Overflowing ditches with garbage, ramshackled homes full of rats and broken down roads. This is what City of Surrey’s Bridgeview residents live in every day, and they say they’re tired of it.
Joe Masurier lives in Bridgeview and has been petitioning the City of Surrey for years to do something about the community’s run-down conditions. He said double axle trucks running up and down his street are causing mini-quakes that reverberate through his house.
“Every time they hit a bump on the road, your house shakes,” Masurier explained, noting he re-tacks the molding in his house has almost become an everyday chore.
“Once every month or so the molding in my living room, I’ve gotta re-tack it. I’ve gotta pack it back up again because of the shaking.” Masurier said.
Not only is his house shaking apart but he says when it rains, local ditches filled with garbage overflow and pose danger to cyclists.
He said kids have fallen into the overflowing ditches before.
Al Forster has called Bridgeview home for years and says that he’s also been trying to grab the attention of the city and its politicians.
“It’s very disappointing and frustrating when you send emails, you talk to people, they come back and say, ‘No, we’ve done all we can.’ My question is, what is bylaws doing? Do they not have any authority, and if they don’t why are we even bothering with them?” Forster said.
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Surrey’s General Manager of Engineering Fraser Smith says that the city is working on a number of remediation projects and is continually visiting Bridgeview and working to patch up the cracked roads.
“Unfortunately, one of the features of Bridgeview is it’s very low topography-wise and has very poor soils. There’s a lot of subsidence of the soils, which take a beating and there’s a lot of vibration that goes through,” said Smith.
According to Smith, there are plans on making improvements to the roads but the upgrades are tied in with the construction of a new Pattullo Bridge.
“We will know by the end of this year if the funding will come into place. If it doesn’t then we’ll go back and look at ways we can help move ahead that area.”
Smith says to tackle the waste issue the city has planned a ‘cleanup blitz’ in May.
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