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Kettle Island would be a poor location for a new Ottawa River crossing, provincial candidates from Ottawa-Vanier told the Citizen’s editorial board.
An interprovincial bridge at Kettle Island – one of three potential crossings currently being studied – would only move the truck traffic into “another built community,” and would not “remove 100 per cent of the trucks from the downtown,” Liberal incumbent Madeleine Meilleur told the board on Tuesday.
Other candidates agreed that the crossing is a bad idea, and said many residents have been frustrated over the long-standing problem of truck traffic in the downtown core.
The possibility of a interprovincial bridge at Kettle Island, north of the Aviation Parkway, has been a sore spot for residents in Rockcliffe and Manor Park, just as other possible crossings farther east have been similarly decried by people living near them.
Although a consultant hired by the National Capital Commission had recommended Kettle Island as the best site, the commission’s board chose to expand the number of potential routes it would study to include Lower Duck Island and Gatineau Airport/McLaurin Bay, east of Kettle Island.
The last four rounds of consultations for a federal environmental assessment study are to end next fall.
Progressive Conservative candidate Fred Sherman said the Kettle Island crossing is near the Montfort Hospital and a developed area, and he’s confident that the process will find “that Kettle Island will not be the best solution for an interprovincial bridge.”
NDP candidate Paul Étienne Laliberté-Tipple said a Kettle Island crossing “will ruin a neighbourhood.”
Green party candidate Dave Bagler said a crossing at Kettle Island “is more moving the problem than it is anything else.”
Meilleur described the bridge as the top issue in the riding and said a route must be found that doesn’t affect an existing community.
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