GUYSBOROUGH - Routine drives for Strait area residents and visitors will soon become an entirely new experience, with two well-travelled local roadways getting an overhaul as part of Nova Scotia's new Five-Year Highway Plan.

The provincial Minister of Transportation and Active Transit (TAT), Lloyd Hines, has confirmed that his department will soon hold consultation meetings for the planned replacement of the Port Hastings Rotary with a roundabout that is targeted to reduce traffic bottlenecks near the Canso Causeway. Work on the project is scheduled to begin later this summer and take approximately a year to complete. 

In an interview with Adam Cooke that is now airing in its entirety on the TELILE 24/7 Podcast, the minister was hesitant to reveal too many details of the roundabout installation in Port Hastings, saying he didn't "want to pre-empt" a series of community consultation meetings that are slated to take place later this spring regarding the project. However, Hines added that the new design is hoped to provide safer re-routing of traffic heading to and from Cape Breton, particularly the road blockages that frequently occur when ships are passing through the swing bridge at the Canso Causeway. 

As well, Hines announced that his department is expected to award a tender for the latest round of twinning for Trans-Canada Highway 104 from Sutherland's River, Pictou County to Addington Folks, just outside the Town of Antigonish. Combined with highway twinning that has already been carried out in Antigonish County over the past decade, this will result in complete highway twinning from the east side of Antigonish straight to the New Brunswick border. 

These announcements took place as Hines was seeing a realignment of his own department, which previously carried the name Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR) before newly-sworn-in Premier Iain Rankin paired Infrastructure Renewal with the provincial Housing Department. The new Transportation and Active Transit designation gives Minister Hines more input into projects not far from his Guysborough-Eastern Shore-Tracadie riding, including Antigonish Community Transit, Strait Area Transit, and the active-transportation trail that opened last summer in the Town of Port Hawkesbury.