It makes sense to keep tolls on Nova Scotia's Cobequid Pass — for now

If your business is moving goods in and out of Nova Scotia, the toll plaza at the top of Cobequid Pass is a thorn in your corporate side.

So you can understand Bill Dowe’s frustration last week with the provincial government’s announcement that it will continue tolls on the 44-kilometre stretch of divided highway for another year or two while it raises money for two infrastructure projects.

Dowe owns a trucking business in Cumberland County, and, as SaltWire’s Darrell Cole recently reported, he was looking forward to the end of those tolls.

Two years ago, as an election promise, Stephen McNeil’s Liberals promised to remove them.

That was a popular promise and might have helped the Liberals win the election.

Now, Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines says that date is “a moving target” and the government has until 2026 to pay off the debt on the road and remove the tolls. That's what got Dowe, along with several local MLAs, a bit grumpy last week.

No one likes tolls or taxes. Just the notion of some mandarin trying to figure another way into our wallets tends to set taxpayers’ teeth on edge. And governments always have a hard time giving up any current revenue stream.

In this case, though, the province has a good idea for what to do with the money.

Several times in recent years, the transportation department has been caught flatfooted by winter storms that close the Cobequid Pass. Often, hundreds of motorists end up trapped by conditions on the road and must wait hours for snow removal crews to free them.

It’s only a matter of time before that leads to tragedy, and after all, the highway was originally built to improve safety after years of carnage on the old two-lane road through Wentworth.

So Hines said last week that the department wants to build a rest stop on the highway for motorists, and more importantly, a transportation equipment depot, so crews can get snow removal in the pass going more quickly.

The rules allow them to use toll revenue for this purpose and let’s face it: If they don’t build them now, these projects will have to come out of general revenue and might never get built.

We’ve argued many times for toll highways. They’re unpopular but they help build roads faster and maintain them more consistently.

But the public told the Liberals at public meetings back in 2017 that they didn’t want more tolls. So the government’s next round of highway capital projects, including plans to twin three sections of 100-series highways, contained no toll booths.

If continued tolls in Cobequid Pass annoy you, consider this: the Liberals have an incentive to get this done and finally remove the tolls before the next election, possibly in 2021. Don’t be surprised if that becomes another election promise.

Last summer I found myself going back to school. I even moved into residence at the University of King’s College in Halifax for a couple of weeks. Are you thinking, ‘what a crazy thing to do when you’ve just retired?’ Well, my motivation is a project I’ve been dreaming about for quite some time.

Shortly after becoming a cub reporter in Windsor during the 1970s, I learned of Mary Elizabeth Clark (MEC) while preparing the 'Looking Back' column for The Hants Journal. Contentment was how she signed off her first Clarksville column in 1912.

MEC was one of a legion of social note writers from small villages across Canada. They were the backbone of community newspapers in the century before this one. We used to refer to them as ‘bush note writers.’

MEC stood out among them due to her delightful way with words.

Today, her columns are truly buried in dry and flaking bound volumes in the museum. In transcribing her words up until 1948, I learned that she married two widowers in turn and mothered

In this public service announcement that appeared in a 1970 edition of the Hants Journal, parents were encouraged to take their sons to the arena instead of simply dropping them off. To do otherwise, the Journal warned, could open up the door for the child to become a delinquent. Do you have an old photograph or historic postcard you’d like to share with readers? If so, email it, along with a brief description, to carole.morris-underhill@hantsjournal.ca.

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