The Eastern Shore is truly fortunate in having some pretty stunning views and country-side. There’s no doubt that driving along the coast can be a real treat. I’m not trying to take away from that.
The road network in Nova Scotia is like any other network and faces similar challenges. The first involves the traditional ability to protect that network against damage that leaves it unavailable. We can events like the undermining of roads, washouts, landslides, fallen trees, and so on. Frankly, given the challenges we face today, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to give a 100% guarantee that roads will be open all the time.
The second aspect looks at resiliency. This means that if there is a disruption, we have alternate routes that can be taken. This is an area that we do have challenges on. When we look at Trunk 7 along the shore, a simple disruption at any number of points can lead to significant detours. The loss of a bridge, disruption due to traffic accidents, and such don’t leave people with many options.
The Eastern Shore faces some significant challenges on this front. While Trunk 7 has a number of key points where damage or disruption can “break” the network, there are also a significant number of communities with “one route in and out.”
As we look at projects like the $500 million being allocated for road repairs (etc.), it may be worth looking at improving the resilience of our current road system. That may mean looking at new roads, bypasses, secondary bridges, and so on. At the end of the day, however, if we are going to face challenges like some of storms we’ve seen and storm surge, we may want to have some level of backup plan in place.