Driving along Highway 111 in the daytime isn’t so bad but once the sun goes down, a section of the roadway is shrouded in darkness from the MacKay Bridge to Mic Mac Mall in Dartmouth, N.S. “It’s a bit terrifying to be honest,” says motorist Hillary Doucet, who leaves before dawn to get to her job in the Burnside Industrial Park. Doucet considers the lack of lighting to be an issue of safety. “So, you can imagine what it’s like at 6 a.m. especially on a rainy and dark morning, sometimes you don’t even know where you are on the road,” she says. Despite Highway 111 being a provincial highway, Dartmouth East-Burnside Councillor Tony Mancini has been hearing regularly from residents who drive in that area. “I don’t want to sound like I’m passing the buck but it’s not our infrastructure; however I do try to communicate with the province, and they keep saying they’re working on it,” Mancini says. “We understand the frustration,” says Nova Scotia Public Works Minister Fred Tilley. He says a refurbishment of all the poles and electrical cabinets that run the power was underway on the highway until they were hit by a delay. “During the middle of the job there was a motor vehicle accident, which would delay things a little longer by taking out one of the cabinets,” he says. There are other pieces of provincial infrastructure that have been out of use for months. A pedway over Highway 111 has been unusable since an accident damaged the supports. “Anecdotally, we can say it’s a fairly well used piece of infrastructure by pedestrians for sure,” Tilley says. Public Works has hired an engineer to assess the structure and determine repair options, and it will remain closed while the work is ongoing. The province is waiting on Nova Scotia Power to do inspections so the switch could soon be flipped, bringing lights to a dark and dangerous stretch of Highway 111. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
