Residents of West Gore are asking for better roads as soon as possible.
“They’re atrocious. The roads in this area here have been neglected for years,” said Gus MacDonald, Minister of the United Church of West Gore, in a phone interview Jan. 19.
“The roads are essentially gone — they’re just patches upon patches and they desperately need to be replaced. It’s a major safety problem.”
MacDonald said about 40 people attended a public meeting at the church at 1:30 p.m. on a regular work day, Jan. 13, to discuss the road conditions with East Hants MLA John MacDonell and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal’s central district director, Peter Hackett.
“What we suggested to them, and it came from several sources, is that… we want the Highway 202 paved from the intersection of Highway 14, to the intersection of Highway 354,” MacDonald said.
“And we also want the Valley Road paved this summer.”
Reflecting back on the meeting, MacDonald said area residents shared tales of cracked rims, popped tires and repair bills.
“Rural East Hants is an area of neglect,” he said of the long-standing problem.
MacDonald says it’s going to take more than occasional patchwork to make the roads suitable to travel on.
The McInnis Road portion of Highway 202 is scheduled for paving and bridge repairs in 2013-14 as part of the provincial government’s five-year highway improvement plan that calls for Highway 202 to be paved in its entirety by 2016.
According to the citizens that spoke at the public meeting, that’s not soon enough.
MacDonald feels the public’s message — pave Valley Road and at least the worst sections of Highway 202 in 2012 — was received loud and clear by MacDonell and Hackett.
“As taxpaying people here in rural East Hants we deserve better recognition, and better work from the Department of Transportation.”
Hackett says the well-travelled Valley Road is an example of a roadway within the transportation department’s central district — spanning Avonport to Guysborough — that would be considered for repair work on a yearly basis as part of a local roadwork program.
“The roads are essentially gone — they’re just patches upon patches and they desperately need to be replaced. It’s a major safety problem.” - Gus MacDonald
“The Valley Road is just one that seems to be in pretty rough shape so it deserves some attention,” he said in an interview Jan. 20.
“We’re trying to push it onto the program for this year, if we can.”
Hackett says he has submitted a request for the paving of Highway 202 to be completed sooner to the DOTIR’s provincial office.
“We’ve asked our capital program people and our head office to consider that,” he said.
“It’s one of the worst sections of road we have in the district.”
MacDonell, an NDP MLA, will also be lobbying for changes in the five-year plan that would please the residents of West Gore.
“The reason I went to the [public] meeting was just to say, ‘If we could get something done this year, what would be your preference?’ Since the McGinnis Road is already slated to be done ahead of the 202, they would have preferred to have the rest of the 202 done ahead of the McGinnis Road,” said MacDonell, Jan. 20.
MacDonell, who was first elected 11 years ago, says he believes it is time the government made East Hants a priority.
“[Peter Hackett] indicated to me that the worst roads in his whole district are in my constituency.”
Now that he’s on side as part of a majority government, MacDonell is optimistic this may change.
“I think, being in an opposition seat, we didn’t get as much attention as we probably should have considering what the engineering data on our roads show.”
MacDonell says paving work completed last year proved to be cheaper than anticipated, allowing some roads in the five-year plan to get attention sooner. This, he says, increases the chances of East Hants projects getting underway ahead of schedule.
“There may be a little flexibility in the plan to move some other roads up faster than we anticipated.”
