Highway twinning plan for 100-series highways to be released soon

A plan to twin eight stretches of 100-series highways in Nova Scotia will be released to the public in the next several weeks, provincialTransportation MinisterGeoffMacLellansaid Thursday.

MacLellan said the plan, which will include information on highway tolls, is in its final draft stages. The upgrades would cost hundreds of millions of dollars but couldsave dozens of lives.

The plan willlikely be released on social media as well as the usual governmentchannels, giving people time to review it before the public consultations begin, MacLellansaid.

• Graham Steele: The impossible politics of toll highways

"We don't want this to linger," hesaid. "This isn't something that's going to take a year or years."

Public consultations will start by the end of the summer at the latest, he said.

"This is about getting to the doorsteps of NovaScotians, having them see exactly what we see, in the same format and in an understandable breakdown. And then let the people who put us here decide what wedo next."

Tolls?

The provincehired anengineering and environmental consulting firm,CBCLLimited, at a cost of about $900,000 to study eight sections of the 100-series highways, includingwhether upgrades could be paid for with tolls.

The stretches that were studied:

• Highway 101 -Three Mile Plains to Falmouth 9.5 km.
• Highway 101 -Hortonville to Coldbrook 24.7 km.
• Highway 103 -Exit 5 at Tantallon to Exit 12 Bridgewater 71 km.
• Highway 104 -Sutherlands River to Antigonish 37.8 km.
• Highway 104 -Taylors Road to Aulds Cove 38.4 km.
• Highway 104 -Port Hastings to Port Hawkesbury 6.75 km.
• Highway 104 -St. Peter's to Sydney 80 km.
• Highway 107 -Porters Lake to Duke Street, Bedford 33 km.

In total, 301.2kilometres were under review.

The Transportation Department has saidit could cost between $240 million and $250 million to twin the highway betweenSutherlandsRiver andAntigonish alone.

A 35-year-old woman was killed on that highway on Monday, the 15th person to die since 2009 on the 37.8-kilometre stretch.