Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[deathtopumpkins]

I must admit I'm going to miss the bit of 104 that's being bypassed. Through that valley was a scenic little stretch that was welcome after several hours of fairly boring 4-lane highway.

[cbeach40]

The Province of Nova Scotia has awarded the contract that will twin the 38 km section of Trans Canada Highway 104 between Sutherlands River and Antigonish to the Dexter Nova Alliance. Included is 28 km of twinning and 10 km of new divided highway.  And to sweeten the pot.....they also get a 20 year contract to maintain the new highway along with another 25 km of existing highway: the 104 from New Glasgow to Sutherlands River + the recently completed Antigonish Bypass.

That's not really sweetening the pot so to speak, it's a design/build/finance/operate/maintain contract. The contractor is taking on a good deal of liability with this, but at the same time will likely be making a pile of money from it long term. Meanwhile the road authority is getting a road sooner than later, but are losing some autonomy over it and over the long term paying more for it.

So yeah, there's benefits and drawbacks to both parties in this sort of arrangement.

[ghYHZ]

That's not really sweetening the pot so to speak, it's a design/build/finance/operate/maintain contract. The contractor is taking on a good deal of liability with this...….

Yes...but they are also getting an additional 25 km of highway thrown in to maintain that's already built.....with sections open for 7+ years now including New Glasgow to Sutherlands River and Phase I of the Antigonish Bypass along with Phase II that opened in '16. 

[cbeach40]

That's not really sweetening the pot so to speak, it's a design/build/finance/operate/maintain contract. The contractor is taking on a good deal of liability with this...….

Yes...but they are also getting an additional 25 km of highway thrown in to maintain that's already built.....with sections open for 7+ years now including New Glasgow to Sutherlands River and Phase I of the Antigonish Bypass along with Phase II that opened in '16. 

With 20 years to operate and maintain that section.

That sounds less to me like a nice incentive for the constructor and more like the road authority mortgaging an existing section of highway.

[Chris]

This appears to be fairly common internationally, I've seen it used in various European countries as well, where a contractor (often a consortium) gets to operate a larger section of roadway than just the portion to be constructed. Perhaps they need some kind of minimum scale for it to be worthwhile? I can understand that it may be costly to maintain equipment for just the maintenance and operations of a 10 or 20 kilometer section of road and they need 50 or more kilometers for that to work out efficiently.

[AsphaltPlanet]

Unrelated, but I strongly dislike the font that Nova Scotia uses for its mileage markers.

[AsphaltPlanet]

Also, I recorded a video of this section of Hwy 104 last summer:

[Stephane Dumas]

Might be worth to revive this thread.
I saw this news via Skyscraperpage forums. https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8984289&postcount=1251  Construction on TCH-104 had begun.
https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20200717005

Construction has begun for the twinning of the Highway 104 between Sutherlands River, Pictou Co. and Antigonish.

Crews and machinery broke ground today, July 17. The $718 million project will make the highway safer for motorists and improve the efficiency of one the province’s most important transportation corridors.

“This project will save lives and provide travellers and business with a high-quality highway for many years to come,” said Lloyd Hines, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. “A safe and efficient highway system is essential to the economic and social well-being of Nova Scotia. Our partnership with Dexter Nova Alliance will deliver on that goal.”

Dexter Nova Alliance, led by local contractors Dexter Construction and Nova Construction, with BBGI as an equity partner, was awarded the contract to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a section of Highway 104 in May.

Construction will be completed before the end of 2023.

The Highway 104 project, part of the Trans-Canada Highway, consists of construction of a twinned highway beginning east of New Glasgow near Exit 27 at Sutherlands River, and running east to just west of Exit 31.

The project includes 28 kilometres of new two-lane twinned highway and 10 kilometres of new four-lane twinned highway. There are two new interchanges and about 24 new bridges. Dexter Nova Alliance will also upgrade the existing section of highway.

[ghYHZ]

Not part of the current twinning project and located 10 km east of the Antigonish By-pass is a new interchange at the Paq'tnkek First Nation. This is a joint development with the Province and includes a Travel Plaza. The new overpass was designed for the next phase of TCH104 twinning in mind......east toward the Canso Causeway.   

[ghYHZ]

Here's the Dexter-Nova Alliance web site for the new highway: Dexter Nova Alliance consortium

https://hwy104twinning.ca/

Note in the timelines that some sections will open next year.....probably with two-way traffic on the new lanes so construction can then shift over to the existing lanes for upgrading and bridge replacement. (those bridges are now 53 years old).....and that 2043 date is the end of their operations and maintenance contract.

[ghYHZ]

The photo page on the Highway 104 Twinning website has been updated to show this years progress with a lot of paving complete. The plan is to shift two-way traffic over to the new twinned lanes this November between Sutherlands River and Barneys River Station and between James River (Pushie Rd) and Antigonish......then rebuild bridges and rehabilitate the existing lanes over the next two years.

The entirely new 11 km 4-lane bypass alignment of Marshy Hope between Barneys River and Pushie Road will still be under construction until the fully completed highway opens in 2023.   

Photos here......

https://hwy104twinning.ca/progress-history/

[yakra]

Looks like quite a bit of roadway is going to be orphaned from Marshy Hope to Glen Bard. I wonder how that's going to work with Trunk 4 tying in to the west. Searched the net for schematics; no luck; all I see is this proposal someone added to OSM. Could be apocryphal for all I know, just the editor's assumption; I know of no official sources backing it up.

In New Brunswick, a decent-size chunk of bypassed NB1 became part of Bonaview Rd, providing local access. Here though, the old road segment is a bit shorter, and doesn't provide access to much of anything that Trunk 4 doesn't.
Maybe it'll be demolished and return to nature like this temporary connector in Antigonish. This one though is a lot longer both in distance and the amount of time spent serving thru traffic.

[ghYHZ]

Looks like quite a bit of roadway is going to be orphaned from Marshy Hope to Glen Bard. I wonder how that's going to work with Trunk 4 tying in to the west. Searched the net for schematics; no luck; all I see is this proposal someone added to OSM. Could be apocryphal for all I know, just the editor's assumption; I know of no official sources backing it up.

In New Brunswick, a decent-size chunk of bypassed NB1 became part of Bonaview Rd, providing local access. Here though, the old road segment is a bit shorter, and doesn't provide access to much of anything that Trunk 4 doesn't.
Maybe it'll be demolished and return to nature like this temporary connector in Antigonish. This one though is a lot longer both in distance and the amount of time spent serving thru traffic.

Here's some photos I took at a TIR Open House in November 2018 and is pretty close to what you note.

Trunk 4 will be rerouted to the new Exit 29 structure then will flow onto the existing 104 alignment through the gorge at Marshy Hope. This will become new Trunk 4 then flow back into the existing Trunk 4 alignment at Strathglass Rd near the Pictou/Antigonish Co line.

The section of existing 104 from Strathglass Rd to Pushie Rd will be 'returned to nature' as you say.

It will be possible then to drive from New Glasgow to Antigonish entirely on Trunk 4 avoiding TCH104.

[yakra]

Thanks for the photos. The last one shows a much more seamless transition for future Trunk 4. I've fixed that dubious OSM edit.

It will be possible then to drive from New Glasgow to Antigonish entirely on Trunk 4 avoiding TCH104.

Around 2010, there were seven gaps in Trunk 4. Three closed in the early 2010s...

• NS4 was cosigned with NS289 as far as NS104 exit 23, but not farther. Then better NS4 signage was added along NS289 & NS348 through New Glasgow to the next segment at Marsh St, around the same time some buildings were demolished & traffic patterns changed. For example check out the corner of Archimedes and George in GMSV. A bit of the ol' urban renewal perhaps?
• NS104 used to touch down about here and cross Sutherlands River on what's now the NS4 bridge. East end of the gap, NS104 carried on eastward from the 4-way intersection, flowing into where the 4-lane segment ends. The 4<->1-4 transition here looks liks what's soon to be fixed up at Strathglass Rd, with Old NS4 off to the side, replaced by a new seamless connection (restoring what was originally there?)
• The next segment of NS4 ended at NS104 exit 31. NS104 continued on Post Rd to James St. From there, NS104 continued on what's now NS4, and NS4 took James St toward downtown.
  After phase 2 of the Antigonish bypass opened, NS4 was straightened out to bypass downtown and take over the old NS104 alignment; thus the Antigonish NS4 segment no longer follows any of its old alignment between exits 31 & 34.

The gap between exits 29 & 29A will be closed soon; that's what this thread's about.
Of the remaining 3?

• Lower South River to Heatherton: At least one political candidate has talked about twinning 104 here.
• I doubt anything will happen at the Strait of Canso itself though. ROW constraints at Auld's Cove. And twinning the Canso Causeway, with NS4 magically crossing the straight on a separate alignment? LOL. That would take one hell of a feat of engineering, which I think may have gotten some discussion elsewhere on the forum... Short of that happening NS TIR would have to cosign Trunk X along Hwy 10X, which rarely happens.
• Central Onslow to Bible Hill: Probably nothing will happen here. This gap isn't filled by NS104, but rather already bypassed by it, to the north. It would be nice if we could have a continuous Trunk 4 here, but that would probably mean the province taking over some local roads to connect to existing numbered routes. I don't see that happening.