Elgin Street plan just plain wrong

Re: Two-year Elgin Street construction endorsed by city transportation committee, May 3.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ottawa took its tramway and all trolley cars off city streets.

To this day, we lament the loss of such infrastructure.

Now the city is proposing to remove two travel lanes on Elgin Street, permanently.

It is short-sighted to take such important and scarce North-South infrastructure and capacity out of the transportation system.

We do not have enough North-South transportation infrastructure as it is.

Elgin Street currently operates in the manner recommended by city staff anyway — as a low-speed, two-way street — except for peak periods.

The “complete street” concepts the city has applied to Elgin Street are meant to “support multi-modal transportation.”

However, the reduction of Elgin from four to two lanes will hinder rather than enhance public transit.

All vehicles — buses, autos, trucks and bicycles — will experience choking gridlock.

I suggest that the current four-lane configuration be maintained, and that we bury the utility poles and eliminate sidewalk obstructions.

This would vastly improve the pedestrian environment.

The curbside lanes should be converted to high occupancy vehicle/bus rapid transit lanes during peak periods.

This and the use of bus bays and queue-jump signals at intersections would significantly improve bus reliability, speed and connectivity between major transfer stations.

It would also accommodate and encourage increased population densities in the downtown core as people are far more likely to use public transport during Ottawa’s five months of winter.

In addition, it would maintain Elgin Street as a destination by keeping existing scarce parking for visitors to this vibrant business district.

The current plan is just plain wrong.

If Ottawa wants to encourage public transit use and reduce cars, we have to improve the bus system through increased frequency, reliability and safety.

This plan won’t do it.

Let us not lament the loss of this critically important transportation infrastructure in 10 or 15 years like we did with Ottawa’s trolley car system. Michel Haddad Alta Vista, Ottawa