GUYSBOROUGH - Lloyd Hines, and his department, have come a long way. 

Nova Scotia's first Minister of Transportation and Active Transit (TAT) recalls a childhood adventure in Ingonish that saw him trying to ride his new bicycle down the slope of Cape Smokey and burning out his brakes in the process. 

Today, only months removed from the first major overhaul of Cape Smokey's sloping roadways in several decades, Hines is excited about two newly-confirmed projects for his department's Five-Year Highway Plan - the replacement of the Port Hastings Rotary with a roundabout designed to ease traffic bottlenecks near the Canso Causeway, and the next stage of highway twinning between the Town of Antigonish and the Pictou County community of Sutherland's River. 

These two announcements came only days before Hines' former Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR) was realigned under the TAT format, part of an overhaul designed by new Premier and Liberal Leader Iain Rankin as he replaced his predecessor Stephen McNeil in mid-February. 

Hines told TELILE 24/7 host/producer Adam Cooke that he is pleased to see the changes in his cabinet duties, as they now take in such community-transportation responsibilities as the Strait Area Transit Cooperative in rural Cape Breton, the Antigonish Community Transit network, and active-transportation projects such as a newly-paved walking trail connecting Port Hawkesbury's main business core to the Strait Area Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC). 

In the meantime, as he prepares to launch public community meetings regarding the Port Hastings project later this spring, Hines is also predicting that a fly-over by-pass lane between the Canso Causeway and Highway 105 in Inverness County will take shape within the next 10-to-15 years. The minister also foresees the same timeframe for the completion of Highway 104 twinning between the Town of Antigonish and the Canso Causeway.