More funding announced for Highway 101 twinning work

More cash will be coming towards highway twinning in Nova Scotia this week with a joint federal-provincial investment for work on Highway 101.

Kings- Hants MP Scott Brison, who is also president of the Treasury Board, announced Monday that up to $69 million — or up to $34.5 million each — in joint funding for the Highway 101 Three Mile Plains to Falmouth Twinning Project.

According to a federal press release, the money will come through the New Building Canada Fund’s Provincial Territorial Infrastructure Component — National Regional Projects program with the province providing the remainder of funding toward project costs. In July, a provincial spokesperson said the estimated cost for the project was $90 million.

The work will include twinning 9.5 km of Highway 101 from Exit 5 to west of Exit 7, bridging a missing piece of a twinned highway that will ultimately span 70 km of continuous twinned highway from Halifax, west to Hortonville at Exit 9.

A similar announcement of joint funding up to $140 million to twin a dangerous section of Highway 103 to Hubbards by the fall of 2020 — was made in July, part of a larger of twinning and improvement project planned for the 100-series highways over the next seven years.

After public consultations on the issue, the Nova Scotia government in April committed $390 million over seven years to improve a number of highways in the province, rather than charge tolls. This includes the twinning of a 38-kilometre stretch of Highway 104 from Sutherlands River to Antigonish, including Barneys River, which has seen at least 15 fatal collisions and 372 accidents since 2009. The estimated cost for that project is $285 million.

The other projects included in the funding are the Highway 101 Three Mile Plains to Falmouth twinning, and construction of the four-lane, divided 8.7 kilometre Burnside Connector (Highway 107) between Burnside and Bedford at an estimated cost of $150 million. All work is slated to be completed by 2024.