Жители Лоуттауна требуют от мэрии Ottawa перестроить Кинг-Эдвард-авеню и решить проблему трафика

Lowertown residents deserve better than King Edward Avenue | Opinion Bruce Deachman: The King Edward freeway that was never built left Lowertown residents with freeway traffic on their streets. The city should act. This may come as a surprise to anyone not collecting old-age security benefits, but King Edward Avenue was once a gorgeous residential street lined with nice houses, stately elms, and a broad, grassy median in the middle where families held picnics. But then, in 1965, a freeway came along and ruined it. And over the ensuing six decades the street has been allowed to deteriorate to an urban blight. North of Rideau Street in particular, King Edward alternates between resembling either (a) a stretch of the Queensway, with a half dozen lanes of trucks and other vehicles barrelling by at speeds well in excess of the posted limit; or (b) a stretch of the Queensway, with a half-dozen lanes of trucks and other vehicles sitting bumper-to-bumper, with all the attendant noise and fumes. I suspect that Queen Victoria’s son, for whom the street was named, would not be amused. The problem, in a nutshell, is that Highway 5 in Gatineau, a multi-lane controlled-access freeway, empties onto King Edward Avenue like a fire hose into a kitchen sink. Much of that traffic, including thousands of trucks each day, simply wants to get to Highway 417, but there is no corresponding freeway in Ottawa to accommodate that. Instead, vehicles snake along King Edward, Rideau, Waller and Nicholas — a four-kilometre stretch that is improbably an official part of Canada’s national highway system despite clearly not having been designed for that amount or type of traffic. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge opened in 1965, planners contemplated a six-lane sunken freeway through Lowertown and Sandy Hill — parallel to King Edward along Nelson Street and Henderson Avenue — connecting the bridge with the Queensway. Residents fought it and the plan, eventually deemed too expensive, was dropped, sparing Ottawa the sort of life-sucking urban expressway that North American cities were beginning to regret and that still probably has Jane Jacobs spinning in her grave. So the freeway was abandoned, but the traffic it was meant to carry wasn’t. Much of it instead ended up on King Edward and surrounding streets, leaving the residential neighbourhood to become the missing highway. - Road safety advocates say Ottawa must double down on 'Vision Zero' goal - New bike-lane law forces changes to 27 Ottawa projects - Advertisement 1Story continues below “It was never meant to be a truck route,” Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante says of the King Edward Avenue corridor, “and then we never fixed it.” The problem isn’t just aesthetic. A decade ago, a city report examining the feasibility of a truck tunnel between the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge and Highway 417 acknowledged that Lowertown and Sandy Hill were “substantially affected” by the traffic. Truck traffic, it said, had “for decades, negatively affected the liveability and safety” of residents and visitors. “Noise and air pollution, dangers due to the speed and volume of cars and trucks, and the aesthetics of having a major truck route through the downtown of Canada’s capital are all longstanding issues of concern,” the report added. Pedestrian safety has been a particular concern. At one point Rideau and King Edward had the highest frequency of pedestrian collisions of any intersection in the city. And every now and then we’re tragically reminded of that In February 2014, Yvonne Hendrikx was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer at Rideau and Waller streets as she walked to work one morning. Police said it was possible the driver didn’t even know he’d hit her. Marc Aubin, a former president of the Lowertown Community Association and longtime advocate for the area, has been sounding the alarm about the corridor for decades. In a 2019 letter to then-infrastructure minister Catherine McKenna, he described King Edward as an “interim legacy freeway” and cited noise, pollution, speeding, inadequate pedestrian infrastructure as well as nine fatalities since 1997. Help may be on the way, but it’s still a long way off. In June, the National Capital Commission’s board approved planning and design principles for a sixth Ottawa River bridge through the Kettle Island corridor between Montée Paiement in Gatineau and the Aviation Parkway in Ottawa. That doesn’t mean anything is yet cast in concrete and steel. But it is a significant step. Public Services and Procurement Canada says the bridge is expected to be operational by 2034. Regardless of how you feel about a bridge over Kettle Island — community associations in both Rockcliffe and Manor Park oppose it — it’s difficult to argue that the region doesn’t need more crossings. The Portage Bridge, the last new road bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau, opened in 1973. The National Capital Region’s population has more than doubled since then. Meanwhile, a 2024 traffic study by the NCC determined that, of the roughly 3,500 interprovincial truck crossings in the area, more than 70 per cent used the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge despite the fact that only one-third of them had origins or destinations in the immediate vicinity. Three-quarters of the crossings have start- or end-points east of the Gatineau and Rideau rivers. And not to belabour the point (he said, belabouring the point), Ottawa’s five interprovincial road bridges are all found in a narrow eight-kilometre stretch from the Macdonald-Cartier to the Champlain bridges. This city needs more bridges. So what do we do between now and 2034? Do we just tell Lowertown and other residents to suck it up for eight more years of noise, exhaust and pedestrians sharing a street that the city long ago said has safety and liveability issues? Or do we do something about it? Last December, city council directed staff to consider a Transportation Safety and Mobility Study for Lowertown to commence next year, subject to funding. The city also points to a number of cycling and pedestrian improvements in and around the corridor, most recently a new signalized crossing at King Edward and York Street. That’s welcome, but a study beginning next year isn’t the same thing as improvements happening next year. City officials aren’t disputing the issue. Ottawa’s Transportation Master Plan includes a King Edward Mainstreet Improvement Project between Cathcart and Rideau streets, intended to improve active transportation and the public realm. But the design and implementation date haven’t been determined, and are tied to the construction of the new bridge. Coun. Plante says the announcement of the new crossing has created uncertainty about what the city should do in the meantime, and whether improvements should be permanent or temporary. “We don’t have enough details in terms of timelines or construction to really know what we can do at this point.” But the city shouldn’t wait. The “meantime” that’s lacked solutions has been going on for 61 years. As Aubin and current Lowertown Community Association president Josiah Frith argue, a redesign of King Edward is long overdue. Some of the ideas the pair have recommended include allowing temporary use of Portage Bridge for trucks; smarter freight routing; returning King Edward to four lanes and narrowing lanes to reduce speeding; adding crosswalks and traffic-calming measures; and putting back some of the greenery that was sacrificed when the street was widened. One of Aubin’s more intriguing ideas would put four lanes — two in each direction — in the centre of the existing roadway, replacing the median and leaving much more space between traffic and the sidewalks and homes. The reclaimed space, he says, could accommodate two rows of trees on either side. Plante, too, talks about “reimagining King Edward,” with more room for people. She would like the restoration of the street to form part of whatever community-benefits package accompanies the construction of a new bridge. Not every idea would work. Some might interfere too much with freight movement, while others would require provincial or federal agreement — we already know how the province feels about speed cameras, and bike lanes don’t appear to be in the premier’s municipal gift catalog. And, with the fragile trade situation between Canada and the U.S., interprovincial transport is increasingly important. As Plante notes, virtually everything we consume arrives on a truck. The problem isn’t the trucks. It’s where we make them drive. So why not ask city planners to come up with a genuine plan to see what we can do to return King Edward Avenue a little of its past grandeur and make the lives of Lowertown, Sandy Hill and ByWard Market residents better and safer? Take control of your search results. Make the Ottawa Citizen a preferred source on Google and see verified local reporting first.