The gravel road shaping down from Surrey’s shiny new single-family housing in Fraser Heights is surprisingly steep, and the trailhead of the South Fraser Witness Trail easy to miss.

It’s a sunny afternoon, but Ben West—the Wilderness Committee’s healthy-communities coordinator—still has to watch his footing on the trail as he explains the hike will be about three kilometres. Twigs crackle underfoot and mud soon rises above the soles of our shoes once we’re off the gravel road and onto the main trail.

As West explains, we’re walking on what is, to the best of his knowledge, “the first urban trail that the Wilderness Committee has ever built”. Homes are visible on the south slope, and industrial buildings on the north side disappear after a short time on the trail when the scene opens out to views of the Fraser River below. Beaver dams, tall old-growth cedars, rotten stumps, and garbage dumped callously round out the scene.

“It’s just gorgeous down here,” West tells the Georgia Straight, not for the first time on the hike.

At a clearing, West stops to catch his breath and explain a bit of history. This is a trail with a political twist, he says. For many years, the Wilderness Committee—closing in on 30 years as an organization devoted to protecting B.C.’s pristine wilderness—has been aware of the adjoining Surrey Bend Regional Park. However, the new South Fraser Witness Trail is outside that envelope, he says, which has resulted in residential development close by.

But the real elephant in the room is the provincial government’s proposed $1-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road, which would pass overhead. The SFPR is part of the $3-billion Gateway project, which includes the supersizing of the Port Mann Bridge. West says it is “hard to imagine” how any of this pristine urban ravine would be left intact if the road goes ahead, or overhead.

“But the ravine is still a part of what we were hoping to protect,” West says. “And it is an important riparian zone. There are beavers that live down here. There are a number of bird species. The endangered Pacific water shrew has been spotted around here. People have seen deer tracks, and there was even a grizzly spotted in the area not long ago.”

This might explain the “overwhelmingly sucessful” opening ceremony and hike on January 30, which West says took place on a rainy Saturday and yet still attracted 60 people, including long-time Gateway opponent Eric Doherty.

“The Fraser River is one of the world’s most important salmon rivers, and we shouldn’t be trashing the banks of it while at the same time we’re trying to figure out why the salmon runs are collapsing,” Doherty tells the Straight by phone. “The idea that you can put a freeway through fish habitat without trashing it is pretty ridiculous. They can try to reduce the impact, but even the dust going into waters where the salmon fry are is definitely harmful to everything there, as well as to kids in the schools nearby.”

Doherty says he is pleased to be aligning himself with West’s group, which, like him, wants the provincial government to cancel Gateway entirely—particularly due to the environmental damage—and reinvest the money in transit solutions and the electrification of existing rail lines. He says he believes that, financially, the final tally for the SFPR will come in at $2 billion after factoring in the interest and maintenance of the road.

“In light of the financial crisis, it’s going to be pretty hard to justify spending $2 billion on a freeway that they have justified based on freight volumes, when the freight volumes are declining,” Doherty adds.

The provincial Transportation Ministry’s own three-year service plan update states: “Container growth targets for 2009/10 to 2011/12 have been revised downward to reflect the continued slowdown in international trade.”

Transportation Minister Shirley Bond refused to grant the Straight an interview.

Paul Landry, president and CEO of the Langley-based B.C. Trucking Association, tells the Straight by phone that “the last two years have not been kind to transportation,” but he says he is still in favour of the SFPR.

“Of course, transportation really just mirrors what’s going on in the economy generally,” Landry says. “So I essentially see this as an aberration, something that was temporary. Although I don’t think we’re seeing sort of a traditional rebound in growth; often after a recession or a significant economic pullback there’s quite a bit of bounce. I’d say this time we’re not seeing the bounce that would normally be expected. But I remain convinced that we have long-term growth in our future in the Lower Mainland: container volumes will return and, I think, continue even higher.”

On a scale of one to 10 for hopefulness about stopping the SFPR, Doherty says he feels like a 7.5. He recalls protesters at Eagleridge Bluffs being dragged away in handcuffs after trying to stop Sea-to-Sky Highway upgrades, but he says this is different.

“Well, for one thing, people are actually calling for the whole highway to be scrapped this time,” he said. “We’re not calling for a tunnel to avoid damage to a tiny scrap of habitat.”