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The four-year, $4.5-million environmental assessment study will look at potential locations on both sides of the river, what method could be used – either bridge, tunnel or ferry – and will evaluate the necessity of a new crossing. It will also examine the possible social, economic and planning impacts on each proposed location.
Eight sites in both the city’s eastern and western sectors have been shortlisted as prospective crossing sites, including five proposed east-end corridors at Kettle Island, Lower Duck Island, Tenth Line Road – Montée Mineault, Petrie Island and Masson-Angers – Cumberland. It’s the last two, however, that have raised serious concerns about traffic congestion and damage to local character.
Petrie Island “is a beautiful park and it takes (the proposed crossing) a long way east of where the trucks want to cross to service Gatineau and the City of Ottawa,” says Ottawa- Orléans M.P.P. Phil McNeely. “I think a vast majority of people certainly don’t want to see a bridge on the beach.”
Orléans Coun. Bob Monette says he has also heard complaints in response to the proposed Petrie Island site.
“The community has invested so much into that park. It’s becoming the preferred summer destination for residents all over Ottawa,” he continues. “It would destroy the whole character of Petrie Island. If it’s ever considered, the community will be in an uproar, I’m sure.”
Cumberland residents are also concerned about a crossing in their backyard. It is “a small, beautiful village,” says Cumberland Coun. Rob Jellett. “We want to preserve its character and its heritage.”
Another issue would be the additional facilities and resources necessary to maintain an interprovincial crossing, Jellett adds.
“It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to expropriate land, to buy houses, to widen the road to four lanes, to put in all interchanges and all the rest of it,” he continues. ”(The Cumberland site) doesn’t make any sense at all.”
For Jellett, Kettle Island – the site originally selected when a new interprovincial crossing was first considered in 1994 – strikes him as ideal.
“It’s still the best location,” he says. “We’ve got the infrastructure in place already. It’s close enough to downtown that it allows the traffic to get where it has go, but it’s also far enough out from the downtown that it takes all of the trucks off of King Edward.”
McNeely also offers Kettle Island as the best option, adding a proper evaluation of the Lower Duck Island corridor has yet to be done.
Any proposed site east of Kettle Island would have serious detrimental affects to the area’s roadways, Monette says.
“In the summer it takes a long time to get to work and in the winter it’s atrocious,” he says. “Do we really want to add more traffic to what we already have?”
Regardless, all three agree another interprovincial crossing is necessary infrastructure for the city, citing safety and congestion concerns in the downtown core.
“I mean, we’re a G8 capital and we’ve got logging trucks going right through the middle of the city,” Jellett says. “It might be quaint, it might be part of our charm, but I think we’ve grown up beyond that.”
The first round of public consultations for the study, being completed in partnership with the City of Ottawa, the Ville de Gatineau, the National Capital Commission, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and the Ministère des transports du Québec, will take place from June 6 to June 18.
A series of six consultations will be held in Quebec and Ontario, with an open house at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School planned for June 14.
Orleans Star