so when the light was shed on the city's plan to build an east-end bridge (where my parents live and where i grew up) connecting ottawa to gatineau, my ears perked up. and red lights starting going off.
not good.
let's back up a little bit. ask most people i know, my number one pet peeve is traffic and commuting. it's part of why i chose to go to queen's (twice!) and why i have a huge fear of living in toronto. i detest it. so much, for so many reasons: it's a frustrating, time-wasting, environment-destroying way to spend 10+ hours of your week. time you could be spending with family or doing a hobby or exercising or freaken mowing the lawn. ANYTHING ELSE.
as of now, my impression of the traffic situation in ottawa is that it's just about to get out of control. the city is continuing to experience major urban sprawl and the highway is getting more and more clogged during rush hour everyday. not to mention that the public transportation system is at capacity. obviously our city councillors are aware of this (if nothing else), so over the next five years (most of which i will be blissfully away in kingston, thank GOD) a light rail train (LRT) will be built running from tunney's pastor, under the downtown core, to blair. according to the LRT website the $2.1 billion project will reduce downtown bus traffic 50% (presumably making it safer for cyclists which is awesome) as well as reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 94,000 tones (among other benefits). all good stuff. and it's definitely about time. i don't really understand why it doesn't extend to orleans given that 100,000 people live there and the community is expanding towards rockland everyday. but i digress.
i'm less interested in the city's other solution to traffic: a new bridge that will connect ottawa and gatineau. currently, the national capital commission (NCC) is in the last phase of consultation as they evaluate three options for the 6th bridge's location: one near the rockcliffe airport and two further east that connects over the rockcliffe parkway to orleans. the goal it seems is to alleviate truck and commuter traffic from the downtown bridges and it would cost $500 million dollars.
attending the public consultation that was held by what i gathered was the firm that is in charge of the consultations only reaffirmed my belief that this a waste of ottawa taxpayers' dollars on a 1950s mentality of urban planning. building a bridge that far east will allow gatineau commuters to jump on the 174 to get to their jobs in ottawa thereby increasing the traffic towards downtown. in addition, it will trespass onto the greenbelt and the aviation parkway, a beautiful waterfront that thousands of cyclists, runners, walkers and rollerbladers love to enjoy. it actually hurts my heart to think about that. i love that parkway. and the ncc should be protecting it, not destroying it. not to mention it is completely unsustainable. what's going to happen in 20, 30 years when traffic increases again? another bridge?
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| three potential corridors for 6th bridge (CBC news, link below) |
commuters need an incentive to use environmentally friendly public transportation and congested highways are a great one. in fact, the engineer i spoke to from the consulting firm backed up my views. he pointed to the difference between west end and east end traffic. the city has invested in expanding the highway to kanata where no similar additions have been to orleans. as a result, use of OC transpo from east end commuters exeeds that of west end by 40-50%!
the $500 million slotted for this bridge NEEDS to go towards expanding the LRT to orleans and even to gatineau, as well as adding more trains. that is real, sustainable, environmental, forward-thinking solution. ideally, 5-10 years from now the LRT would be so good that everyone would use it to commute downtown.
one day, when i settle
in Ottawa, i don’t want to spend an hour getting to work honking at cars with
quebec license plates. i want to be able to take a bus from the corner of my
street to a light rail station 5 minutes away and hop on a train downtown.
that's the kind of ottawa i want to live in. and i don't think i'm alone.
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