Tories roll out similar highway twinning plan to Liberals

Large pieces of construction equipment seem to go hand in hand with politicians' infrastructure announcements. Earlier this week, it was Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil who used them as a backdrop. On Friday, it was Tory Leader Jamie Baillie's turn.

Baillie climbed into the driver's seat of a concretetruck and tooted the horn, an exclamation point of sorts to his announcement about twinning highways.

As part of the PC's $2-billion infrastructure plan, Baillie said his government would twin four sections of provincial highways in the next seven years at a total cost of $729 million. The bill would be cost-shared with Ottawa and not involve tolls.

The plan

The areas are:

• Highway 101 (9 km) from Three Mile Plains to Falmouth, including the Windsor causeway.
• Highway 103 (32 km) from Tantallon to East River.
• Highway 104 (38 km) from Sutherlands River to Antigonish, including Barneys River.
• Highway 107 (8.7 km) the Burnside connector between Burnside and Bedford.

There would also be $30 million for safety upgrades on untwinned portions of highway.

Dj vu

If that plan sounds familiar, it's because it is.

The Liberals announced the same plan last week following several months of public consultations on the idea of twinning hundreds of kilometres of roads with the help of tolls. When public feedback didn't come close to overwhelming support forthe idea, the Liberalsput out a far more modest plan that would require no tolls.

Baillie said his party's plan is based entirely on the study performed by consulting firm CBCL, which looked at traffic volumes and safety. His plan includes an additional 10 kilometresof twinning along Highway 103 closer to Bridgewater to address more of the trouble areas highlighted in the CBCL study, he said.

Safety not a political issue

"I do not want to see any party play politics with the safety of our highways," said Baillie. "We are completely guided by the independent studies that looked at which sections are the most dangerous and these are the priorities that were determined."

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil said he was glad to see the Tories following the same plan his party woulduse.

"I really think it's important for Nova Scotians," he said at an event in Halifax.

The NDP also supports the same twinning plan. Party officials say they will make their own infrastructure announcements later in the campaign.