On April 12 transportation minister Bill Estabrooks announced the second biggest highway capital budget in the province’s history. More than $300 million is going to roads and bridges. This is how we save the economy.
In a government press release Grant Feltmate, director of the Nova Scotia Road Builders Association, noted, “In the short term, this budget will have a very large, positive economic impact.” The key phrase is “short term.”
In the long term we will have more expensive highways. Two of them are coming, eventually, to the HRM. “It could be 10, 15, 20 years before Highway 113 is built,” says Helen MacPhail, an environmental assessment officer at the Department of Environment.
The new four-lane highway, which will buttress the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area south of Hammonds Plains Road, is planned to serve an anticipated need based on projected traffic volume increases in Hammonds Plains. New developments—sprawl—could necessitate, some day, the new highway. Its implementation is so far away that it’s impossible to calculate the cost, but if it were built today it would cost over $30 million.
Though the project is not yet approved politically, or funded, it just received a conditional environmental assessment approval. MacPhail says that once the wilderness area was designated last April, many of the concerns expressed by environmentalists about the highway were alleviated. “We looked at impacts on wildlife, wetlands, recreational opportunities, proximity to residences, water wells, noise and dust.”
The conditions require the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal to consult with the community and other government departments, update wildlife and water well surveys and submit plans for environmental protection and mitigation.
“I don’t think I’m surprised,” says Chris Miller, national manager of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. “Government has been trying to build this road since 1998.” He adds that the provincial government has essentially wormed its way out of the more rigorous environmental assessment process required for a 10-kilometre highway, first by claiming the highway was 9.9 kilometres (it is more than that if you include overpasses), and then by getting rid of the 10-km rule. “Government always seems to get road projects through.”
Miller calls the wilderness area a “big step in the right direction,” but feels that rather than relieve congestion the highway will “open up the entire landscape to urban sprawl. Once there’s a highway, exits appear, along with new communities and box stores. The actual decisions have to be made on traffic need and the desire of the community, and it’s not a popular highway.”
At the western end of Hammonds Plains Road is exit 5 of Highway 103. If you hop onto the 103, be prepared for a 22-kilometre drive before you hit exit 6. Somewhere between those two exits, TIR is planning a southbound highway connecting to St. Margarets Bay Road/Highway 3.
The two projects are eerily similar. Both have little traction with locals, murky timelines and uncertain costs. “We’re planning a twinning from exit 5 to 6,” says Cathy MacIsaac, a spokesperson for TIR. “The modern standard is one exit per eight to 10 kilometres, and the reason they like to have them spaced that way is to have exits for emergency vehicles.”
The highway twinning is approved and funded, and should be “tender-ready” next year. Ideally, the connector road would be built at the same time, but its environmental assessment is ongoing. A public consultation process will follow in a few months.
“Government has been working on this for three years, basically in secret,” says Sean Kirby, founder of a group opposing the new connector. “We only heard in February.” He says the community—including the St. Margarets Bay Stewardship Association, local businesses and local MP Gerald Keddy—is overwhelmingly against the project. “This will divert traffic away from Hubbards and Tantallon.” He says doing so runs counter to the Halifax Regional Plan, which designates Tantallon and Hubbards as economic hubs.
Paula Fredericks, who lives near St. Margarets Bay Road about halfway between the two exits, doesn’t buy the rationale for the connector. “If access to the 103 for safety is at the forefront of this decision,” she says, “why not transfer funds and enable our local fire stations to be equipped better and staffed with paid firefighters 24/7?”
Sounds like a decent way to create jobs and improve safety but, uh, maybe just a little too long-term for us at this juncture. We’ll get there someday.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.
Politicians cannot garner votes from our grandchildren so they don’t see a way to protect them in the future. They give us jobs now and expect to get our votes now. Screw the future.
before you give advice on how things are.this is how things really are,also please tell david suzuki this,all living things on planet earth are programed by mother earth.we all follow this same lawif you go outside that parameter you start to dwell in nonsense.not a rule it is a law.that programed law is survival.
Highway 113 is doubly redundant, unaffordable, short-sighted — completely fucking outdated. KILL IT before sprawl kills us.
Funny, somebody should tell Mr. Kirby that Hubbards and Tantallon are not economic hubs, regardless of what HRM’s plans say.
Also, I’d like to point out that if we want to get rid of urban sprawl, we need to start planning around either new homeowners owning in areas where there is available space (which there is plenty along the Hammonds Plains Rd) or planning around existing places that can be further developed. The people who are buying homes now are people that are either in their late 20’s early 30’s. Thanks to the complete erosion of workable blue-collar jobs (a whole other subject), these people are young professional types who can afford $300 K homes, and where are they going to be built in the next 30 years? Well, in areas that have availability to the city, but not too far out. How do we counter this? Well, how do we counter this? We can focus on the city, but thanks to an archaic planning method, we can’t build higher downtown, and the rest of the city is owned by old folks, or the values of the properties are too high for what you get. Just take a quick perusal of the MLS website and it will show you why people are choosing to live in areas outside of the city like Hammonds Plains.
Government is only putting these roads where they need to go. The road isn’t the problem. The people are. We want our cake and eat it too; we don’t want urban sprawl, but we want our small-town feel, so we restrict buildings in areas like downtown. It clear that a majority of the properties in the city are overvalued or owned by people that are clearly staying (And why shouldn’t they? If you bought a property 10 years ago, you’ve probably seen a 20% increase in your house value, if you bought 15-20 years ago, you’ve nearly doubled your property value in some areas). So people who are tired of paying inflated rent prices for crappy apartments in places like Clayton Park West have to go to somewhere.
I guess my point in this tirade is this; we should be focused on something different. Want to combat sprawl? Don’t worry about a highway being twinned. Worry about how we develop within the city. We either build closer together or up in the city (i.e.: more density) or we deal with sprawl. We need to make a choice, because we can’t have both.
People need progress. I have lived in the city core with high taxation, violence, and political clout of a jelly bean. Buses screamed through our neighbourhood all hours of the day and night was too much for this family. So we sold our old and leaky home for an awesome modern home in Hammonds Plains. That was in 1996… Well, now a lot of other folks did the same. Including the people who bought my home back in ’96! They live in our new awesome neighbourhood too! We all work in the city and don’t mind the commute either. In fact most people I know in our neighbourhood work in the city. Whats my point? Now-a-days there are a ton of vehicles on the roads I drive, there are now 8 major intersections with street lights where there was once just 2 stop signs on my commute…less than ten years ago! People continue to move into these areas (they are not building dream homes here because it sucks)…and so we the people require more highways to accomodate the growth. Just have a look at the 102 in the morning commute. No need to question when your government builds everything on a pennisula, EXCEPT affordable, accessable, housing for MOST people. BRING ON THE ROADS AND THE DEVELOPMENT!!
Cheers..see ya’ on the commute!
I like living on a little patch of land I can call my own…….I would be VERY unhappy if I had to live in a little box stuck to the side of a really big box with streets down below and all around.
So…….people like Smee need to live on the outer fringes of the city ’cause I couldn’t afford to buy the expensive land in the middle of the city…….nor would I want to.
So I am the problem……I need to live in the urban sprawl…..I need the job in the city…….I need the car to get there…….I need the roads for the car!
Sorry!
My husband has been working on a road builders crew for almost twenty years now. And even though it does take him away from home for multiple days sometimes, it has been a really good job for him. I don’t love that sometimes it takes him away for days at a time, but he loves working outdoors, and so it’s a perfect job for him. I really like that he enjoys what he does. Plus, because it takes him away from home, they pay him really good for it, in compensation. That does make it easier to deal with sometimes. We’ve never had a concern about it ever being a temporary job. Every time the short termroad builders job is done, he just finds a new one. It’s a really good profession to get into if it’s something that you can really handle doing.