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Province Commits 625 Million To Northern Roads

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This year’s Northern Highways Program includes the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway west of Kenora.

Greg Rickford is the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and says all told, the government plans to spend $625 million this year on road and bridge upgrades.

“Safe and reliable highways are important to everyone in the north and we have a lot of open road with nearly 11,000 kilometers of highway crossing northern Ontario,” says Rickford.

The Kenora-Rainy River MPP stresses “These investments are going to make travel easier, but most importantly safer.”

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CN Rail Investing In Rail System In Ontario

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CN has announced major plans to strengthen its rail network across Ontario this year.

The company says it plans to invest roughly $310 million this year on facilities, the replacement of rail lines and ties, as well as upgrading bridges, crossings, culverts, signal systems and tracks.

Some of the highlights in the maintenance program include the replacement of more than 60 miles of rail, the installation of roughly 195,000 new railroad ties and the rebuild of 86 road crossings.

CN Rail hasn’t identified where the work will be carried out.

(Photo Credit: CN Rail

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Tbaytel Upgrades In Vermilion Bay

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Tbaytel customers in Vermilion Bay can expect service disruptions Wednesday and Thursday.

Wireless maintenance upgrades are taking place both days from 7:00am until 3:00pm.

Wireless customers will experience outages of up to one hour each day to their Tbaytel HSPA mobility service, including voice calls, data usage and text messaging.

Officials say every effort will be taken to restore service as quickly as possible.

Any customers experiencing issues with their Tbaytel mobility service outside of this maintenance window are encouraged to contact Tbaytel’s 24-hour technical support team at (807) 623-4400 or toll-free at 1-800-264-9501.

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Radars Being Upgraded Across Canada

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Environment Canada is in the midst of a seven-year program to replace all of its weather radars.

Seven radars were replaced over the past year, including New Brunswick’s lone site in Chipman.

Jill Maepea, a meteorologist with the weather agency, said the state-of-the-art radars have a leading-edge technology called dual-polarization.

“This allows for the shapes of targets to be detected much more easily so we can distinguish between rain, snow, hail and freezing rain, as well as non-meteorological targets such as birds or bugs,” said Maepea.

The new radars also have an extended severe-weather detection range to cover more of Canada.

Maepea said the Doppler range will be increased to 240 kilometres from the current 120 kilometres.

“The greater range allows for a greater lead time for that severe weather,” she said. “Not only do we have more detail that severe weather could be approaching the area, we can actually see it now further approaching the area.”

Maepea said the new radars also send back images to forecasters every six minutes instead of 10.

She said this will be especially beneficial during severe weather, such as thunderstorms and tornadoes.

“It definitely helps the forecaster identify that radar signature right away and possibly issue a warning so the public can protect themselves or their family more quickly than before,” she said.

The federal government the signing of an $83-million contract to upgrade the weather-radar network in February of 2017.

All of the radars are expected to be upgraded by March of 2023.