FREDERICTON, N.B. — The New Brunswick Government isn’t ready to follow suit and pour as much money into their highway construction as their neighbors are.

Quebec recently announced it would spend $100-million to improve Route 185, the part of the Trans-Canada Highway that links New Brunswick with central Canada. Full twinning and improving the highway is expected to cost a total of $430-million.

“This is very good news. We want to see a completed four-lane highway to central Canada, too,” says Transportation Minister Margaret Ann Blaney of New Brunswick.

Although pleased to see the $100 million being spent in nearby Quebec, New Brunswick’s government has different plans. As Quebec moves toward twinning 108 kilometres of highway, New Brunswick will be working on a stretch of road less than eight kilometers long.

“What we’re doing this summer is working to complete a 6.5-kilometre section of four-lane between the border and Edmundston in the St. Jacques area,” Blaney says. She adds she has yet to hear how Quebec will pay for the project that would twin the highway from the St. Lawrence River to the N.B. border.

Blaney hinted more work in New Brunswick could be announced once she and her Quebec colleagues agree on how the new highway sections will meet.