SYDNEY, N.S. — Retired Cape Breton Regional Municipality councillor Jim MacLeod says he’s still getting calls from people curious about when Sydney’s so-called ‘road to nowhere’ will open to traffic.
“It’s been a long time coming – getting this road open is something I worked on for years,” said MacLeod, the former District 12 representative who for years spearheaded calls to have the thoroughfare opened to motorists.
Now, two months after MacLeod’s retirement and more than seven years after it was built, the road is about to open. CBRM public works manager Ray Boudreau told the Cape Breton Post he expects the road to be open by the end of the first week of January.
“This is great news – its opening brings closure,” said MacLeod, who after four decades in politics opted not to seek re-election in the Oct. 17 municipal vote.
“I thought I would still be on council when the road opened but it’s better late than never.”
The road was constructed as an alternative route between Sydney’s Ashby area and Whitney Pier. It runs across the site of the Sydney steel plant’s former coke ovens from Inverness Street near Sydney’s Fire Station No. 2 to the intersection of Lingan Road and the Sydney Ports Access Road (SPAR) at the edge of Whitney Pier. The smooth-surfaced roadway, which runs parallel to the main Sydney-Whitney Pier connector (a 60-year-old, 700-metre viaduct), was built in 2013 as part of a 10-year, $400-million Sydney tar ponds and associated sites remediation project.
For most of the past seven years the ‘road to nowhere’ has been blocked at the SPAR junction by concrete jersey barriers. Initially, the reason for the delay was a set of railway tracks that ran through the SPAR junction. The tracks, which have since been removed, were under the jurisdiction of U.S.-based Genesee & Wyoming’s Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway, then-owners of the rail spur that has been idle for more than 20 years.
However, the road was finally given the green light to open just over a year ago. The rails in question were removed, curbs were constructed along the road near the SPAR junction and traffic light infrastructure was installed at the intersection.
By January of 2020, it was expected that the road would open sometime in the spring. That never happened as the COVID pandemic put the project on hold. In August, it was speculated that the road would be open by mid-October. That also never happened. In fact, the unopened road became a source of frustration for motorists forced to endure a two-month closure of the Sydney-Whitney Pier overpass that led to frequent traffic congestion from all directions at the intersection of Lingan Road and the SPAR.
Work crews were on the scene in the days leading up to Christmas putting the final tweaks on the traffic light system. Now, it appears there are no further reasons to delay the road’s opening.
But will the road make a difference?
“Most importantly it will give emergency services and traffic in general a second option to get in or out of Whitney Pier,” said MacLeod.
“If there’s an accident on the overpass like there was some 20 years ago when there was a fatal accident, or if the overpass is closed like it just was for some time, now we’ll have an alternative route.”
The road, which is essentially an extension of Inverness Street, offers emergency responders from the Sydney fire station No. 2 on Victoria Road quick access to the SPAR, Lingan Road and Ferry Street.
MacLeod also noted that the new road will open up some prime real estate for development. The area around the road is owned by the provincial agency Nova Scotia Lands.
The former councillor suggested that the unnamed road be called after Carl (Campy) Crawford, a Whitney Pier resident who in 1964 became the first black municipal police officer east of Montreal. And, on New Year’s Eve, MacLeod acknowledged that he has received word that the new road will indeed be called Crawford’s Crossing.
He also suggested that the road be extended south to connect with Vulcan Avenue.
David Jala is a political reporter at the Cape Breton Post.
