep stocking Walmart and shipping raw resources out to feed the Chinese industrial machine, a well-known environmental and human rights offender?

Here's a view back from the Alex Fraser Bridge, to the freeway cut-bank site next to River Road in Delta. For coverage, see http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/ for Dawn Paley's articles and Sandra Cuffe's photo essays, or see http://stopthepave.org/ for organization information.

To end on a warm fuzzy note, here's a bit more yarn-bombing on Commercial Drive--I'm seeing a theme here...knitting for things we care about...