‘It’ll be a good day’: Barneys River fire chief relieved as highway twinning project completed

The final 12.5 kilometres of the Highway 104 twinning project is nearly complete — linking four lanes of divided highway from Antigonish, N.S., to the New Brunswick border.

That highway that connects the eastern and central parts of Nova Scotia has been the site of many serious and sometimes deadly accidents.

No one knows that more than Joe MacDonald, chief of the Barneys River Fire Department, who had lobbied to twin the highway.

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“Some of (the crashes) have been pretty bad, really bad actually. You name it, we’ve seen it,” he said Friday.

Since 2009, it’s estimated there have been well over 500 accidents on the two-lane section of the highway. First responders, including MacDonald, say the danger and the constant calls to this area have taken their toll.

“It’s really on your mind at all times. You can’t even take a vacation thinking about going back here. Hopefully, next vacation, I can relax a little,” he said.

The section between French River and Barneys River will open to traffic next week according to the province, which held a news conference to mark the event.

“The pressure that this stretch of highway has had on first responders has had a significant impact on people,” Premier Tim Houston said at the opening.

The twinning was announced by the previous Liberal government, and construction began in May 2020.

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The project covered 38 kilometres of highway and included two new interchanges and 24 new bridges. The construction cost was $364.3 million; the province paid $274.3 million while $90 million came from a federal fund.

In 2020, Dexter Nova Alliance outbid two other companies for the public-private partnership (P3) contract. The $717.9 million final price tag includes $196.4 million for maintenance, rehabilitation and financing for 20 years.

“There are certainly challenges, not the least of it is starting and doing two-thirds of this during COVID,” said Peter Lauch, the design-build director with Dexter Nova Alliance. “There are also the physical ones like doing this next to 28 kilometres of active highway.”

For fire chief MacDonald, the completion of the project is a dream come true.

“It’s opening early next week, it’ll be like Christmas then,” he said.

“It’ll be a good day.”