EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article has been changed from the version which was originally posted. The sections which were corrected are in bold type.
PORT HAWKESBURY: Town officials here are hunkering down with engineers from Nova Scotia’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (DTIR), in the hopes of developing a design concept for an overhaul of Reeves Street by the end of the week.
Monday night’s regular meeting of Port Hawkesbury Town Council saw Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Terry Doyle confirm that the town’s municipal planners will meet with DTIR engineers today with the hope of developing a Reeves Street proposal that can be submitted to DTIR and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), as well as Cape Breton-Richmond MLA Michel Samson.
“That will move forward by the end of the week – we’re on target to complete that,” Doyle told the council meeting at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre’s Shannon Studio.
“There has been a considerable amount of work that has taken place over the last month, especially. We’re at the point where a conceptual design is being proposed – we had to marry the design that was created by Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal engineers with our plans. [Tuesday], we meet with those two groups together… and we’ll try to work out the final concept.”
The CAO added that he expects to update these efforts at the February 17 meeting of town council’s Committee-of-the-Whole, which is open to the public.
During a November presentation to town council, Doyle suggested that the entire Destination Reeves Street project carried a “very early ballpark estimate” of $4.5 million for a number of upgrades, including road realignment, branding, signage, and a more pronounced connection between Reeves Street and the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) Strait Area Campus.
However, near the tail end of Monday’s meeting, Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton confirmed that the Reeves Street design plans are completely separate from the consultation process DTIR is currently undertaking across the province with regards to highway twinning in several parts of Nova Scotia. “There’s absolutely no connection at this point in time,” said Mayor Chisholm-Beaton. “DTIR is certainly treating them as separate projects.”
The mayor then added that she is hoping for a strong turnout at the upcoming consultation meeting, which will take place at the Civic Centre from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, February 23.
Another DTIR consultation meeting will take place the previous night during the same time period at the Tara Lynne Community Centre in River Bourgeois.
