Nova Scotia's new highway plan released
 

The plan

https://novascotia.ca/tran/highways/5yearplan/highway-plan-2024-25.pdf

I thought the second line said 101 Three Mile Plains to Yarmouth and got excited for a second. :haha:
(It’s just to Falmouth.)

Half a billion dollars just for one year of highways... And yet there's still people who think the gas tax pays for roads

The gas tax generates the majority of that amount.

How much does the bike tax generate to pay for cycling infrastructure? :???:

I'd like to see a source showing where the money for new road infrastructure and maintenance originates. The fact that it works to an average of $500 for every person in the province is ridiculous given we're a relatively low-income province where a good portion don't drive or drive relatively little (e.g. children, seniors, people living in the city, etc.).

Not sure why bringing in bikes to the discussion is necessary but whatever. Bikes cause practically zero damage to streets, so you build the infrastructure and generally that's it. There's relatively few negative externalities of a bike lane or pathway, in fact they generally make places nicer by encouraging healthy travel and benefitting businesses located near AT.

For roads on the other hand, there's constant need for reinvestment with maintenance, line repainting, sign replacement, bridge repair, landscaping, administration costs, and resurfacing, etc. Plus all of this work has to be done regardless of if there is lots of heavy traffic on the road or no traffic on the road. And that's not to mention the health costs of driving (higher obesity rates, car crashes, higher stress cause of sitting in traffic), land use impacts (more urban sprawl that's a drain on resources), and environmental damage.

Also does the province even spend a cent on bike infrastructure?

Same old tired argument. It’s been discussed in this forum before, that road infrastructure is needed for the province to function. Infrastructure costs money. End of discussion. :rolleyes:

Sorry oldfartmark, I guess I didn't realize this discussion board was not supposed to discuss things anymore

Are insults really necessary?

Discuss all you want, I have no power over what you want to post. :shrug:

My opinion is that it’s already been discussed ad nauseum, but these types of circular discussions are not uncommon on Internet forums, so fill your boots. Maybe you could save time by just copy/pasting old posts (or maybe you did?).

Have fun with it.

Fair enough, nobody is forcing you to engage in a discussion you have no interest in.

And apologies for the "insult". Having the f and d keys right next to each other always be causing trouble :haha:.

My part of the discussion was what I posted. Then I ended it, literally. I could comment again if the discussion introduces new information - I believe I’m free to do that as long as I don’t break any forum rules.

Re: old fart comment…. If that’s the case, then you missed a few letters in between… :rolleyes:

Seriously, though, I understand that most of us have a degree of passion for the topics being discussed, or we wouldn’t be here. I just find that the discussions go so much better if we can keep the personal comments out of it. We can disagree (strongly even) while still being civil to one another.

Can you provide a reference for that please. This CBC article states it is $260 million per year. The amount for road infrastructure does not include street maintenance for municipal infrastructure.

Much of the bike infrastructure is paid for through municipal property taxes, which everybody has paid into, including bicycle riders.

I find it a little confusing, personally. Perhaps somebody with accounting prowess can straighten this out.

Since no accountants are stepping up to explain this (:D), here's what I get, from diving into the numbers a little (from 2022 data):

Net total litres of gasoline sold in NS: 1,236,232,000 litres X 19.25 ¢/litre (provincial fuel tax on gasoline) = $237,974,660 (NS gasoline tax revenue)

Net total litres of diesel sold in NS: 415,788,000 X 19.55 ¢/litre (provincial fuel tax on diesel) = $81,286,554 (NS diesel tax revenue)

There's some propane used as fuel as well, but for this purpose it's negligible.
Source for fuel tax rates
Source for NS fuel sales for 2022

Add those revenues together and you get $319,261,214, which differs from the number given in the article (I have no idea why).

On top of that, the highway plan linked in one of the above posts states:
So, from the provincial budget, revenues from the Registry of Motor Vehicles is: $135,816,000.

Add the RMV revenue to the fuel tax revenue and you get: $455,077,214.

On top of that, there is money that comes from the federal government, and some cost-sharing from municipal governments. I don't have data for that.

Over and above, if one considers the HST (15%) on gasoline and diesel fuel, there's a ton more revenue coming into the budget directly from the sale of fuels. I don't have data on that, nor am I aware of the breakdown of what is taxed and what isn't (though I'm aware that in some cases there is tax on tax), let's just assume an average price of $1.50 per litre would include roughly $0.20 of HST. For the sake of simplicity, adding up the net total litres of gas and diesel (currently diesel is more expensive, but oh well) = 1,652,010,000 litres ---> HST collected might roughly be $330,402,000.

Not sure how much of that HST (federal or provincial component) would be diverted directly to road infrastructure, but if you look at revenue sources from motor vehicle registration and taxes on fuel, it looks like it's roughly in the neighbourhood of $785,000,000 give or take (plus any errors or misinterpretations I could have made). Unless I've made some grave error, it appears that motor vehicle owners/operators pay more than enough directly from motor vehicle ownership/usage to cover road infrastructure expenses.

I'm not sure why my numbers are not the same as those quoted by the provincial finance minister, nor do know why the article states that the tax is 15.5 ¢/litre when the federal document that I linked to above states that it's 19.25 ¢/litre for gasoline and 19.55 ¢/litre for diesel (the article doesn't differentiate). :shrug:

OldDartmouthMark,

Thank you for the reply. I’m not sure I agree philosophically with the direct application of the registration fees (the cost of administrating licensing needs to be taken into account), but more specifically the HST (it is general revenue, and applying it just to the roads means we are putting roads ahead of other things). I think the original statement that it is covered by “fuel tax” is misleading.

The fact remains that the majority of municipal streets are covered by property taxes, and bicycle riders either directly or indirectly pay those. There are provincial offsets, which makes it complicated.

By the way, I’m not opposed to using general revenue in order to maintain roads; they are in the public good. The program presented by the NS government seems largely correct in the current fiscal environment. I would like to see faster progress on the 107 (to which I’m biased, as it is a personal benefit). I wouldn’t be supportive of a massive increase.

I also think the program of bike lanes is largely correct, although I’d be supportive of deferring some on street until the funds are available for proper off street.

I see no need to link the issues in a thread about the provinces highway spending program… it should be debated on it’s merits and affordability.

Good work Mark, you saved me some time.

Back in 1999 John Hamm had an election platform that had over 100 promises. One of them was a pledge to use all of the fuel tax revenue on fixing roads, which for some reason seemed to be a hot-button issue at the time. Nobody knew what that figure was for whatever reason, but it sounded like a good promise.

Once he got elected the new govt had to figure out how to deal with all those promises and the new govt had the bureaucracy research them and develop options for making them reality. Imagine the surprise when they were told that the fuel tax revenue was just a fraction of what was being spent on roads and that they would need to add to it significantly from other sources to deal with the road promises that had been made. The number I recall from the time was in the area of $450 to $500 mil per year. Oddly enough the issue came up again a few years later when Russell MacKinnon introduced a private members bill to enshrine the principle in law, but of course that went nowhere.

What about Highway 113?

Who knows then that will ever get built. Should be sooner than later though!

If I was in the NS department of Transportation I would be looking at a bypass for Hebbs Cross, Italy Cross, Middlewood. It’s one of the last bad sections of the 103 that’s left with a lot of houses and at grade intersections. Clyde River is one of the other sections. There is also still about 6-7 other at grade crossings on the controlled access parts of the highway.

Did you get to look at 101 beyond Digby too? :D

I'm not sure what there is to disagree with, as it is plainly stated in the government document that "Almost every dollar from Registry of Motor Vehicle (RMV) fees and the fuel tax goes back into provincial roads".

If you take the time to read the provincial document I linked to, you will see that the costs for Access Nova Scotia exceeds the revenue from the RMV, but Access NS deals with much more than motor vehicle registration, and it would appear that the administration costs for vehicle registrations are included with the broad costs of Access NS. I'd welcome it if you wanted to do further research to help break down the costs (if the information is even available), but I've spent all the time I want to spend on digging into that.

The reason I went further and discussed HST is the narrative being presented by some posters is that somehow roads are a 'freebie' for motorists, being supplemented by people who don't use motor vehicles (when in fact they do indirectly, given that all of our goods that we survive on are being transported on our roads). The rough numbers I came up with (which I purposely was conservative with) shows that on the whole, motorists pay more in taxes and license fees in a year than the government invests in the roads. Even if HST on gasoline and diesel doesn't go directly to the roads (I know it doesn't), monies from those purchases (which are being directly paid by motorists specifically to operate their motor vehicles) go directly into the federal and provincial budgets, who ultimately spend money from budgets on the roads. The idea might be a little abstract for some of us, but if you really think about it, it will make some sense.


I wasn't really wanting to say anything about bike lanes, as it's not on topic of the provincial road budget.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last sentence, by the way.

Thanks Keith. When I decided to dive into it a little, it surprised me how it's not an easy task to root out numbers to help understand this information, unless I was just looking in the wrong places (which is possible). Government stuff never ceases to amaze me in how non-clear it appears to be. Then you throw in stuff that today's "journalists" put out there (that readers take as fact), and the numbers are all over the place. I'm still not sure if my calculations are correct, but since there doesn't seem to be any publicly-accessible document that lays it all out clearly, it becomes a puzzle that has to be put together from pieces of a number of other puzzles.

And then, as is typical for the internet, you get a bunch of people forming opinions that clearly don't want to do the work before they comment. In fairness, we've all probably done that at one point or another, because it takes time and energy to do, and it's much easier to spew out random stuff they've heard that aligns with their preferences, and then if anybody disagrees, they can just call them names. Gotta love it. :rolleyes:

OldDartmouthMark,

Bottom line up front: I largely agree with you. Motorists pay their fair share in fuel taxes, registrations, and general revenue.

I also think that the amount the NS Government spends from both dedicated "fuel" taxes and general revenues is mostly correct for the current fiscal environment. I think the suburbs don't realize how much of an infrastructure burden they are in total (for openness, I just moved to the outer suburbs from Cole Harbour).

That's why I said "philosophically," I disagree with how the government does it. Registration fees should be used to manage the registration processes, in order to be transparent. All fuel taxes should go to transportation infrastructure, and it should be transparent how much general revenue is applied to that.

I agree... the provincial budget for roads should be discussed on it's own merits and cost benefit. My last sentence was disagreeing with other's who had already linked the discussion with bike lanes (from both sides).

Fair enough. Thanks for clearing that up! :tup:

Sure would have been nice to see any of the following be more than a fantasy of mine

1. HWY 113
2. 107 from Lake Loon to Preston
3. Margeson extension (or one of any 3 originally planned routes to Beaverbank)

It's interesting to look at old provincial capacity planning. I saw a report about the 102 and they had projected years for when 4 vs 6 lanes would be required. There's no way that the population hasn't blown past the 2026 projections from 2016 by now, and maybe 2036 or 2046 projections.

A difference between highways and transit in NS is that the province has a sense of long-term direction for highways including land acquisition. Fixed transit infrastructure is basically ad hoc in comparison. There isn't an equivalent of building out the 102 corridor or the 113 of transit.

I'm sure everyone has a pet project that they would like to see on this list or higher on this list. For me it is adding (at least) a third lane to the 102 in both directions between Joe Howe and Dunbrack and outbound between Dunbrack and Bayer's Lake. It seems like such low hanging fruit that would make a huge difference to rush hour and traffic in general. The overhead signage and bridge over Washmill Lake Road are already wide enough so the only complicating factor would be the excavation and retaining wall along School Street.

I'm often puzzled by the Circ having up to 6 lanes in each direction and the 102 having only 2.

I think this is really what differentiates many North American cities from a lot of the rest of the world when it comes to transit, and also active transportation. Every project is a "pilot project" and involves copious engagement, design experimentation, capacity building, etc. In contrast, in areas that do transit and AT well... it's just part of the standard engineering specifications and processes and is built into the day-to-day business of public works departments.

I agree, entering the 102 from Joe Howe or Connaught feels old and small. 2025 (?) Windsor St Exchange redesign is due to help Joe Howe traffic but only toward the bridge of course.

After a very long gestation period - the piece linked says it began in 2017 but to me it seemed to start much earlier than that with tree clearing and site grading - the twinned stretch of the 103 from Tantallon to Hubbards has finally opened. NS highway construction projects always seem to move very slowly with long periods where one sees no activity whatsoever, which is what happened with this. Or alternatively, long periods where there are a handful of workers with just a few pieces of equipment puttering around. I suppose my perception is skewed from having watched large projects in the US when I was a kid when they were building the Interstate system. It seemed you would go for miles seeing an army of workers and equipment generating large clouds of dust working hard and building those.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6453684

How did that work??
We’d like to learn in other provinces.

Highway 104 between New Glasgow and Antigonish I thought was done quite fast. Also, I heard the main reason Highway 103 was delayed was because resources had to be reallocated last summer towards flood repair.

Ultimately if they can twin the 103 to Bridgewater that would be fantastic. Past there the traffic volumes reduce enough. There are still issues, but a European style 2+1 with centre cable barrier from Bridgewater to Yarmouth would be sufficient and much less expensive.

That would fail to explain the lack of activity for a number of years prior though. I suspect the PNS bean counters at Finance choked off funding for several years.

I always found it jarring when travelling from Bridgewater towards points south how the 103 abruptly stops being limited access and essentially becomes old Route 3 with driveways, intersections and small businesses beyond exit 14.

True, it did seem quite slow on that project for some reason.