Mayors to ask Ottawa for $500M
EDMUNDSTON, N.B. — Mayors from communities between here and Riviere-du-Loup, Que., will beg transport boss David Collenette for cash to twin the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH).
Edmundston Mayor Jacques Martin and five Quebec colleagues are looking to the federal government for a commitment of $100 million a year over five years.
The mayors sent the minister a letter last month requesting the meeting, which will take place this today in Ottawa.
“We’re going there to make him understand our argument that we need to fix the road between Riviere-du-Loup and Edmundston,” says Martin.
The group wants the government to give money to twin the Route 185 portion of the TCH, which runs between the St. Lawrence River and the New Brunswick border.
According Quebec’s transport ministry and provincial police, Martin says, Route 185, “doesn’t even meet today’s minimum requirements.”
The two-lane route connects to Autoroute 20, a four-lane stretch of the TCH from the Ontario border to Riviere-du-Loup.
More than 50 people have been killed in accidents on the highway over the last five years.
The estimated cost of building a four-lane highway linking Autoroute 20 to the TCH in northwestern New Brunswick is $600 million.
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