Save Bear Creek Park, flagship of “Surrey, City of Parks”

Plans to push 84th Avenue through Bear Creek Park were defeated by the public in 2007 and again in 2013. Now Surrey council is trying to resuscitate this misguided venture. Traffic is busy, say our elected representatives. Yes, the same people who trashed the King George transit plan right after the election.

Above: Park user points out parts of nature trail threatened by the road plan while others walk there.

To slash a road through this park is to harm a mini-Amazon forest that acts as the city’s lungs as well as providing much loved and needed recreational green space. The nature trails are lined by an array of oxygen-exuding trees, some of them enormous. Part of the joy of walking in the park is to look up into the lofty canopy formed by their branches.

Especially during the current pandemic, the park is a safe and healthy place to exercise outdoors. It is enjoyed by people of all ages, including dog owners and their pets. Cynically, the city council is trying to take unfair advantage of our current COVID-caused inability to gather in groups in order to push their unpopular plan through.

Bear Creek Park is a sensitive ecological area. The seasonal home of migrating birds, it is occupied by 27 bird species, including ground nesters.

Great Blue Herons, an at-risk species, also have homes there. Beavers live in one of the two creeks, and lucky park users can quietly observe their work from the footbridge without disturbing them. Rabbits graze along the trails, and the streams are habitat for migrating salmon.

Anyone who wishes to sign a petition against this mad move to build a road through the park can find it here.