Goulds bypass among infrastructure casualties in new budget

The long-planned Goulds bypass – which would allow commuters from the Southern Shore to reach St. John's in a fraction of the current time – is dead.

• Full coverage: Newfoundland and Labrador Budget 2016

To be more precise, it's been cancelled, according to background documents released with Thursday's Newfoundland and Labrador budget.

The bypass would extend the still-incomplete Team Gushue Highway to the south of Topsail Road. To date, that highway has been more rhetorical than real, with St. John's and Mount Pearl sparring over costs.

Currently, construction of the Team Gushue extension has been stalled in the leg that will eventually take drivers from Kenmount Road to Topsail Road.

Also cancelled on the government's infrastructure list are plans for a medical laboratory science program in Grand Falls-Windsor and a protective community residence in Burin.

Those three projects mean a total deferral of $26.7 million, a third of which had been set to be spent this year.

School plans affected by budget

Government intends to save significantly more by kicking a number of infrastructure projects down the road.

A new school in Paradise for Grades 5-8 has been deferred for two years.

Construction work at Gander Academy involving K-3 classrooms has been deferred one year.

In Bay Roberts, government is deferring the planning work on a replacement for the aging Coley's Point Primary for three years.

Three health-care infrastructure projects have each been pushed back by two years, including two projects in Grand Falls-Windsor and one in Springdale.

Those deferrals will mean savings of $24.8 million in the current fiscal year.

The Liberals are also deferring other projects indefinitely, which means that their status will likely rely on a return to better economic times.

The interpretation section of the Colonial Building's restoration in St. John's is on that list, along with the ambulatory care section of the hospital in Carbonear.

The other indefinite deferrals involve three schools: Villa Nova Junior High in Conception Bay South, Paradise High, and Riverside Elementary in Shoal Harbour.