Residents vow to fight $1.6b Fremantle freight link

Local residents and environmentalists have moved to a war footing with the weekend launch of a campaign to fight plans for a $1.6 billion road freight link between Kewdale and Fremantle.

And they are prepared to do whatever it takes - "procedurally, legally and physically" - to stop the project, which will include Perth's first toll road.

The offensive, organised by the community group Fremantle Road2Rail, was launched at a forum in Fremantle on Saturday.

Organiser and City of Fremantle councillor Sam Wainwright said good public policy had been swept aside in favour of blind ideological obsession because the road link plans ignored real science and economic analysis.

He said rail was a far more efficient way to move containers to and from the port. It was also safer, healthier and better for the environment.

"When all the costs of the Perth Freight Link are examined - including increased congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, dangerous diesel particulate pollution and the destruction of remnant bushland - the project will simply not stack up when compared to an investment in better public transport and rail freight solutions," Mr Wainwright said.

The project, which is jointly funded by the State ($650 million) and Federal ($925 million) governments, is due to begin in mid-2017 and be completed by mid-2019. It includes the controversial Roe 8 project that extends Roe Highway to Stock Road, through the Beeliar wetlands.

The State Government believes the project will remove 500 trucks a day from Leach Highway and provide a more efficient freight link to the Fremantle port.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam told the forum that plans for the "wretched" freight link were driven by stupidity and 1950s ideology.

He said public opponents needed a coherent alternative and to be prepared to do whatever was needed - "even standing in front of earthmoving equipment if we have to" - to fight the plan.