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A new bridge across the Ottawa River should be built at Kettle Island, the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau agree.
Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien seemed to want to avoid the subject at a breakfast meeting of francophone businesspeople in Gatineau Tuesday morning, but a final question from an audience member forced his hand.
“My own personal preference is for Kettle Island,” Mr. O’Brien said diplomatically, perhaps mindful of the presence of Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard, who opposes the location. Kettle Island is the site recommended by a consultant working for the National Capital Commission, the federal agency leading the effort to build a bridge to help take traffic off King Edward Avenue in downtown Ottawa.
“I think the NCC study, the environmental assessment of the different options clearly showed that Kettle was the best option,” said Mr. O’Brien.
“If they do study a few more options, I’m OK with that, as long as we ultimately get a bridge.”
Gatineau Mayor Marc Bureau, however, was eager to proclaim Gatineau’s support for the Kettle Island bridge.
The 10,000 people who work along Montée Paiement would benefit, he said. The main alternatives — both of which cross the river farther east, at Lower Duck Island — are unacceptable, he said.
The route that would join Airport Boulevard on the Gatineau side would require construction over McLaurin Bay, environmentally sensitive land protected by the Quebec government.
The other would join the two-lane Lorrain Boulevard, requiring a costly expansion to double its width as well as the relocation of dozens of residents. This option is a “categorical no,” said Mr. Bureau.
An NCC board meeting this Friday is to include a vote on which of the three options will move to the next phase of research — a three-year federal environmental assessment, which will also include studies of community impact, transit and economic impact.
The NCC has its consultant’s recommendation in hand, but it also has letters from the Ontario and Quebec governments asking for full studies of all three corridors for crossings. Ottawa city council has asked the NCC to examine two routes — Kettle Island and one of the Lower Duck routes.
It is slated to re-examine the question Wednesday. The NCC is holding off a decision on the next set of studies until all the governments involved have made up their minds.
The Kettle Island route is virtually assured to be included in the next phase. If all three options are selected, NCC chief executives Marie Lemay said the extra work could add an extra year to the process.
“But after 30 years, what’s one more?” she said.
“The good news is we’ve never been this far in this process. All the studies before were concepts … you would have always needed to do an environmental assessment.”
Phase 2 is the final step before construction, though Ms. Lemay notes there will still be a few years between the end of the study and the first spade in the ground, while the NCC finds firms to design and construct the bridge.
“At the end of the day we are an influencer, we are not the decision maker,” said Mr. O’Brien. “In a city like Ottawa, quite frankly, I think we need three or four more bridges, so let’s get on with one.”
Meanwhile, Larry O’Brien also joined Mr. Bureau in extolling a more integrated approach to linking downtown Ottawa and Gatineau.
Rideau Street is glutted with OC Transpo and STO buses, both of which pick up and drop off passengers on either side of the provincial border. Dozens of bus routes use the Rideau Centre’s bus stops, including many from each city that go back and forth across the Ottawa River.
So far, the better-integrated approach is little more than an idea, with no concrete plans as to who would run it or what might need to be built to accommodate it.
One possibility is a circle line, running through both downtowns and crossing the river in two places. A rail line might even be possible, eventually.
“Maybe in the future, if the federal government wants to invest the hundreds of millions it would require,” said Mr. Bureau.
That’s a big if. The City of Ottawa and the Ontario and federal governments are already on the hook for a multibillion-dollar expansion of Ottawa’s transit system.
Mr. O’Brien pledged “absolutely 100 per cent” to go ahead with the ambitious plan to run a light rail tunnel through downtown, even in spite of the unknown long-term cost to ridership caused by the recent transit strike.
In Gatineau, a planned Rapibus project will see a Transitway-like network installed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
“If we can link our two downtowns I think we will have made progress,” said Mr. Bureau.
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