Nova Scotia to spend $1 billion to improve highways, bridges by 2030

Nova Scotia has announced it will spend $1 billion over the next seven years to improve the province’s highways, bridges and ferry infrastructure.

The announcement came Friday as the province released its Five-Year Highway Improvement Plan.

Nova Scotia Public Works Minister Kim Masland said it’s one of the biggest investments made in the province's history to improve highways.

In 2023 and 2024, the province will spend $450 million on major highway projects already underway.

It will spend an additional $583 million on six new major infrastructure projects between 2025 and 2030.

Those projects include:

• Highway 103, Argyle Interchange (Exit 32 and 32A)
• Highway 103, twinning between Exit 6 (Hubbards) and Exit 7 (East River)
• Highway 103, twinning between Exit 7 (East River) and Exit 8 (Chester)
• Highway 104, twinning between Taylors Road and Paqtnkek (Antigonish County)
• Highway 107, twinning from Burnside to west of Loon Lake (Halifax Regional Municipality)
• Tancook Ferry infrastructure development (Lunenburg County)

These six construction projects are in the planning stages and construction is expected to be complete by 2030.

"We know that Highway 103 has become heavily-travelled and there are a lot of people that are using the highway and we know that we need to do some twinning -- twinning saves lives," said Masland. "We know we need to look at access improvements and so these are all projects that have come back from analysis and safety and this is where we have landed."

Major construction projects moving ahead in 2023 include twinning portions of highways 101, 103 and 104, and the four-lane Highway 107 Sackville-Burnside-Connector.

The province says it is also doubling its gravel road spending to $40 million and doubling bridge spending to $60 million.

In total, more than 150 work projects will be in development across more than 23,000 kilometres of roads and highways.

Thirty-one bridges are scheduled to be replaced or repaired.

Inflation and rising costs in material and labour have affected the construction industry and labour shortages are also a concern. That's why the province says it is looking ahead and releasing its five-year plan for 2025-2030 now, to give road builders time to prepare and plan.

"It gives the road builders an opportunity to try and recruit and to try and make sure they have the resources and to plan appropriately to make sure we are delivering the projects," said Masland.

“It's estimated 10,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by this industry and we are going to need all of them because there is a lot of work to do.”

The money announced Friday is in addition to $200 million in annual funding already earmarked for roadwork in Nova Scotia over the next seven years.