HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Mr. Michel Samson (Chairman)
Mr. Brooke Taylor
Mr. William Dooks
Ms. Judy Streatch
Mr. Howard Epstein
Mr. Charles Parker
Ms. Marilyn More
Mr. Wayne Gaudet
Mr. Harold Theriault
[Mr. Gerald Sampson replaced Mr. Michel Samson]
[Mr. Ronald Chisholm replaced Mr. William Dooks]
IN ATTENDANCE:
Mrs. Darlene Henry
Legislative Committee Clerk
WITNESSES
Department of Transportation and Public Works
Mr. Alan MacRae
Executive Director of Public Works
Mr. Ralph Hessian
Director, Highway Engineering Services
Mr. Phil Corkum
Manager, Highway Planning and Design
Mr. Bruce Fitzner
Acting Executive Director, Highway Operations
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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2005
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Michel Samson
MR. CHAIRMAN (Mr. Brooke Taylor): If I could, committee members, I'd like to bring the meeting to order, and begin by welcoming our witnesses here. Before we go to our witnesses, I would ask committee members to go around the table and identify themselves. Perhaps we could start with the member for Pictou West.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, I guess you're going to speak and introduce your colleagues.
MR. ALAN MACRAE: I'm Al MacRae, Executive Director of Public Works. To my far left is Phil Corkum, our Manager of Highway Design and Planning. To my near left is Bruce Fitzner, the Acting Executive Director of Highway Operations. To my right is Ralph Hessian, Director of Highway Engineering Services and the Provincial Traffic Authority. I have a few opening comments.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Standing Committee on Economic Development. The Department of Transportation and Public Works has a diverse mandate. Our clients include the public as well as other provincial government departments and agencies. Our core businesses are managed and delivered by our Highway Operations, Public Works and Government Services Divisions.
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I understand that your main interest here today is Highway Operations and Public Works. Together, these groups are responsible for the construction, maintenance and operation of the provincial highways, bridges and ferries, as well as planning and design work. Highway Operations accounts for 78 per cent of our operating budget and 81 per cent of our staff. Our Highway Operations mandate is to deliver quality highway products in a safe and efficient manner, given the available resources and financial resources.
Our Highway Division manages more than 23,000 kilometres of road in Nova Scotia. To put this number in some perspective, the Ontario Transportation Department is responsible for 28,000 kilometres of road. We manage about 90 per cent of the province's network, including municipal roads and streets. Again, to put that into a context with Ontario, they manage about 10 per cent of their system. We also manage about 4,100 bridges, and operate seven provincial ferries.
Our total infrastructure needs are more than $3.4 billion and growing. We obviously cannot fix or replace everything all at once. We have limited resources, and we must rank our projects based upon traffic volume, condition and overall performance of each highway to the social and economic needs of the province. The Province of Nova Scotia is investing $307 million in highways this fiscal year, and that's $50 million more than it expects to collect in gas tax. The federal government is collecting $135 million in gas tax from Nova Scotians and returning $5.4 million.
We are in our third year of a five year, $50 million steel truss bridge replacement program. Our RIM budget, rural maintenance money, has increased by 50 per cent during the last two years from $10 million in 2003-04 to $15 million in 2005-06. We are investing an additional $60 million in repaving roads and highways over this year and next year.
The major capital projects on Nova Scotia's 100-Series Highways this year include Highway No. 103 near Tantallon and Barrington, Highway No. 101 intersection replacements and Highway No. 125 in Sydney.
Minister Russell signed a provincial-federal highway infrastructure agreement for Highway Nos. 101 and 104 a week ago today. This is a $61 million agreement along with environmental assessment approval, which means that we can be issuing more tenders than planned to start the Winter clearing and getting more construction underway next year. This agreement includes eight kilometres of Highway No. 104 from New Glasgow to the Old Pine Tree Road, 7.4 kilometres of Highway No. 101 from St. Croix interchange to Three Mile Plain, twinning on Highway No. 101 from Falmouth to Avonport, and three intersection replacements on the western end of Highway No. 101.
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As Mr. Russell explained last week, the original agreement was announced in 2003. At that time, the project was estimated at $61 million; between then and the signing, the project cost has now climbed to about $81 million. The majority of extra costs is due to inflation. There is also $3.5 million that will be invested on a significant modification and upgrade to the Ben Jackson intersection.
At a meeting this Summer, Premier Hamm led his fellow premiers in seeking a sustained and dedicated federal funding program for highways. The Premier subsequently announced they will be developing a national transportation strategy and reinvesting of federal fuel taxes and transportation infrastructure to be an integral part of this strategy. Nova Scotia, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories have been designated as co-leads of this development of the strategy.
With that opening statement, I would be pleased to take any questions that you may have for us.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. MacRae. We'll begin with the honourable member for Clare.
MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to start off with these agreements. I'm not quite so sure what's going on, but I do know that in April 2003, the province had signed off on an agreement with the feds for $61 million, which included three exits, Joggins in Digby County, Hectanooga in Digby County, and the Brooklyn Road in Yarmouth.
Last week, the same agreement, I should say a lot of the same stuff, that was announced two years ago was re-announced. So I'm just trying to find out why those three exits, those three intersections, were included in last week's agreement that was apparently signed off in 2003. I'll start off with that question.
MR. PHIL CORKUM: I'm Phil Corkum, Manager of Highway Planning and Design. In 2003, that was the initial announcement for the projects, which included the two sections of twinning on Highway No. 101, the 104 section and the three at grades. Those projects for the agreement haven't changed since that time. That was the announced agreement at that point. The formal signing of that agreement just happened, I think, last week. Nothing has changed as far as the projects are concerned between the initial announcement and the signing of the agreement other than time.
MR. GAUDET: I'm looking for clarification. I understood, back in 2003, the Member of Parliament had said that an agreement had been reached with the province which included those three intersections. Then in February of this year we learned that the Minister of Transportation and Public Works had written a letter to the federal Minister of Transport to basically cancel the work that was supposed to take place on the two intersections, Brookland
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Road and Hectanooga - that happen to be in my riding of Clare - in order to divert the funds for those two projects to the Ben Jackson Road which is located near Hantsport.
We heard shortly thereafter, the Premier apparently stepped in and said that the original agreement would be respected. Then last week I looked and I find out that the three intersections are in this new agreement so the Premier did not step in. So the Minister of Transportation and Public Works did basically do as he suggested.
MR. CORKUM: Just let me try to clarify that. We had stated initially, from the beginning, that those three at-grade intersections were not high on our priority list. That was stated right from the beginning.
MR. GAUDET: Not high?
MR. CORKUM: Not high on the priority list. The three at-grade intersections on Highway No. 101, if you look at the traffic volumes - and we went through this with people right from day one - on that section of Highway No. 103 are like 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles a day, very low traffic volumes. What makes them, I guess, viable projects on a 100-Series Highway is that they are in fact at-grade intersections on a 100-Series Highway, and any time that you have an at-grade intersection on a 100-Series Highway, it's not exactly a completely desirable situation. However, when you have at-grade intersections on a 100-Series Highway with very low traffic volumes like we have on that section of Highway No. 101, they operate, you know, not too badly.
However, you must remember that this is an agreement between the provincial government and federal government, and there's give and take in any agreement. These are projects on our 100-Series Highway system. They are the elimination of three at-grade intersections where there is always a potential for collisions. So, along with the three at-grades, we're twinning sections of very high-volume 100-Series Highways, and we're getting rid of three at-grade intersections. So there are pluses and minuses, but as far as high on our priority list, we've been up front right from day one as far as the province is concerned that those at-grade intersections were not high on our list.
MR. MACRAE: Perhaps I could - the agreement was originally announced in 2003 and it included the three interchanges. Since that time we've gone through our environmental screening for all the projects, all the reports that we had to put forward. The agreement is exactly the same agreement as we started out with, and we have since signed off last week. What happened as we were going forward, our original estimates that we put forward for the $61 million were preliminary estimates prior to having environmental screenings done and prior to having our detailed design done and getting up with costs.
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As we went forward, the cost of the project started to go up from $61 million to $81 million, and we were talking to the federal government, looking for a way to bring that back within budget. The two ways to bring that back into budget that we were pursuing was, one, to reduce the scope of the work or, two, to increase the size of the agreement between ourselves and the federal government from $61 million to $81 million so that we could do all the work.
We were going back and forth, and the final decision was that the projects would go forward as originally in the agreement and that the extra funding would be provided by the province so that the federal government's share for this particular project is going to be $30.5 million or $31 million, I'm not quite sure. We will be picking up the remainder, about $50 million. So those projects, we talked to the federal government about reducing the scope and that was deemed not to be the way to go, and at the end of the day we just increased our amount of funding towards the projects. It's going forward the same as it always had originally been planned.
MR. GAUDET: This agreement is for how long?
MR. CORKUM: Five years.
MR. GAUDET: Is it possible to get a copy of the agreement to find out what the time frames are for these different projects? When are they planning on being started and completed? I've been asked those questions and I'm sure my colleagues have as well.
[9:15 a.m.]
MR. MACRAE: Yes, we have one tender out now for Joggins. It's a structure, and I think that's the only one of those three that we have.
MR. CORKUM: Joggins structures.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Streatch.
MS. JUDY STREATCH: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MacRae, now that we've got Highway No. 101 looked after, could we turn our attention perhaps to Highway No. 103 for a little bit? What are the plans in place currently to bring the entire Highway No. 103 up to speed, and that is at least 100 kilometres all the way through?
MR. CORKUM: Well, I'll start off.
MS. STREATCH: That would be great.
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MR. CORKUM: Right now we plan to finish the twinning that has been started out to Exit 5, the Tantallon exit just beyond Exit 5. That should be finished next year. What we're seeing is that the next piece of Highway No. 103 to Hubbards, traffic volumes are getting up very close to 10,000 vehicles a day. Normally that is the time when you start to think about twinning a high-speed 100-Series Highway, is when volumes reach 10,000. So our plan is to continue, start the survey work this Winter, and continue with the planning work for that next piece. Now, this obviously will depend on resources as to how much we get done and how fast we work, but that will be the next piece of twinning that we intend to do the planning work on. The actual construction of that piece could be years down the road. As you know, these projects take years to get to the actual construction stage.
Further down we have three sections, as you know, that we consider deficient - Hebbs Cross to Danesville, Broad River to Sable River, and then Bridgetown to Barrington. Those are I guess the three pieces that we've known about for years, and we simply haven't the resources to do the planning work on. We did, a few years ago, start the planning work on the Hebbs Cross to Danesville section, and we hope to be able to resume the planning work on that piece. It's a very difficult piece of road. It is going to be very expensive. There is a lot of slate in there, a lot of lakes and a lot of cottages. So it's a section that we would like to get the corridor preserved. Again, construction is down the road. It's really, when you look at these projects, what our intent is is to reserve the right-of-way and get all the studies done, and construction comes much later, depending on funding, of course. So those are the two and, of course, further down, the Barrington piece, which I think is scheduled to be finished next year. So those are the plans that we have that we would like to undertake in the next year at least.
MS. STREATCH: You had mentioned in your opening statements, Mr. MacRae, about Highway No. 103 near Barrington being on the books now, and that's the section you're referring to?
MR. MACRAE: That's the Barrington piece, yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, gentlemen. It's interesting to note that we're finally getting some money for 100-Series Highways and I know it has been a struggle. I guess the perception always has been that Nova Scotia is not getting its fair share of federal gas tax coming back or federal dollars for our 100-Series Highways. It's easy to compare us I guess to the Province of New Brunswick, which always seems to be getting the lion's share of the federal dollars. I think they've been getting hundreds of millions of dollars for 100-Series Highways in that province and we've been getting the crumbs more or less; $30 million is a bit, but compared to hundreds of millions, we're certainly behind the eight ball. Why would you say it is that our sister province is
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doing so much better than we are in getting access to many, many more federal dollars than this province?
MR. MACRAE: In our discussions, I guess, with the federal government, they have told us that they are looking at strategic investments for infrastructure. They look at the highway through New Brunswick as being an Atlantic Canada highway, that improving the highway through New Brunswick helps Nova Scotia, P.E.I., and Newfoundland and Labrador, and that they are looking at that investment. We have argued that we also provide the same service at least to Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't know if anybody else wants to add a couple of statements.
MR. CORKUM: I can add a little bit. Back in the 2001 federal budget, as you know, a certain amount of money from that budget was allocated to Nova Scotia. I think it was about $60 million. Out of that $60 million, $30 million went to the harbour cleanup and the remaining $30.5 million went to highway construction. Then again in 2003, the federal budget also allocated $45 million to the province. Out of that $45 million, $30 million went to the harbour cleanup and $15 million was left for highway construction. So Nova Scotia has other major projects that perhaps New Brunswick doesn't have that federal money goes to. So that could be one of the reasons why it appears as though Nova Scotia maybe has not gotten a lot of money from the feds.
MR. PARKER: Okay, so there's infrastructure money coming, but it's not going for highways, it's going for things other than the roads or bridges, by what you're saying?
MR. CORKUM: Well, these are just the two that we know of. That's the money that came to the province and basically that's how it was split up.
MR. PARKER: Good. Even counting that money for other infrastructure projects, the bottom line is that New Brunswick is still getting a whole lot more money, I believe. Is it that New Brunswick is a better negotiator, or how is it it's to lobby for so much more than what we're getting?
MR. CORKUM: It could be, but I think Al makes a very good point about New Brunswick's highways. I mean, we should be cheering New Brunswick getting a lot of funding for their highways because everything that's shipped out of Nova Scotia to the States and beyond, has to travel on New Brunswick highways. We should applaud New Brunswick getting money and say, where's ours? Not sort of try to compete with them, because we certainly do benefit from New Brunswick's highways.
MR. MACRAE: But an issue that the Premier is raising is the sustainability of a highway agreement, and sustainable funding to highways is something that we would very much like to have. We would like to have more funding from the federal government and be
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dealing with some deficiencies we have in our system. We're working that way. We're trying to provide whatever information and meet with the federal government on those things.
MR. PARKER: You asked the question about, where is ours, and I guess a good example is in the agreement that was just signed. The province is picking up the federal share, or their portion of the extra overrun. They're still only paying $30 million, and as a province we're picking up an extra $20 million that the feds are not. It just seems unfair. If we're going to negotiate with them on a 50/50 agreement, then that's what it should end up being, not 65/35, or whatever it has come out to be here. Anyway, I think we need to press even harder to the feds to get our fair share for Nova Scotia.
I guess because we're not getting our fair share from the federal government, then I raised the question recently, what is going to suffer in Nova Scotia? What are we not going to be able to afford to do because we're picking up this extra cost that the feds should be paying? What roads or bridges out there are not going to be looked after? Can you answer that question for me?
MR. MACRAE: Well, typically a federal agreement is for the National Highway System and so the National Highway System in Nova Scotia is Highway No. 104, from the New Brunswick border to North Sydney, including Highway No. 125. There's Highway No. 101, Highway No. 118, Highway No. 102 and Highway No. 106, and as recently stated by the minister, they have had discussions on Highway No. 103. So it would be on those sections, which would be bringing it up to a standard to match the traffic, where the extra work would be done if we had extra funding.
MR. PARKER: I guess it remains though because we're putting an extra $20 million into this agreement. There's probably $20 million less available for other roads or bridges in this province, it stands to reason. Maybe you can't specifically answer which ones will not be done, but it seems a normal course when you spend extra money in one spot you don't have dollars to put somewhere else.
Secondary roads - I know that's not under the federal agreement - is certainly an area where there's a whole lot of need for a whole lot of dollars to repair some of these secondary roads. Some people describe our secondary roads as being the worst in the country - maybe you can refute that but where I come from, in Pictou County, there are many people who would probably agree with that statement on roads in River John, West Branch, Scotsburn and on it goes, and in many other areas of the province you will see some very poor secondary roads yet. Is there any plan to try to lobby or spring loose more dollars for our secondary roads?
MR. FITZNER: Are you talking from the federal government or provincially?
MR. PARKER: Well, from any source. It's needed, our roads are in bad shape.
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MR. FITZNER: I'm not totally aware with respect to the federal government on that, I think they're mostly sticking with the National Highway System. Certainly on a provincial level, the government put an additional $30 million last year into repaving secondary highways, and it's my understanding that another $30 million will be forthcoming again in the next year's fiscal budget. Although it doesn't solve the problem - I think we have pavement preservation costs that we have estimated in excess of $1 billion over a 10-year period - at least it's a step in the right direction in addressing some of the problems.
This year we estimate we were able to put out about 800,000 tons of asphalt, which is up significantly from last year, and hopefully we were able to address some of the more pressing needs across the province.
MR. PARKER: If I could ask one more short question, Mr. Chairman?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has pretty well expired, we'll come back to you in the second round.
Mr. MacRae I would just like to say that during your opening remarks you commented that the federal government receives $135 million - I think that was the figure you quoted. I'm not sure how you would confirm that figure but over the last three or four years we've heard the figure - at least through recent publications - of somewhere around $140 million to $142 million, not counting the HST. I will just throw that out and pass things along to Mr. Theriault.
The honourable member for Digby-Annapolis.
MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Good morning. I'm sorry I was late coming in, I missed some of your presentation.
Talking about federal money, in an edge to Mr. Parker's question the first thing that popped into my head when he said why New Brunswick got the lion's share of the money, Frank McKenna popped in my head for a moment there. Federal money when it comes to this province, who has the say where that money is spent in this province?
MR. MACRAE: The province submits proposals to the federal government and it's the province's choice on what projects to put forward. The federal government will have a template to take a look to see that they meet certain criteria that they are looking for for a project to cost share on it.
MR. THERIAULT: Four years ago, was there federal money allotted for Highway No. 101 between Digby and Annapolis, in 2001?
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MR. CORKUM: No, there wasn't. No federal money for construction of that piece; there was certainly provincial money being spent on the planning work that goes into that project, but as far as the construction work (Interruptions) - did you say Digby to Annapolis?
MR. THERIAULT: Digby to Weymouth.
MR. CORKUM: No, there was no money allocated to that piece. We are doing the planning work on it, but as far as construction it is not high on the priority list when it comes to construction. It's very high on the list when it comes to planning because it's a piece of highway that was started and we certainly want to finish it and preserve the corridor. As of right now, when you consider the pieces of Highway No. 101, the pieces of Highway No. 104, Antigonish, the higher-priority projects, the projects with 15,000-plus vehicles a day, they really have to be at the top of the list as far as construction.
[9:30 a.m.]
MR. THERIAULT: I heard you say that at 10,000 vehicles you started thinking of twinning.
MR. CORKUM: Twinning, yes. Digby to Weymouth, right now, on Trunk 1, the traffic volumes range from 2,000 to I think 5,000 is the highest. In a case like that what you have to remember is that when a new highway is built, like the new 100-Series Highway, Digby to Weymouth, you'll probably be lucky to get 500 vehicles diverted from the old Trunk 1 to the new highway. A lot of that traffic is local traffic. Then you're comparing a 100-Series piece with 500 vehicles on it to other pieces with 10,000, 15,000 vehicles a day. It becomes a very difficult comparison when you're trying to allocate funding to certain projects.
MR. THERIAULT: Yes, I know, and people can't understand that. Below that, from Weymouth to Yarmouth, there's a beautiful highway with passing lanes, and above that, from Annapolis to Bridgetown, it's a good highway with passing lanes. Then you have a section from Kentville to Bridgetown with not a passing lane on it. You fellows are very concerned about twinning right to that cow path with no passing lanes on it. Priority, to me, would be to put a passing lane somewhere between Kentville and Bridgetown, even before I thought about twinning and finishing Highway No. 101 from Digby to Weymouth.
You have beautiful roads on each side of that that were built years ago. For 30 years that's been going on down there. You have trailer trucks going off the road between people's houses, going 100 kilometres an hour; they don't slow up. You have a 90 kilometre speed limit and they don't slow up when they come off that good section below it and above it. They're still going that 100, 110 kilometres an hour from here to that wall from people's doorsteps. It's a priority to them. It may not be a priority to this government, but it's a
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priority to those people. For 30 years it has been a priority, and you're going to twin right to this but still have that little cow path in the middle of it.
MR. CORKUM: We're not going to twin at this point, certainly, beyond Coldbrook. Beyond Coldbrook it doesn't warrant twinning. However, there is a section, as you know, from Coldbrook probably through to Kingston, a very flat section through the floor of the Valley that probably requires some passing opportunities somewhere in there. That's certainly part of our plan, to look at a section in there where we will be providing some passing opportunities. We don't know yet what that's going to be, if it's just going to be lanes added or a small section of twinning or whatever, but we do have plans to have a section there where you will have dedicated passing. The twinning certainly is not warranted at this point beyond Coldbrook at all.
MR. THERIAULT: Oh, no. I agree.
MR. CORKUM: That's not part of the plan.
MR. THERIAULT: A passing lane would be beautiful. I travel that every week, at 45 and 50 miles per hour coming up through there at times. If you could see the actions that go on there you would put a passing lane there.
MR. CORKUM: Normally our passing lanes are only warranted - they're really not passing lanes, they're truck-climbing lanes. So the warrant is the grade and the decrease in the speed of a truck. That's the warrant. Of course on the flat floor of the Valley, you don't have any hills, so it becomes a problem. The Prairies have the same problem. Any place where it's flat you have to provide these passing opportunities. It's certainly part of the plan.
MR. THERIAULT: Getting to secondary roads, how are priorities set in counties to have roads repaved?
MR. FITZNER: What generally happens is that on an annual basis we have each of the area offices and the local bases put together what would be called their wish list of all the priorities that are brought to their attention through the year. We also consult with various elected officials, with community groups. We talk through the year to boards of trade; anywhere that we can gather input, we get input on what people see as the priorities for their areas.
What we do then is those sort of roll up through the various areas and districts of the province and at each level they assign some overall priority to the smaller list. Then when they come up to head office, we'll have it cut down to, say, 20 priorities for repaving for each district. We then go out with an ARAN vehicle, which is a road tester, and measure the smoothness of the roads, the roughness, the deterioration and this type of thing. From that we put together sort of an overall priority for the province. We look at traffic volumes and
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we look at safety issues, maintenance issues and this type of thing, and pull together an overall plan. That's the basic process.
MR. THERIAULT: Can you tell me how many kilometres of Lunenburg County were paved this year and are going to be paved?
MR. FITZNER: I can't right here today, but I can certainly get that information for you. I don't have the number right here.
MR. THERIAULT: I know what was paved in Digby and Annapolis Counties - approximately 10 kilometres in both counties. I've heard that in Lunenburg County alone, there were 130 kilometres paved. I may be wrong, but I hope you can correct me on that.
MR. FITZNER: I'll find out for you.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Junior. We move to Mr. Sampson.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Just for the record, I'm one-half of the Samson/Sampson tag team, I guess. I'm standing in for the honourable Michel Samson.
MR. CHAIRMAN: He should have been here, then.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I should ask for an hour and a half . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: You can ask for it. You won't get it, but you certainly can ask for it. (Laughter)
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I don't know where to begin. I'm listening to 10,000 vehicles on a highway, that's when you decide when to twin it. It goes by traffic volumes. My honourable colleague, Mr. Theriault, just mentioned rural roads, but I didn't hear anything in there that - I always say that governments don't use the f-word enough, that's fair and flexible when they create policies. We are never going to have the traffic in a rural area that people have in urban areas, but the people in rural areas pay the same amount of taxes - actually, per capita, we pay more in fuel taxes because a tank of fuel in my area - four and a half hours from my riding from Grand Narrows to the bottom end of Bay St. Lawrence, a tank of fuel to take me there and a tank of fuel to take me back. Whereas if you fill up a tank in Sydney or Halifax, you could work the whole week and you still have fuel to drive around on the weekend. So the people who travel rural roads deserve a fair share.
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I have numerous lists here that I've taken from the e-mails. It appears to me it seems to be, as was just mentioned, they speak to elected officials to decide where it's going to be and I see a tremendous slant, favouring on the side of the government. I guess it's about time that this campaign for fairness finally kicks in before the government changes Leaders. I'm looking at Inverness County, $2.3 million; Whycocomagh, 5 kilometres; Skye River, 8 kilometres; near Bridgewater, another couple of million; Cumberland County, 3.8 kilometres; Paddys Head, 9 kilometres. I know I have almost 3 kilometres outside of Baddeck on a 100-Series Highway.
Now between Exits 9 and 10, as I've stated to the honourable Minister Ron Russell and Martin Delaney when they appeared before the budget in the Spring, you have to break the law. I break the law every time I come to Halifax from Cape Breton because you can't stay in your own lane - you either straddle the lane in places or you weave in and out or drive on the paved shoulder, which is all illegal.
I'm thinking right now between Exits 9 and 10, outside of Baddeck, which is supposedly a high international tourist area, why that's not done, I don't know. I see our patching crews from Victoria-The Lakes, CBRM, the guys from Bras d'Or, they're out patching 100-Series Highways. That leaves the secondary roads to come last or maybe not get anything done at all. I think that the 100-Series Highways should be done by the province, and let the money allotted to the area managers be put on rural roads.
The bill for the - well, let's just quote Wendy Beazley from Halifax, Saturday, May 7th, in The ChronicleHerald. She said, making a little joke about the Michelin ad, are your tires ready for the road, and it's more apt to be, is the road ready for your tires? That kind of says it all. The gentleman who arranged a tour for 10,000 motorcycle users in the province said they'll never be back again. All the Harley-Davidson owners. There's 120,000 Harley-Davidson owners.
So, I mean there's something wrong. I've seen more paving this year than ever before, but then at the same time I still see the rurals being neglected. A letter to the editor in The Victoria Standard, a little biweekly down in Victoria-The Lakes riding, and here is the head person from the Chambers of Commerce saying that the umbrella group for Nova Scotia, 38 Chambers of Commerce, is calling on the Hamm Government to move quickly to repair the province's increasingly dangerous secondary roads. Our secondary routes are atrocious. Business operators from Yarmouth to Sydney are sounding the alarm. People are saying they won't come back. I have numerous ones of these that I can just go on and on with.
Then we're getting close, in the Fall, I've always been pushing for the Cabot Trail. Hunter's Mountain is an area that's the beginning of the trail there just at the Red Barn. That's been on and off numerous times, again cancelled this year, and then I take off the e-mail list that Cabot Trail, of course it's in Mr. MacDonald's riding, north about seven kilometres from Doyles Road. Good to see it done, but it sure would be nice if a little bit of
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that was in Victoria-The Lakes section as basically Victoria and Inverness own the Cabot Trail geographically. It seems that everything is being done where there's a sitting member on the side of the government. Same one again, now Transportation and Public Works, $3.8 million, improvements in Yarmouth. That came off yesterday. So it doesn't seem to end.
What I asked was, a five-year plan. Let's make a five-year plan of the roads that are going to be done and then you have a projected five years of roads that are going to be deteriorated, that are deteriorated and we can't get to them. So when you do year one - now you're not down to four years. You take year six and you solidify the roads that are going to be done there and move that in, so you've always got five years of planning ahead. So when I say to you, your road is going to be done, I'm sorry it's not going to be done until 2007, but guess what? In 2007 your road is done.
MacDonald Road, the members are probably getting tired of me, I've repeated this a dozen and one times in estimates in the House. The people on the MacDonald Road, just a rural road in Scotch Lake, probably 35-40 people live on it. They were guaranteed the road would be paved back in the 1960s. In the 1980s somebody came up with a priority list. Now that priority word is a phantom because that leads people to believe they're on a priority list. Oh boy. They've been on a priority list since the 1980s, and they're just wondering when and where are they ever going to get something paved. I'm using that as an example.
I really find rural roads are neglected. There's no way under the sun that you can decide on traffic volumes, on per capita. Sometimes the decision is made according to the number of houses. Well there's no way a rural area is ever going to get the number of houses or the number of traffic or the number of population. It's just not going to happen. In my own area, to get parochial for a minute, we had plans to put lights on the Seal Island Bridge, the third-largest bridge in Nova Scotia. I did my best to lobby Mr. Stonehouse to do the lights when the bridge was shut down and he wouldn't take the decision to add a $50,000 addendum to the contract for fear of reprisal. The bridge was cleaned off, opened up with great fanfare, the whole nine yards. Then the tender went out, and the tender from the same company that would have done it for $50,000, then tendered $500,000. So you have to strike when the iron is hot and take advantage of things. I would like to see the lights put on that bridge, if nothing else, safety is a number-one priority and number two . . .
[9:45 a.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sampson, excuse me. Do you have a question somewhere in your dissertation?
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Yes. What do you intend to do for the rural roads of Nova Scotia? I made the statement in the House last year, Mr. Chairman, and you were there, that the only cure for the rural roads of Nova Scotia is when I become a minister of transportation. That got a laugh but I was serious when I said it. The fair word that has to
[Page 15]
come in, people have to not be penalized for not living in urban areas. So what is the plan for rural roads in Nova Scotia?
MR. FITZNER: I guess, initially, there is a significant amount of expenditure on rural roads already. We talk about 100-Series Highways and that type of thing. For instance, in this year's capital budget on other than 100-Series Highways, which are basically your secondary routes, the bulk of our repaving program is in that category. It's estimated at about $82 million, versus the 100-Series, which is around $20 million. So there is a significant investment now on the rural roads, certainly they're not something we're forgetting about or whatever.
In the priority-setting process we understand that traffic volumes do play a part, but they're certainly not the only part that's played. We know that everywhere in the province people rely on the roads, and whether you live in a rural area, whether there's two houses on the road or whatever, we try to target the money towards where the province overall gets the most value for the investment. Unfortunately, I guess the problem is the needs just outweigh the available resources by such a significant margin that each year we're deferring work that we would all rather be doing, but unfortunately we can't.
I guess our plan, internally, within the department, is to continue to make the case for good infrastructure as a good economic investment both in urban and rural areas, and to try to leverage that into increasing budgets for transportation, and then to try to spend that money, when we get it, as wisely as we can.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I'll just ask one question, Mr. Chairman, and then I'll come back in the second round. I have an answer. Several people have called me, and ask me continually - and I travel the roads on a weekly basis, from Cape Breton to here - why are they redoing areas that don't need to be done? They did about six kilometres out past the airport on the 100-Series Highway, they're doing five or six kilometres coming to Antigonish. I travelled over those roads and I didn't have to hit, bang and slam like I usually do in different areas, and all of a sudden you come up and they're all planed off and being redone. I'm thinking, gee, could we ever use those five kilometres somewhere else.
MR. FITZNER: I think in the case where you see what appears to be a good road being done - and I can tell you, generally we don't often repair something that doesn't need to be repaired - what happens is sometimes we get a rutting problem, and when the rutting problem gets significant enough, even though the distortions on the surface aren't that bad on a dry day, if you get a wet day we see there is a lot of water running in those ruts. It becomes a safety hazard then and that's why some of those get elevated up the list.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Page 16]
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to ask a few questions regarding safety issues. They may seem like small things on the overall scheme of things but possibly I should direct the question to the traffic authority. The stationary scales in the province, the commercial highway scales in Amherst, Enfield, Millers Lake and Aulds Cove, I believe should have safety platforms established so members of the trucking industry can get up and clean off the snow or any debris that may accumulate as a consequence of our weather. I know that issue has been brought to your attention, but I really believe it's something that is necessary. Other jurisdictions have put in some safety platforms, for example, New Brunswick, at some of their stationary scales. I don't think it would be a major financial undertaking to do such a thing, but it certainly would go a long way to enhancing safety, not only for the trucking industry but for other people on the roads, the four-wheelers, et cetera. It's just something I would like to again remind the people present about.
As well, the stationary scale in Aulds Cove is still permitting eastbound commercial traffic to enter and exit our Trans-Canada Highway - I think it may be the only jurisdiction in the country that permits that. I know I recently came back from Cape Breton and had a reasonably close encounter, but I was looking and paying attention to that situation. I do see some work taking place down in that area that looks like a set of motion scales - or whatever the terminology is - is being established, erected, whatever the case may be. I hope that will permit the empty wood trucks, because it's absolutely nonsensical to have the empty wood trucks go into the scales and back out onto the highway. Even though they are usually westbound when they're empty, it's not a major inconvenience, but again it would certainly go a long way to enhancing the traffic flow right at that scale.
I just wonder, on the Aulds Cove, if there's any update - I think there are some improvements taking place there, but how are we getting along with that?
MR. FITZNER: We're currently in the final process of installing a weigh-in-motion station there. What it is is a series of load cells or sensors that are put in the pavement in the eastbound lanes, just on the Aulds Cove side of the scale house, and what will happen is that will be connected to an electronic signal system. Trucks that come that are within their load tolerance on their axle weights will be given a green light and won't have to make the left turn in and a left turn back out of the scale house.
Right now, we have the civil work completed. We're working on the electronics and the software, putting that package together, and carrying out some training for the scale house employees. We're hoping to see that up and running probably within the next month. The cost was about $600,000, and it was cost-shared with the federal government under the ITS, the Intelligent Transportation Program.
MR. CHAIRMAN: What are your thoughts on some type of stationary platform for the trucking industry, for snow and ice and debris to fall off? Other automobiles would certainly benefit as well. I find it's very difficult, especially for some individuals, to get up
[Page 17]
on top of a tank, for example, or go up on top of a van to try to clean that off without something in place. Like I said, it wouldn't be a major financial undertaking for the department, but it's something that is woefully needed out there. Any thoughts on that, gentlemen?
MR. FITZNER: It doesn't sound like a bad idea, right off the top of my head. I certainly will look into that, Mr. Taylor, to see if that's something that we could be doing and let you know.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Listening to Mr. Sampson a while ago kind of reminded me of when the government changed in 1993. I know the riding of Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, between 1993 and 1999, couldn't even get a teaspoon of asphalt to throw into a pothole. I think things have changed demonstrably since that time. In fact perhaps you could tell us how the RIM program, the Rural Impact Mitigation program, works, and whether or not each riding is treated on the basis of the roads that they actually have to maintain?
MR. FITZNER: I think we're moving into about our fourth or fifth year of the RIM program, which we now call the road improvement money program. It's targeted to rural roads, non-100-Series Highways. It initially started as $10 million provincially; it has increased to $15 million in the current year, and the plans are to continue to increase it another $2.5 million next year.
What happens in that particular program is the funding is divided up based on the inventory of non-100-Series Highways in each area of the province and each individual area, usually from the OS and the area manager, submits a list of priorities for their spending each year under asphalt patching, guardrail repairs, bush cutting, ditching, gravelling, those types of maintenance activities, and we put together an overall program from that. Basically, we just accept what they send us. They know the areas better than we would in Halifax, and the minister sort of then approves the overall expenditure and we call contracts usually starting early in the Spring. I know it certainly has been popular with our staff and it gives them a way of sort of addressing some of the problems, giving them a little more money to deal with some of the maintenance problems than they've had in the past.
MR. CHAIRMAN: To your knowledge is it essentially divvied up on a fair scale, I guess, in terms of hearing allegations here this morning of some unfairness taking place, but is that particular program, the RIM program, is it . . .
MR. FITZNER: No, it's strictly on road inventory. If you have 10 per cent of the kilometres, you get 10 per cent of the pot, basically is how it works.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Irrespective of political stripe or whatever?
MR. FITZNER: Oh, yes.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. I want to comment on the member for Clare - we're joined now by Mr. Leo Glavine, good morning, Leo, and Howard Epstein - speaking about funds being diverted. The last time I can remember any funds being diverted was when monies were taken out of the Strategic Highway Improvement Program by Richie Mann and David Dingwall, to go to a road in Cape Breton, in fact, and the money was originally targeted for the Cobequid Pass, or the highway up through Wentworth Valley. So there is certainly lots of blame to go around here this morning, and with that I will turn things over to Mr. Epstein.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my apologies for being late this morning for the committee meeting. I missed your introductory remarks. My name is Howard Epstein, the MLA for Halifax Chebucto.
What I wonder is whether we could have a bit of a discussion about environmental assessments as they apply to highway work. Mr. MacRae, I think I heard you say earlier in discussing some of the work, you made reference to an environmental assessment hearing and then you corrected yourself and said environmental screening.
MR. MACRAE: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: So could we start by having you explain to us how the environmental assessment process applies to highway work in the province?
MR. MACRAE: I guess there are two levels of environmental assessment or screening that can take place. If it's a federal project or whether it's strictly a provincial project, I'd feel more comfortable if Mr. Corkum - are you all right to take those?
MR. CORKUM: I can make a few comments. I'm not up on the details of the assessment, but I do know a few facts around it. As it stands now there are two classes of provincial assessments: Class 1 and Class 2. Class 1 assessments are for highways that are under 10 kilometres. They are a 25-day process. They do not require public hearings but the public does have an opportunity to provide input to the reports, not only before the consultant gets hired, but actually after the consultant is hired as well. So the public does have input. There's just no public hearing with the Class 1.
Class 2 assessments are for highways that are over 10 kilometres. They're, I think, a two-year process, or can be up to a two-year process. They involve public hearings and I think we've only had one of those in the last four or five years and that was just recently with the Highway No. 104 Antigonish project. These are for highway facilities that are designed for four or more lanes. If it's just a two-lane road, my understanding is it doesn't require assessment, and small sections of twinning, as well, in some cases, don't require an assessment.
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[10:00 a.m.]
That's the provincial part. Al had mentioned the federal projects. The federal cost-shared projects have to undergo the federal environmental assessment as well which is under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the CEAA process. I'm not up on the details of that process but I know that any project that is federally funded, before the feds will put any money into a project, it has to be completely signed off under the CEAA process, so that's basically what I can say around the environmental assessments.
MR. MACRAE: We can get you more details.
MR. EPSTEIN: It's okay, in fact, I'm familiar with the details and I think your description is pretty accurate, so that's a big help. Who in your department is responsible for the environmental side of highway work?
MR. MACRAE: We have a manager of environmental services. When we go through construction, we normally hire a consultant who would produce whatever environmental plan that we require for any particular project, and that would go through our environmental section to make sure we agree with it. Also, it would be looked at by our construction and design section to make sure that it meets the requirements. Something may have been brought up in the planning process which we would have to deal with and we make sure that it is all dealt with. But we do have a manager of environmental services.
MR. EPSTEIN: This is a manager of environmental services who's assigned in a dedicated way to highways, or whose responsibilities are for the whole of the department, including non-highway projects?
MR. MACRAE: Including non-highway projects, he would have some staff in his section that deal mainly with highways but not exclusively with highways, yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: I think on your Web site on the highway side there seems to be an engineering and design section, and environment is listed as one of the concerns there. Can you just tell me how that interacts with the manager of environmental services? Do they interact?
MR. MACRAE: If we have a highway design project that's underway, we would have a member of the Environmental Services branch who would be part of the project team, if you like. The project team is usually headed up with a member of highway engineering and design and a staff member from Environmental Services would be part of that team. If we were delivering a project, one of our planners or designers in our engineering section would head up the project to make sure everything is going, and a staff member from Engineering Services would be dealing with the environmental aspects of the project.
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MR. EPSTEIN: I asked about this because of the point you made before I actually got to it which was, how often have there actually been Class 2 environmental assessments for highway work in the province? This strikes me as a real omission. I find it really amazing that there has only been the one Class 2 environmental assessment for highway work in the province. In fact, I don't know if I . . .
MR. CORKUM: No, there has been more than one.
MR. EPSTEIN: You said in the last four or five years.
MR. CORKUM: I would say in the last four or five years there probably was only one. The Cobequid Pass, of course, went through a Class 2 and we had other sections of major new work, like Salt Springs to Alma was a section that went through a Class 2. You're getting back perhaps before the Class 2/Class 1 designations, so . . .
MR. EPSTEIN: This was prior to 1995.
MR. CORKUM: Yes, and I'm not sure if the Cobequid Pass even was . . .
MR. MACRAE: Yes, Cobequid Pass was . . .
MR. CORKUM: So this one here was the only one, I think, that we were involved with, certainly the only Class 2 that I was involved with. We haven't done a lot of major construction in the last 10 years.
MR. EPSTEIN: Let's just look at this for a minute. Did the Antigonish one get completed or is that still underway?
MR. CORKUM: The Antigonish one has received environmental approval under the Class 2, yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: And there was a panel appointed for that?
MR. CORKUM: There was a panel. We had public hearings and we had all of two members of the public show up for the two-day public hearings. I'm a little facetious there, but we've been trying as a department for a while to have our highway projects be Class 1 instead of Class 2.
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, I'm not surprised, but that's my point. I don't find that very helpful. I don't see that it's problematic if it goes into Class 2. What do you mean you've been trying to have it as Class 1?
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MR. CORKUM: Well, there is a problem with the amount of time and the amount of resources that's put into a long process where probably the same amount of environmental studies are done. The amount of environmental studies done under a Class 1 is pretty well identical to the amount of studies done under a Class 2. Really, the only difference is the public hearing process.
MR. EPSTEIN: I think the difference is the extent of independent scrutiny because there's a panel and there's a greater opportunity for public involvement.
MR. CORKUM: Public hearing process, yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: If the alternative is a 25-day process, there's not a lot of opportunity for public involvement except for people who might be dedicatedly monitoring it, which isn't always going to be the case. How long is the Highway 118 Wright Avenue Interchange? What's the length of that?
MR. MACRAE: Oh, less than two kilometres?
MR. CORKUM: Probably in the area of two kilometres.
MR. EPSTEIN: Are there any projects going on that are close to the 10 kilometre cut-offs?
MR. MACRAE: The planning process for Highway 113 . . .
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, sorry I should have asked about Highway 113. That's the one I meant. That's just under 10, isn't that right?
MR. MACRAE: Yes, just under 10.
MR. EPSTEIN: So, is it under 10 because you tried to make it under 10?
[10:05 a.m. Mr. Ronald Chisholm took the Chair.]
MR. CORKUM: The length of a highway is of no consideration when we do our route location process. We locate a highway based on our initial screening. We have 62 constraints that we use for our initial environmental screening and what that entails is sending out letters to everyone under the sun as far as the impacts that the highway might have on certain areas. We locate a highway based on those 62 constraints, talking to as many stakeholders as we can in that part of the process. If the alignment comes out to be 9.9, it's 9.9. If it comes out to be 10.1, it's 10.1. We don't . . .
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MR. EPSTEIN: You said something to me that was puzzling. Earlier you said we try to have Class 1 environmental assessments rather than Class 2. In what respect do you try to have Class I environmental assessments?
MR. MACRAE: There was input from the Department of Environment that they were reviewing their legislation, and we did make some representation that we would prefer . . .
MR. EPSTEIN: Oh, so you're hoping to change the rules, not adjusting the length.
MR. MACRAE: They were reviewing our legislation. We gave some input.
MR. CORKUM: I'd just like to make it clear that we do not adjust lengths of highway for those types of reasons. In fact, the length of the highway isn't even a consideration.
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, that's interesting. Okay, let me point out . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein, your time is up.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay, put me back for round two.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. More.
MS. MARILYN MORE: Thank you. I have travelled the 100-Series Highways in the province quite extensively in my previous work. This morning I'm going to focus on Highway 111, the Circumferential in Dartmouth. I'm just interested, following up on my colleague's comments about environmental screens for assessments, is there anything required for an interchange? I'm wondering what environmental screening or assessment has been done for the Woodside interchange, connecting the Woodside Industrial Park with Baker Drive?
MR. MACRAE: That particular project is one that we do not have. It's not one of our projects. It's an HRM project. Our concern with that one was to make sure that it fit into our highway system. We did studies on the amount of traffic that would be generated - or had them provide us with studies on the amount of traffic that would be generated - to make sure the geometry of the interchange was suitable, that it could be expanded as required as development went forward and the environmental aspects of it, other than how it affected drainage, were not items that we were part of. I understand it was cost-shared with the federal government as well. So I assume that would have to go through a screening process, but we really weren't involved in any of that aspect of the work.
MS. MORE: So even though it's attached and part of the provincial 100-Series Highways, there's really no provincial oversight in terms of environmental impact?
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MR. MACRAE: There may be provincial oversight from the Department of Environment, I'm not sure. Our concern was with the physical makeup of the interchange, the structure, to make sure that the traffic that uses it was not going to cause any problems on our system, make sure that the drainage that was being delivered to us was not going to cause us problems. So ours were based with the physical structure, not the environmental issues around that particular project.
MS. MORE: Getting back to the 100-Series Highway twinning, there seems to be a lot of public pressure on the province to twin highways when there has been a lot of accidents and I'm just wondering, have you ever done an analysis of the probable reasons for accidents at these high-risk segments of the 100-Series Highways?
MR. RALPH HESSIAN: Yes, we collect all the traffic collisions for the province. All municipal traffic collisions, all rural traffic collisions, are reported to us and we maintain a database, an ongoing five-year database, and we constantly generate collision rates for various classes of highway. We look at the 100-Series divided, 100-Series two lane, two way, trunk highways, collectors, whatever, and we look at the rates there and determine average rates and then have a look at which sections of highway are performing at or above, or at or below the average rates for highways of similar classification. We don't want to compare a collector road to a 100-Series Highway, but roads of similar geometry, similar functionality, are compared together. We do that on an ongoing basis and we certainly feed that information into our decisions on programming, whether it's a 100-Series Highway improvement, traffic signal installation, left turn lane addition, whatever the case may be.
MS. MORE: Do you remember what the top two or three reasons might be just generally across both categories?
MR. HESSIAN: Well, certainly on the 100-Series Highways, speed is an important factor. If you're looking at our fatality statistics, we still have issues with alcohol involvement on our highways. We still have issues with occupants of vehicles not wearing their seatbelts. We have a number of fatalities every year with occupant ejections. So trying to get people to be a little bit more responsible in that way would help a lot. Normally on our 100-Series Highways our geometry is very good. We don't have a lot of driveways or friction factors and things of that nature. Our vertical crests are relatively flat and our horizontal curves are relatively gentle. It's a matter that we design them for a certain speed. We post them at a certain speed and we hope people will operate within those parameters, have an orderly and predictable trip, and arrive safely.
MS. MORE: Do you have any figures comparing accidents and fatalities on the 100-Series Highways that are posted 110 kilometres as compared to 100 kilometres?
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MR. HESSIAN: We would have those statistics. I don't have them here, but we can certainly generate statistics based upon function of road, each section of road, speed limit, et cetera, yes.
MS. MORE: Well, I would certainly be interested in getting those results because with the increase in gas prices, you know, we might have to go back to the 1980s as we did in North America and lower some of the speed limits and especially if you save gas plus you save lives, this might be a policy decision that the government might want to look at.
MR. HESSIAN: It's important to note that our 110 kilometre per hour speed limits are only reserved for our divided highways that have the wide median, the designed grassy median, we don't put 110 kilometre limits on our Jersey barrier sections.
MS. MORE: No, I realize that, but I just would be interested to see the comparable stats for those two.
MR. HESSIAN: Sure.
MS. MORE: Just one other quick question. One of my constituents approached me with, I thought, three really good ideas about improving highway safety and I just want to pass them on. One of them really could be well used at the MicMac Parclo which is a 100-Series Highway, especially from the section going towards the harbour from the Parclo to the new bridge and this would be paving the lines with fluorescent paint because as soon as that highway is wet, you can't tell where the lanes are and cars are veering across in front of one another all the time. I think it would be a very interesting pilot project just to do that section of the road and see if it improves the accident or safety rate.
[10:15 a.m.]
The other suggestion he had - and I'm not sure if this is done in any other country - it was the idea of using different colours on the centre line which matched posted speed limits. So if you always see a certain colour, let's say blue, it matches 80 kilometres an hour and yellow might be 90 or whatever, so people who aren't really paying attention to the posted signs automatically have the speed limit reinforced, sort of subconsciously, by looking at the centre line.
The other idea I know is used in other provinces is putting those indentations or speed grids along the outside, so if someone starts to wander towards the edge of the road they're immediately brought back to the highway - have you considered any of those ideas?
MR. HESSIAN: With regard to the paint situation, certainly we're always looking for better quality materials that we can use to increase both the life cycle of that material and the reflectivity. We did experiment a year or two ago with a new product that was in the trial
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stages with a manufacturer, using ceramic beads in the paint rather than glass beads. Our glass beads tend to wear off with plows during the wintertime, so we looked at a ceramic bead. Unfortunately that paint was discontinued and didn't make it to the marketplace - and it was quite costly too, so it would have been selectively used in locations where we had either environmental conditions, fog or blowing snow, but it had some potential.
As far as the centre lines, what I would say to you is that we use the same marking scheme as all other jurisdictions in Canada. We use yellow to separate flows in opposing directions and white to indicate lane indications going in the same direction. The centre lines are yellow in Nova Scotia as they are in New Brunswick, as they are in B.C., so from that regard I think rules of the road and consistency are important factors. We have never considered looking at blue, orange or other colours, it also has to do with reflectivity and availability of paints also in a variety of colours.
Your third point was referring to shoulder rumble strips, which are the continuous indentations. We have explored that and we probably will go with that. Unfortunately, our old cross-section design for our 100-Series Highways had a very narrow paved shoulder from the white edge line to the edge of pavement, which really was about one metre in width and was not conducive to the introduction of grooving along the shoulder area. So we've looked at changing our cross-section to increase the width of our paved shoulder areas so we can introduce shoulder rumble strips. We'll be exploring that in the next little while as to what type of an introduction program we could have with a continuous introduction - we don't want to do it on a short section and not have it on the next two sections. Continuous introduction of the shoulder rumble strip has been proven to be quite beneficial in reducing the number of lane departures, single-vehicle run offs, on the right-hand side of the road.
MS. MORE: Just before I close, what you might want to do is send out one of those heavy tractors that leave those indentations accidentally on the highways, it would cover one set of wheels and just drive them up the side of the road and that might save you a lot of time and money. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Good morning, and thank you for being here today. Getting here a bit late however, maybe a colleague brought up Highway No. 101 and maybe I can have a little different tack on it. It is certainly a section of the highway that I think all Nova Scotians are very familiar with in terms of fatalities over the years. I know in my own case, in my 20 years at West Kings, two of my students were killed on that section of highway from Kingston to Coldbrook, which I consider to be perhaps one of the most dangerous sections since there is still a considerable amount of traffic through that area.
I'm not sure whether there was a master plan to have twinning there eventually, but now it looks like traffic volumes may not justify the twinning of this section, but surely there
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must have been a master plan to have some passing lanes in a section from Coldbrook to Bridgetown. I go on highways in other provinces and just because they are flat sections, why have we ruled out passing lanes in this quarter, which is probably somewhere around 60 kilometres in length without a single passing lane? I would certainly say that that is one of the key elements. There have been, on the Highway No. 101 overall, from this section, numerous deaths, just in that Kingston-Greenwood to Coldbrook quarter. I'm wondering if you have started to plan and site select for passing lanes in that section?
[10:19 a.m. Mr. Brook Taylor resumed the Chair.]
MR. MACRAE: Yes, we have. We carried out a study in that particular area a couple of years ago. Phil could give the details on where we are looking at that.
MR. CORKUM: Yes, passing lanes were part of the Highway No. 101 operation safety review that we did back a few years ago. It's certainly something that is part of our plan, to look at that section of road for passing lanes. As I explained earlier, it is a flat section as you all know, and it really doesn't warrant climbing lanes or passing lanes as we have traditionally designed them. So we have to basically look at other criteria such as the length of road, the length of 100-Series high-speed road without a dedicated passing lane as a means of putting one in.
MR. GLAVINE: As a small adjunct to that question, of course a real growing concern area is from Waterville to Coldbrook on Highway No. 101 because of the tremendous amount of truck traffic in that area coming out of the Michelin plant; Twin Mountain, Little construction and several others who have in the range of 40, 50, and I think Michelin are up about 60 trucks a day coming and going to the plant there. Is there any consideration being given at this point in time to an interchange that would accommodate that kind of truck traffic that is now a growing concern in the Coldbrook corridor?
MR. MACRAE: Yes, there is a project to put an interchange at Black Rock Road with a connector down to, I forget the name of the road, but it's the road that I think goes into Michelin, there's a fire station there. I can't think of the name of the road. We did have a public consultation a few years ago on that route. Routing has changed a bit since that public consultation because of impact we had to the Webster's Farm there. So we are planning to use the existing structure at Black Rock Road, add ramps, and then realign the connector down closer to Trunk 1 to provide a direct connection to Highway No. 101. No time line at all to when that's going to happen. We're trying to finish off the planning work to secure the right-of-way, basically have it ready so that when the time comes we can move on it.
MR. GLAVINE: Continuing on sort of that theme. There will be areas, of course, of Highway No. 101 and the 100-Series that may never get twinned. I mean we may never have that kind volume of traffic. Has the department given any consideration to the grooving or the rumble strips in terms of a centre line? I know in British Columbia they have done this
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on some of their highways and have had very discernible improvement in accidents and fatalities statistics. What I'm wondering is if here in Nova Scotia we have given any thought to that?
MR. HESSIAN: At this point in time we haven't given any thought. There recently was produced a synthesis of practices across North America on both shoulder rumble strips and centre line rumble strips, and certainly the shoulder rumble strips have a lot more evidence and a lot more benefits to them. The centre line ones have been selectively used by jurisdictions on curbs, curb linear alignments where motorists may tend to cross the centre line and possibly strike someone in the opposing lane. It's really the leading edge of the wedge here. It's very early in the process. There have been some select research studies, but not a lot. I believe Alberta and B.C., as you suggest, are both selectively using them, but more in the pilot, in the learning stage, then in the full utilization and full deployment of those. Certainly we do have the recent report and we'll be reviewing that to see if there's any benefit or value, and whether we should be investing in that type of a treatment.
MR. GLAVINE: I just have two other questions. In regard to the proposed Highway 113, I've taken a look at some of the mapping there. I suppose in some ways this may be a technical question at this stage. I think my own personal view, and in starting to do some consulting with people in this area along the line of environment and natural resources, I think the road is very problematic. How is the length of that road technically determined? The mapping I looked at, the GPS readings certainly determine it to be a little more than 10 kilometres. Technically, how do you determine this, from the perspective of the Department of Transportation and Public Works'?
MR. MACRAE: I'll take the first shot, and then Phil can back me. The point that we took as the beginning, to take the 10 kilometres, was a point where we were back onto Highway No. 103 and into the original cross-section. So at the point where we were, the highways are lined up and the centre line of the median of both sections are lined up on Highway No. 102 and Highway No. 103. When we did our calculation on that, it came out to be 9.9 kilometres in length. We proceeded on that basis, because that's what we came up with for our value. Now, when you go out to lay it out in the field and do your actual measurement, it may be more or less than that, I don't know.
MR. GLAVINE: I have just one further question. In travelling in a few different areas of the province towards the end of the paving and micro-sealing season, if you wish, one thing I discovered is that not all companies seem to do the same job on micro-sealing. I wouldn't say they're all of the same quality and calibre. Is this guaranteed work? I know it's designed to extend the life of the road before repaving by five or six years, maybe sometimes even a little longer, but is this guaranteed work? I've had this asked of me in my constituency, on the section from Aylesford to Kingston which has been micro-sealed.
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MR. MACRAE: Yes, it is. It's warranty work. There's a two-year warranty. With the warranty if the material comes off within the two years, the contractor would have to go in and repair that section, and then further warranty the repair for two years.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: For this second round of questioning, I would ask members, if they could, to try to be as succinct as possible. We'll try to be fair and give members five minutes. We'll begin with the highway minister to be, Mr. Sampson.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I wasn't going to make this comment but I will now. We can't change the past, we can only deal with the present and plan for the future. Having said that, some short quick answers would be fine. The temporary workplace traffic control manual that has been in the process of being changed from 2003, I understand, according to Martin Delaney's letter that was sent to me back in March, that it's now going to be 2006. Is that still on the docket? Are we going to get a decision from the Department of Environment and Labour to allow our road crews to temporarily shut down lanes a lot quicker and cheaper than they're doing now?
MR. HESSIAN: I don't know about quicker and cheaper, but we are working jointly with the Department of Environment and Labour to come up with a consensus on a new temporary workplace traffic control manual. We still intend to introduce it in 2006.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Minister Russell suggested that there was a plan afoot to do a limited paving program on gravel roads, possibly beginning this year. Have any of you heard of that? He mentioned that in the House during estimates and the budget last year.
MR. FITZNER: Right now the only program that we have is for the J-Class roads, which is 50/50 cost shared with municipalities, where the municipalities put forward - and those are subdivision-class roads. The minister has asked us to look at how a policy for limited paving on local roads, other than J-Class roads, and there has been some development of a draft for that, but there has been no approval or moving ahead with it at this time.
[10:30 a.m.]
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I would just like to bring to your attention Exit 12 at the turnoff to Englishtown. When the ferry is not operating, the traffic lights are not visible to traffic travelling west, coming down the mountain. People are turning into the right-hand turning lane and are beginning to make the turn when they see the lights are flashing and instantly go straight. There are near misses there because the people are travelling west in the through lane and people are coming out and almost sideswiping.
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Now, that's something that was mentioned before and I, too, had just one comment on rumble strips and what I have mentioned to Mr. Delaney and Mr. Carter before they retired. The Cabot Trail, by the time next Spring will come, the white line on the shoulder of the road, especially on the turns, is completely erased and people are calling me all the time saying that is what they use to get them home on a foggy, rainy night. It keeps them on their own side of the road because of moose on the highway and whatnot like that and so I don't imagine it could be painted twice a year, you only paint it once every two years on secondary roads.
What my suggestion was, that's a four-inch wide painted strip. What about just a four-inch wide rumble strip on that shoulder? When that road is painted, the paint is going to go down in the grooves, and it's not going to be worn off and you would get your two years out of that because it is latex paint, it doesn't have the shelf life or the wearability of the oil-based paint that was previously used, but to paint that white line every two years on the Cabot Trail is a very dangerous way to do it. I know it's $240 a kilometre, but lives are worth a lot more than that. It's a suggestion I would like you to take. That's as succinct as I can be.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Chisholm.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, everyone, thanks for being here. Antigonish, you mentioned that, I guess that's the bypass that's planned for Antigonish?
MR. CORKUM: That's Highway No. 104 by Antigonish.
MR. CHISHOLM: Yes, there's the blue route, the red route, the orange route, whatever it was called at one time. Right on the approach road where all the new businesses have taken place, Wal-Mart, Staples, there's a whole host of them up there, the traffic is unbelievable. I know they put traffic lights in there, a different system, which seem to be working quite well, but the Summertime is terrible, the amount of traffic that's going through there, the lineups. I recall there one day, one Friday this past Summer, there was probably traffic backed up to James River, you know, one Friday afternoon they had the RCMP in there directing traffic. What's the time frame for that bypass? Has that been determined yet?
MR. CORKUM: Well, we're working on a timeline as far as the planning and design phase of it, to have it ready in 2008, and that's ready for construction. Of course, there's no funding that has been allocated to that project yet. So we really have no idea of when the actual construction is going to start.
MR. CHISHOLM: But it's hopefully 2008?
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MR. CORKUM: We're aiming, yes, for 2008, and again that depends on resources because it's a huge job planning and design-wise, a huge job, a lot of structures to design, a lot of work. There's a lot of work to do there. So we're hoping that it will be ready by that time.
MR. CHISHOLM: That piece of road that goes from Addington Forks, does it go out as far as Taylor's Road, out just near the side of Lower South River?
MR. CORKUM: It goes from Addington Forks, yes.
MR. CHISHOLM: An interchange is on that road. There's still the one for Highway No. 7?
MR. CORKUM: Yes, Highway No. 7 is one of the four.
MR. CHISHOLM: Do you know if environmental assessments have been completed for that piece of road? I think you, in a question from Mr. Epstein . . .
MR. CORKUM: Yes, we've received approval for the Class 2 environmental assessment. There are conditions of release, of course, you know, pages of conditions of release along with that approval that we have to abide by.
MR. CHISHOLM: So 2008 is sort of the target date to begin construction?
MR. CORKUM: That's our target date as it stands now, yes, to be ready for construction.
MR. CHISHOLM: Mr. Chairman, I guess a little while ago we had some discussion, we heard from some of our colleagues across the way from Victoria, as well as from Digby, on the amount of work that goes into different constituencies and who might be a member there. I wonder if it's possible to get a copy of all the ridings right across the province as to who has what, so we can compare them.
I know, for example, Richmond County has received a lot of capital construction this past Summer and, in the last couple of years, Cape Breton West has received it. I know Pictou West has received work, Victoria-The Lakes as well has received, I have received work. Is it possible to get a . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you need a letter or could you supply the committee with that information?
MR. FITZNER: We can supply that.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Is that it, Mr. Chisholm?
MR. CHISHOLM: Yes.
MR. FITZNER: What time frame are we talking about?
MR. CHISHOLM: Within the next month or two. (Interruption) Oh, for the last couple of years.
MR. FITZNER: Last couple of years? Okay.
MR. CHISHOLM: I would like to carry that on a little further where they sort of beat on us that a non-member riding wasn't getting anything. I guess I'd have to suggest that maybe the whole problem started back in 1993, under a previous government, where they cut the capital expenditures for transportation drastically. I mean there was nothing left of it, basically. In 1998-99, I believe it was something like $35 million that was going into capital construction in the province. I think this year we have about $145 million. I think you indicated that in your opening remarks. I think maybe some of our colleagues should just kind of look back and think back and speak to some of their other colleagues who they have in the House with them and determine where the problem really did arise.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chisholm. I would concur. I don't think it would take much ink for a few years there to fill out the number of kilometres my riding received from 1993 to 1999. However, I'll leave that up to . . .
MR. CHISHOLM: Well, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you in the District of St. Mary's there was five kilometres in six years that was done in the District of St. Mary's .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, I think we'll move along now to Judy.
MS. STREATCH: Thank you. Though I don't pretend to have nearly as much experience as some of my honourable colleagues around this table, I will indicate that while I would never pretend to speak for the entire County of Lunenburg, the millions of dollars of Christmas trees that are trucked in and out of the New Ross and surrounding areas on Trunk 3 and those truck drivers in that industry who provide millions of dollars to this province were much appreciative of the 5.3 kilometres that my portion of Lunenburg County received this year, Mr. Chairman. I certainly know the residents would thank and applaud the current government for that commitment, the Christmas tree producers as well.
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One final question, if I may, gentlemen, I'm just wondering which highways in Nova Scotia are part of the federal highway system?
MR. HESSIAN: It's the National Highway System as it's agreed to between the province and the federal government. Between 1988 and 2003, we had about 880 kilometres. If you want a list, we can supply you with an actual list or I could read them off. Whatever you wish.
I would point out that between 1988 and 2003 there was one list. In 2004, the minister responsible for transportation and road safety decided to review the National Highway System and come up with new criteria and to expand the National Highway System in recognition of the change in the role of roads with the reduction of rail and other modes of transportation. Just this past September there was an announcement that the National Highway System had expanded in Canada. In Nova Scotia we added Highway No. 103 to the National Highway System. It is now in the National Highway System and eligible for future federal-provincial cost sharing, a selection of projects.
We also added a series of streets in Halifax-Dartmouth which serve the Port of Halifax. So from the end of Highway No. 102 and from the end of Highway No. 118, there's 22 kilometres of urban streets that serve the Port of Halifax, and Autoport on the Dartmouth side.
So, currently, Nova Scotia has 1,199 kilometres. The National Highway System went from 24,000-plus kilometres to 38,000-plus kilometres across the country. Each province had some additions. Currently, there's a project to try to come up with a review process of adding new highways in the future as they become eligible and meet the criteria that has been established for inclusion in the National Highway System. But for here we have Highway No. 101, Highway No. 102, Highway No. 103 now, Highway No. 104, pieces of Trunk 4 in Cape Breton, Highway No. 105, Highway No. 106, Highway 111, Highway 118, Highway 125, from Sydney River to Highway No. 105, Route 303 in the Digby area which serves the ferry terminal to New Brunswick, and the intermodal connectors in Halifax, both on the Halifax side and Dartmouth side of the ferry. So it totals up to 1,199 kilometres of 100-Series collectors and arterials.
MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, if I understand correctly then, Highway No. 103 is now part of the National Highway System and I will certainly be lobbying my federal counterpart for some federal support, and I would certainly encourage all of my colleagues to feel free to do the same.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.
MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Chairman, just a couple of questions. First, I agree with you, Judy, the farmers down there are probably very pleased with the five kilometres, but in Digby
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and Annapolis Counties we have $1 billion fishery and agriculture industries that received 10 kilometres, and we're thankful for that too, but we did lose a ferry down there all in the same time, and we can't get that Highway No. 101 finished, with $1 billion worth of fish and apples going over it daily. So you can understand why the people are upset.
What is the cost of an environmental assessment Class 2 versus a Class 1?
MR. MACRAE: I will guess there's not too much difference, typically we're probably about $200,000 or $300,000 in our environmental studies and they could go up from that if there are some particular aspects in there that need extra study, but I would say typically we're in the range around $300,000 for an environmental study. All the studies are the same, the other portion would be the cost of a panel hearing and the time that that takes, and I'm not sure what the one for Antigonish costs, not anything extraordinary, you know.
MR. THERIAULT: I see on Highway No. 101 outside of Halifax here, toward the Valley, you put, I think, 10 kilometres of concrete on the road.
MR. MACRAE: Yes.
MR. THERIAULT: Is that the only experiment in the province, and can you fill us in on how it's going? I mean, when you drive on it, it seems like a good solid road, that concrete.
MR. MACRAE: We have two other sections we did down around Bridgetown. Our first section we did was on the Rice connector and the ramps on the Bridgetown interchange and that was our first one to try out concrete, and then we did about a four-kilometre section on Highway No. 104 on the westbound lanes by Oxford, and the latest section that you're pointing to on Highway No. 101 is 10 kilometres long. The experience we had with the first two sections has been very good. The one on Highway No. 104, we've had very little maintenance. It has just been the maintenance that we were advised that would be required, which was re-sealing the joints after about between 7 years and 10 years, and we've done that. The condition is staying well and the new section that we have, we do have some issues with it that we are discussing with the contractor, but we expect to get those resolved. We've been pleased with the quality of the concrete pavement that we put down.
[10:45 a.m.]
MR. THERIAULT: What is the difference in the costs - is it more expensive?
MR. MACRAE: We did a comparative bid on Highway No. 101 and the difference in cost is about 20 per cent, I think, we paid extra for the section, as opposed to asphalt concrete has, we believe, a longer life cycle, so it costs less to own it, and to operate it.
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MR. THERIAULT: In the long run, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: As chairman of this committee I would like to say thank you to our guest for coming in. Mr. Parker did you have another question?
MR. PARKER: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sorry. Mr. Chisholm had one name down, so I do apologize, sincerely. Our guests are going to stay with us a few minutes longer, I understand.
The honourable member for Pictou West.
MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I guess I'll just comment that I travelled recently through Quebec and Ontario on our Trans-Canada Highway and noticed a lot of concrete pavement in both provinces. Old pavement is laid down but a lot of new construction as well. It looked good, it felt good when you drove over it and it seems to be more and more that that type of pavement is being invested in, so it may well be something we should be considering as well.
I wanted to come back to the earlier comments about secondary roads. It seems to be the topic that I get most often at my constituency office. The majority of calls are people complaining about the poor condition of our secondary roads. Many of them are unacceptable, that's the best way to describe it. In some ways people feel a disconnect because they call me, as their MLA, and call the OS, or call our area manager, or they might even call the minister on occasion, or perhaps some of you folks, but they really feel they don't have a say in the process. Their road is really poor and they complain, they call, they write letters and call again, but still nothing changes; there may be an occasional little patch.
I was at the Truro Chamber of Commerce meeting in September, and there were some suggestions that the process of how priorities are set should be more democratic. It was suggested that the municipality should have a say in how priorities are set. People are telling me they would like to have a say, like a community meeting where you could come out and say these are the priorities we feel should be done, rather than the minister, or the government of the day, or department staff making that decision. Is that something you have ever thought about, giving more democracy to the system and allowing communities to have a say in what they feel are the priorities for road work?
MR. FITZNER: I think that although it's not a formal process like maybe you are alluding to, we do make an effort to get that input from all of those. I know many of our staff meet regularly with municipal councils and, invariably, they bring up those issues and tell us what their priorities are. I think when that all feeds down to putting the list together, that input has all been gathered. I don't know how else you could really do it. Everybody's idea of priorities are different. Obviously the road you live on is a high priority to you because you
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travel on it every day. As you get broader, looking at the provincial system, you tend to look at higher traffic volumes that are more of a priority.
It's hard to do that sort of objectively. There's a bit of a subjective part in trying to decide which priorities need to be done. I guess the real issue is that there are so many priorities that aren't getting done that it just raises the whole level of people feeling discouraged, or whatever, because they have waited so long. Usually, it's something we certainly understand and wish that we could address quicker and, in most cases, it's just the financial resources required to do that just aren't there. We are trying to hold a system together, maintain it, while at the same time there are the requests to twin, and these other things as well. So it just puts pressure on everybody involved, and yourself, you would be hearing it, I'm sure, on a daily basis. I'm not sure what you're suggesting as far as a democratic process.
MR. PARKER: Well, I guess my suggestion was that people want to see the worst roads fixed first. They also would like to have some say in determining what those roads are. Perhaps my suggestion is a community meeting in each riding for sure, maybe with the Department of Transportation and Public Works staff there to listen to people and hear first-hand what the frustrations and what the priorities of the drivers and the residents in the communities are.
MR. FITZNER: Okay.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parker. We'll move to Mr. Epstein. Howard, you'll have to be our last member to ask questions, we do have some business regarding future meetings and things.
MR. EPSTEIN: Absolutely. I'll just make two quick points.
Most of my colleagues have been engaged in an active competition to see who gets less of the provincial paving dollar. They perhaps overlook the fact that this is a competition I can win hands down in Chebucto. I think we get virtually no provincial paving dollars and yet do I understand you're now telling me I'm going to be imperilled in this because of the redefinition of the National Highway System? I wonder if I could actually have a list of the streets that are affected in HRM? That's my first point. That would be very useful. No rush because I don't expect it will be happening very soon, but it would be kind of nice to see the list.
My second point just has to do with a follow-up to our earlier discussion about environmental assessment. I'm worried when I look at the documentation at your Web site and what I heard this morning that perhaps the department doesn't recognize, as much as it could, the benefits to be had from environmental assessments. When I look at the issues and challenges section at your Web site, the environment isn't featured as one of the issues.
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When I look at a list of the Acts that are first administered and then associated, but not assigned, to TPW, I don't see the Environment Act listed. You list the Mechanics' Lien Act, the Building Access Act and the Architects Act and the Engineering Profession Act - all of which have pretty minimal linkage to your department, but the Environment Act is something that directly affects you and it's not there.
This morning I heard you say that you were interested in seeing the regulations under the Environment Act change so that maybe you only had to deal with Class 1 environmental assessments instead of Class 2. Overall, I don't find it an encouraging picture. I want to point out to you that as you agreed, the studies that you're going to be doing for a Class 1 or Class 2 environmental assessment are essentially the same. The cost of a Class 2 environmental assessment is really minimal and the time factor, I think, really is minimal too. That's really the point I want to make to you.
As I understand it, from what you're telling us, the process of planning for highways takes years. Because of the financial constraints, it takes years to get the money in place to do it. If the Class 2 environmental assessment were built into that time frame, it wouldn't add on to the end, it could just be incorporated the same way many businesses do in their planning and it wouldn't cause any real difference to how you do your planning and yet would have benefits, which I think were illustrated just recently by the big mess that ended up in the Shubie Canal system as a result of not having such an effective environmental assessment scrutiny as might have occurred.
Anyway, I'd ask you to think about it and I look forward to seeing you the next time you come.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thanks very much, Howard. Just before I thank our guests here this morning, I'd like to say - I think I can speak for all committee members - that we had a very healthy and informative discussion here this morning. As well, the employees of the Department of Transportation and Public Works, I'd like to, through you fine gentlemen, thank them. My riding is served by five bases - Burnside in Dartmouth, Upper Stewiacke, Brookfield, Middle Musquodoboit and Truro - and I know I can speak for everybody around this table who has the employees doing the snow and ice control, the employees doing the maintenance, the employees doing the operation of the machines, divisional crew, et cetera, that we're very well served by those individuals on the ground floor. They're working very hard to satisfy the concerns and complaints that Nova Scotians have out there. So a tip of the old hat to those folks and thank you so much for coming in this morning. Perhaps we can have you back at a future date.
We do have some unfinished business. I'd like to quickly move to that if I can. At the last meeting, we talked about possibly bringing in Marine Atlantic representatives regarding the drop-trailer service. I was waiting for feedback from the NDP and Liberals as to whether or not they would agree to that. Is the Liberal caucus okay and the NDP caucus?
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(Interruptions) Yes, okay. Can we pull that meeting together for November 1st, or is that too tight of a time frame?
MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): We can . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: I know it's very timely to the individuals.
MRS. HENRY: If they're fine to make it here, then we can do it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Darlene is going to try. A comment on that?
MR. PARKER: I was going to ask, in the letter they said prior to the October 15th deadline. Is there something that's gone past so it's not good any longer?
MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't know, I can only speculate and maybe Gerald knows, but there was a consultant because there was some concern about that component of their overall business being dropped. There was a consultant study and that report, I think, was supposed to be in by then, but I'm not 100 per cent sure on that. Obviously, we can't get them in . . .
MR. PARKER: If it's this year, it's too late, yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'm sure they will still be quite eager to come in, will they not?
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I will call Gordon when I go back to the office and let you know.
MR. EPSTEIN: Mr. Chairman, are we planning a session for agenda setting?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Organizational, yes, I would think we should set a date, but the regular chairman, I would think, will be here at the next meeting. Would November 8th be an agreed date to do that, an organizational, Darlene?
MRS. HENRY: Yes, we could do it on November 8th.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that okay with committee members or, Howard, did you have something else?
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, my suggestion is, you know, we haven't seen our chairman for the last few meetings and I think we ought to just set a meeting and let him come or not come as it happens.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, he's younger than me, I don't want to get his hackles up. So we'll go for November 1st with Marine Atlantic. We'll set that date - is it agreed? - and November 8th for the organizational.
MR. EPSTEIN: Good.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other business committee members would like to bring forward? A motion to adjourn.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I so move.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 10:56 a.m.]
