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A group of east-side councillors and community advocates met with Transport Minister John Baird Thursday afternoon to make a clear point about a new interprovincial bridge: Don’t build it at Lower Duck Island or McLaurin Bay.
Orléans Councillor Bob Monette, Innes Councillor Rainer Bloess and Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett wanted to impress upon the Ottawa West-Nepean MP their opposition to the two possible routes the National Capital Commission added to a detailed study after a consultant made a preliminary recommendation that a new bridge should cross the Ottawa River at Kettle Island.
Although the NCC-hired consultant recommended Kettle Island, north of the Aviation Parkway, as the best site, the commission’s board chose last winter to expand the number of potential routes it would study to include Lower Duck Island and McLaurin Bay, which are farther east.
The councillors say those routes would carve up the Greenbelt and make traffic problems worse. Nor would these routes stop trucks from rolling through downtown Ottawa on their way to and from the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge.
“Study after study after study has shown that Kettle Island is the appropriate place to have an interprovincial bridge,” said Bloess, adding the councillors are also concerned that the bridge study is “out of sync” with an ongoing Greenbelt Master Plan review that’s being conducted by the NCC.
Jellett said a bridge across the Greenbelt would be more expensive and would add to traffic problems in east Ottawa and the Highway 417 and 174 split without solving the “city’s truck routing problem.”
The councillors wanted to tell Baird “why it was important for the community of Orléans that the consultation process is done properly, that the options, especially the Kettle Island option, are looked at properly. We believe it is the ideal crossing for the future bridge location,” said Monette.
Ottawa-Orléans MP Royal Galipeau helped the group get its meeting.
The councillors were joined by representatives of Common Sense Crossings.
Member Alexa Brewer said the community group is concerned about potential destruction of the Greenbelt and believes a decision on a bridge needs to be made in the context of studies that have not yet been completed as well as a “comprehensive integrated regional transit plan” that doesn’t exist.
“It’s time to stop, press pause. We’ve got a lot of different pieces of the plan, but no one full plan. We need some data, and I think we need to sit down and look at this in the cold light of day.”
A new interprovincial bridge is likely to face criticism from area residents no matter what location is proposed. People living in Rockcliffe and Manor Park oppose the Kettle Island route.
The NCC’s study of the three bridge options is expected to take until 2013.
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