[Smevo]

Mar 24, 2009 CB Post

Cabot trail rebuild gets federal boost

The Cape Breton Post

Considering the political fanfare that often accompanies even relatively minor government funding announcements for Cape Breton, it was as though that $16 million and change just fell out of Jim Prentice’s pocket as he was politicking around Halifax last Friday. Road widening and paving in the Ingonish area and north along a section of the Cabot Trail accounted for largest chunk of funding that the federal environment minister, who’s responsible for parks, had to announce for the Nova Scotia.

The sum of $14 million doesn’t go far in road construction these days but the work in Ingonish, Middle Head and Warren Lake to South Mountain will be a welcome improvement around that busy end of the portion of the Cabot Trail that circles Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Last year Ottawa funded $2.2 million to pave a 13 kilometre section of Cabot Trail between MacKenzie Mountain and French Mountain on the Cheticamp side of the park trail.

The Cabot Trail work and several other smaller national park and historic site projects Prentice announced are fully federal but the multi-year reconstruction of the Cabot Trail is in effect a joint project by virtue of the fact that everything outside the park boundaries is the sole responsibility of the province.

The Nova Scotia government plans some 60 kilometres of Cabot Trail widening over the next several years between St. Ann’s and Cape Smokey.
This is the second year of a five-year plan to do 33k from the base of Cape Smokey to the intersection of Trunk 19 and Route 312.

Residents of the area have complained that the pace of the work is too slow, and some have quibbles with how specific sections are being done. In addition, cycling lobbyists aren’t happy with the narrow bicycle shoulder included in some of the work.

Widened shoulders for cyclists and hikers are also part of the federal road plan, and that pleases Sandra MacDonald, executive director Destination Cape Breton, who sees huge potential to build the Cabot Trail as cycling attraction. The daunting hills of the Cape Breton Highlands are viewed as a special challenge by the more adventuresome, and fit, cyclists. Provinces such as Quebec and P.E.I. are peddling full tilt on cycling tourism but Nova Scotia has been slow to find the right gear.

There may be some disappointment that Prentice did not also announce a new visitor and administrative centre at the Ingonish end of the park which has been on the drawing board for several years but the road work will directly contribute to the quality of the park experience for visitors, which is not to suggest that the park is adequately experienced by simply driving around it.

Among the smaller projects in the Prentice announcement is $2 million for work at Fortress of Louisbourg, which includes structural repairs to buildings.
That’s not a lot of money for a premier historic site with restorations dating back to the 1960s but every bit helps.

I'm starting to filter out the rural from the more immediate Sydney area now.