Northern Links giving dollars to some area communities

Northwestern Ontario was not completely ignored when the province doled out $20 million to communities via its Connecting Links fund.

Dryden will receive $71,894 for routing and sealing of pavement on Government Street, whole Fort Frances gets $40,727 for detailed design and engineering for rehabilitation of the Mill Road overpass.

Combined the province gave half a per cent of the available cash to communities in the region.

Cornwall and Aylmer will each receive $3 million for work on roads and bridges.

The fund was created to help municipalities make roads and bridges safer, but only for roads that connect two ends of a provincial highway through a community or to a border crossing.

The program will grow to $25 million in 2017-18 and to $30 million in 2018-19.

According to the province, there are about 350 kilometres or roads and 70 bridges in 77 communities that qualify for the program.