The government of Nova Scotia is rerouting a portion of Eastern Shore’s famous Lawrencetown Road in light of closures and damage brought on by increasingly frequent storm surges in the region.
The approximately 400-metre stretch of road, which is known for its close proximity to scenic Lawrencetown Beach—a popular spot for surfing and hiking on Nova Scotia’s coast—will undergo a realignment, bringing the road roughly 40 metres inland.
First announced in December 2023, the project has not yet broken ground, but Dwayne Cross, a manager of highway planning and design for the department of public works, says extensive preparation work has been completed in advance of the planned 2025 construction season.
Relying on around $1 million in funding secured through the federal government’s Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, public works has completed a field survey, detailed design, consultation with Indigenous groups, archaeological shovel testing for potential artefacts located at the new road location, and are having meetings with key stakeholders. The next step, Cross says, is to begin tree-clearing this winter.
But for now, the road, which sits within a stone’s throw from the water, will continue to withstand beatings from weather events. “It’s very close to the shoreline, and it’s fairly low-lying, so over the years, every now and then, we’d get storms or hurricanes and heavy waves and storm surge carrying debris and other stuff to the point where the road is impassable,” says Cross. “It’s a concern for a variety of reasons, especially from an emergency management perspective, and there seems to be a little bit more of a frequency to it in recent years.”
Though the new road location sits a mere 40 metres further inland, the public works department has gone to great lengths to ensure the new position and elevation will guarantee a generous lifespan, despite extreme weather events and sea level rise brought on by climate change in the years to come.
“We reached out to an external consultant whose specialty is dealing with coastal modelling,” says Cross. “Through their work, they informed us how far inland we had to move the road and what type of elevation we should be putting it at.”
The consulting firm made multiple recommendations based on various projected lifespans of the road, and public works chose the most durable one, which is projected to last until around 2075—a timeframe that could be extended with the further protection that will be afforded by a renaturalization of the coastline. “It’s a big investment we’re putting into this road, and we certainly want it to last a lifetime,” says Cross.
The renaturalization makes up the second phase of the project, set to follow the road’s 2025 realignment, when the old road will be disassembled and replaced with a natural coastline, “returning the site to how it was before human intervention,” says Cross. The replacement of native flora will help provide a natural barrier to storm surges, similar to how mangroves can lessen the impacts of tsunamis.
Another key part of the project will include changing the location of the where the Atlantic View Trail crosses Lawrencetown Road. “We’re taking this opportunity to improve the trail crossing for better safely for trail users and motorists that are passing that crossing point,” says Cross.
As the road is so iconic and provides direct access to the popular Lawrencetown Beach, the public works department has also ensured the road will remain open for the duration of the realignment project, and Cross tells us the department is looking into holding public consultations before they break ground on the new road.
“Lawrencetown Beach is a very popular location where locals come out and enjoy a beach day or the trail. It will be good to have a public meeting and inform the community what this project is going to look like,” he says.
In the coming years, infrastructure projects like these may become more common as climate change produces increasingly frequent and extreme weather events that damage roads and other infrastructure in Nova Scotia and other costal provinces.
Even inland, Nova Scotia is seeing increased damages. “We’ve been seeing some storm damage, not necessarily coastal, but we have watercourses and rivers inland where we increasingly get storms that cause structure damage and road damage from washouts,” says Cross.
The Lawrencetown Road realignment represents an important effort from the province to stay on top of climate change-related infrastructure damages and preserve access to beloved natural landmarks for generations to come. “By offsetting the road, we’ll have a roadway that is resilient to climate change, sea level rise, and storm events.,” says Cross.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Lawrencetown Road as being on the South Shore.
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