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OTTAWA — Kettle Island is the best location for a new bridge linking Ontario and Quebec, consultants for the National Capital Commission confirmed Monday.
The NCC’s consultants, ROCHE-NCE, in September said Kettle Island was the preliminary choice for a bridge aimed at easing interprovincial traffic and diverting trucks from downtown Ottawa. On Monday, the NCC released the consultants’ final report in the first phase of the bridge project.
This report goes to the board of the NCC in the third week of January for approval and to council’s transportation committee on Monday. If approved, the project would proceed to the second phase of the environmental assessment, which will look at exactly what form the crossing should take, and could last 40 months.
The commission generated a storm of opposition in the fall when its consultants proposed Kettle Island as the preferred route, since it would be a major disruption to Ottawa residents in the Manor Park and Rockcliffe Park neighbourhoods.
The report says the Kettle Island site is the “best balanced” of 12 possible routes the consultants examined. Some Ottawa politicians on the city’s east side, representing neighbourhoods affected by the proposed project, have urged the NCC and its consultants to look at a route farther east, via Lower Duck Island.
But Steve Taylor, project manager for the consultants’ group, said Monday that building a bridge along that corridor would be more costly and have a bigger effect on the environment. A Lower Duck Island route would require about 79 property buyouts and some business buyouts, as well as construction of new roads.
By contrast, because the Kettle Island route has been a reserved corridor for many years, the approach roads are mostly built and the property needed for a bridge is almost entirely in public hands. The report released Monday says that part of the Aviation Parkway would have to be widened, a new intersection would have to be built with the Rockcliffe Parkway, a new road would be built north in Gatineau from the bridge to Maloney Boulevard, and Montée Paiement over Highway 50 would have to be made a four-lane structure.
It proposes to build a bridge with long spans of 200 metres over the navigational channel to accommodate sailing boats passing below.
Mr. Taylor said such wide spans should create a beautiful bridge.
“It’s going to be a spectacular bridge, a landmark structure on the Ottawa River, a focal point for visitors to the region,” he said.
That’s if the political will is found to approve and pay for the structure, which is estimated to cost between $400 million and $500 million.
The planning process for the proposed bridge involves the Ontario and Quebec governments, the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau and the NCC taking the lead for the federal government.
Ottawa Councillor Rainer Bloess, of east-side Innes Ward, said Monday that the Kettle Island route for a bridge is a near unanimous selection of elected representatives, already supported by a 17-4 vote of Ottawa council and all the members of council’s transportation committee. Mr. Bloess noted that the bridge has been in transportation master plans for many years, despite being delayed by political pressure during past inter-provincial studies.
“Kettle Island is the best of non-perfect solutions,” said Mr. Bloess.
He noted that Ottawa-Vanier MPP Madeleine Meilleur opposes the route but he said that if this third version of the bridge project is killed, the whole idea could be permanently shelved and downtown Ottawa will have to endure horrendous truck traffic to and from Macdonald-Cartier Bridge indefinitely.
“We need every level of government or we may never get another bridge,” said Mr. Bloess.
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