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You could drain and pave the Ottawa River and still not have enough capacity to handle all the rush-hour traffic between Ottawa and Gatineau.
So far, the National Capital Commission is not recommending this path though one never knows what edicts to expect from on high. It is instead taking the intermediate step of studying possible crossings, most likely two bridges, between the two solitudes. That will mean probably one in the east end and one in west.
That’s one more bridge than we need and, at about $100 million a pop, a fair bit of pocket change.
There are so many arguments against building two new bridges that it’s difficult to know where to start.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned cost, there is, first of all, the urban-planning argument that says there are enough bridges now except during the two daily rush-hours.
Like freeways, if you build bridges, they will fill to capacity shortly after construction. Either traffic will migrate from already clogged spans or development (and increased traffic) will occur in Gatineau spurred by the temporarily unclogged bridge access to Ottawa’s jobs.
Decades ago, Toronto built the 12-lane Highway 401 across the top of the city to ensure there would never be a traffic jam. Driven in Toronto lately?
Decades ago is where the NCC’s urban-planning mindset is at. Build more roads, build more bridges. If the NCC were on top of its urban-planning game, it would be tub-thumping for commuter rail across the already-built (since 1880) Prince of Wales Bridge which logically joins with Ottawa’s train line at Bayview to Gatineau. More people, less cost, and a little imagination at the NCC.
The NCC three-year study plan, presented to the city’s transportation committee last week, does not rule out the tired option of building a bridge across the Deschenes Rapids at Britannia. How long do the residents of one of Ottawa’s nicest communities, who have fought a bridge for decades and won over and over again, have to live under the cloud of the destruction of their neighbourhood by a bridge?
Furthermore, the Britannia option threatens ecologically sensitive Mud Lake.
For a second opinion on the Britannia option, ask the residents of Island Park Drive whose once scenic road (a NCC driveway) is now a parking lot after the Champlain Bridge was widened. They are voting with their feet. Check the For Sale signs.
There are more urban planning reasons against the west-end bridge. Ottawa, through its official plan, is trying to get people to live closer to their work. And while this is not always possible, locating near the Transitway or a convenient bus route is a cheap alternative. Either option is preferable to crowded highways with idling, inefficient cars stuck in traffic jams.
That’s what the runups to the Ottawa River bridges resemble during rush-hour.
Access between Ottawa and Gatineau is not congested at present except at rush hours. And a west-end bridge won’t solve the 9 a.m.-5 p.m. problem. Thus a span between Aylmer and Kanata is $100 million worth of worthless. And what happens to a rural part of Kanata and quaint Aylmer with all that bridge traffic?
Finally, the very assumptions on which the case for a west-end bridge rests could be faulty. The report cites the highly optimistic population growth figures in the city’s official plan for more river links. Those forecast 1.2-million people in Ottawa in 2021. Area business groups have called the growth forecasts exaggerated.
There is, however, a need for one bridge—in the east end, and not for commuting reasons. Huge trucks travelling from Highway 417 across the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge to Gatineau must currently travel through downtown Ottawa. That is a prescription for disaster with big tractor-trailers making tight turns in a highly populated area. Some of those vehicles carry dangerous materials such as gasoline. They must be taken out of the core.
An east-end bridge joins easily with Autoroute 50 for efficient truck access to most anywhere in Gatineau. It too can be linked to Highway 174 on the Ontario side. That is the bridge to be built.
But a west-end bridge flies in the face of good urban planning. So too does ignoring the commuter-rail potential of the Prince of Wales Bridge.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2005