Members of a group of concerned citizens in Antigonish say they’re concerned officials with the provincial government are exploiting a dangerous section of local highway to push through twinning using the P3 model without community resistance.
Sarah O’Toole, a spokesperson with the Antigonish Residence Association, says she wants Hwy. 104 twinned between Antigonish and Sutherlands River, but the P3 model is the wrong way to do it.
O’Toole tells The Hawk provincial officials are exploiting fear to make the project happen.
“If it was such a pressing need, then why wasn’t it already started in the usual model?” she says. “There is some concern that perhaps the very precise danger of that section of highway is being leveraged so that the public won’t care how it’s getting done- just that it is getting done.”
O’Toole says that section of highway would be safe if twinned through a public project, and wouldn’t come with the long-term costs of the P3 model.
She says the P3 model is slower, more expensive, and more dangerous in the case of private highway maintenance.
O’Toole says the danger of that section of highway has stopped people from considering those factors.
“There’s concerns that our desire and desperation for it to be remedied is being leveraged to be able to push through a P3 model without too many people being opposed to it.”
O’Toole says the highway needs to be twinned for safety reasons, but that isn’t a reason to accept the P3 model.
