Province announces five-year, $500-million highway plan

Nova Scotia Public Works released its five-year highway plan for 2022/23 on Wednesday.

The five-year highway plan, which includes more than 150 proposed construction projects across Nova Scotia, involves nearly $500 million in spending on highways, bridges and roads over the next year.

Public Works Minister Kim Marsland said during an online conference that ten major projects are in the works, including the ongoing twinning of Highways 101, 103, 104 and 107.

Construction will also focus on a new Aerotech connector road on Highway 102, an interchange to connect Bridgewater Business Park to 125 acres of land on the north side of the highway in Bridgewater and work to convert the Port Hastings rotary into a roundabout.

The province will also build 12 new bridges and replace 18 across the province. Marsland cited the importance of keeping Nova Scotia’s infrastructure up with the effects of climate change.

“As recent storms have reminded us, our infrastructure is facing challenges,” Marsland said.

“We have a strong capital plan, and we have steadily been upgrading and improving infrastructure across the province. All new projects are designed and constructed with climate change readiness in mind.”

While the province has said that it’s spending $500 million, deputy public works minister Peter Hackett clarified that its actually contributing about $190 million toward paving, gravel roads and bridge replacement. It will then split the remaining $310 million in a cost-sharing agreement with the federal government.

“Most of those cost-share agreements are 50/50, so 50 per cent of that $300 million would be from the province, and the other 50 per cent would come from Ottawa,” Hackett explained.

This would bring the amount the province is actually paying to about $345 million.

Marsland calls the plan “one of the largest investments in Nova Scotia infrastructure in provincial history.”