AMHERST – Cumberland North MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin is calling on the province to work with Amherst and the Municipality of Cumberland to build a sidewalk from the town to the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre.
Smith-McCrossin raised the issue in the legislature recently, asking Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal Minister Lloyd Hines to work with the two municipalities to find a solution to the stalled project that was last raised in 2013.
“Back in 2003, we had a new hospital built, the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre. But it was built just outside of the town limits, and during that time, the community was told that a sidewalk would be built between the town and the other side of highway, where the new hospital was built,” the MLA told the legislature. “To this day, nothing has ever been built. We have people walking every day in unsafe conditions, because there is no sidewalk, and we also have the elderly driving their electric wheelchairs on the highway. We've been calling for this to be built for about 15 years now.
Hines responded that sidewalks are a municipal responsibility and said the Municipality of Cumberland would be responsible. He did say his department would be willing to work with the municipality if there were a way it could assist.
Smith-McCrossin said the town and the county have tried to work with the department, but have been shut down because Highway 104 is between the town and the hospital and a solution to cross the highway’s on and off ramps had not been found.
She suggested taking some of the revenue from the Cobequid Pass to help build a safe walking trail to the hospital from Amherst.
In an email to the Amherst News on Tuesday, department spokesperson Marla MacInnis repeated that sidewalks are the responsibility of the municipality, for both construction and maintenance.
She said projects such as this are reviewed by the department through a permitting process that is initiated by the municipality.
“We will review any sidewalk design based on our standards and with consideration to safety,” she said. “This sidewalk was reviewed in the past and permitted. The permit was good for one year; however, work did not occur during this timeframe and the permit lapsed. The municipality did not request an extension at the time and were advised that the process would need to be repeated if they wanted to proceed in the future.”
Both Amherst CAO Greg Herritt and Cumberland County CAO Rennie Bugley said there have been preliminary discussions between the two municipal units, but it hasn’t really gone much farther than that.
“There have been some preliminary discussions but that’s all we’ve had,” Herrett said. “At this point, there isn’t really any substantive to add to that.”
Bugley said the subject was brought up during a recent meeting of the mayors and deputy mayors of Amherst and Oxford, the warden and deputy warden of Cumberland County and both CAOs and it hasn’t even been taken back to either council for further discussion or consultations.
Bugley said the project fell off the rails in 2013 because the estimates came back much higher than anticipated.
“It would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Bugley said. “And then we’d have to maintain it. It would’ve cost a lot more money than we expected so it was put on hold. It’s much more complicated than simply building a sidewalk.”
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