There is potential funding on the horizon for a four-laning project for McKeown Avenue in North Bay.
The funding announcement came from Vic Fedeli’s office this morning, where the Nipissing MPP announced a number of local infrastructure project
At the press event, Fedeli nominated $20 million worth of local funding to benefit a number of communities in Nipissing.
“These are all projects these communities wanted to advance, they all met the cutoff date, we did the assessment and this is the first opportunity to announce these, so we encourage the Feds to accept these, sign on, put their share in, let’s get going,” said Fedeli.
McKeown Avenue was the chosen project for North Bay.
“Our senior staff looked at a number of projects we had in the hopper and McKeown Avenue area is just booming and it is one of the areas where we are seeing a lot of constraints is where McKeown Avenue goes from four-lane down to two-lane so it was identified by senior staff as one of the priorities and it fits very well so it is a wonderful program that the province and the Feds have put together and we felt that was the best project to put forward,” said Al McDonald, North Bay’s Mayor at the press conference.
The overall projects, with provincial funding in brackets include:
- McKeown Avenue Four-Laning in North Bay ($1,666,500)
- Dorion Hill Road Reconstruction in Mattawa ($1,594,507)
- Alderdale Road Reconstruction in Chisholm Twp. ($876,788)
- Gull Bay Roads Rehabilitation in Nipissing First Nation ($808,649)
- Murphy Road Bridge Replacement in Mattawan Twp. ($625,145)
- Maple Hill Road Rehabilitation in Powassan ($488,717)
Fedeli says the announcement today it is not a strategic one, with an election looming this fall.
“I say it is coincidental and good timing, but the intake opened up in March and by the time all the municipalities had to have a set of time to be able to write the projects, decide amongst their councils which projects they wanted,” explained Fedeli.
McDonald could not estimate when a tender will be issued for the McKeown project. He says that project still has to go to council so it will be part of the budget process.
