NCC mulls narrowed parkway
Section of busy Ottawa River route could be cut to two lanes
The National Capital Commission has developed an option for the proposed Sir John A. Macdonald Riverfront Linear Park that would reduce the heavily used parkway to just two lanes for part of its length.
The proposal was presented publicly for the first time Wednesday night at a workshop on the proposed linear park, which would extend from the Canadian War Museum to Britannia Park.
The NCC document shows two scenarios for the parkway: one as a full four-lane divided parkway, like the one that exists today, and one that would reduce it to a two-lane curvilinear parkway from Carling Avenue to Island Park Drive.
The parkway is a key commuter route, used by 9,300 vehicles every weekday, so eliminating two of its lanes would have a significant impact on many users.
By limiting the reduction to the part of the parkway west of Island Park Drive, however, any impact on commuters entering the parkway there and on West Quebec residents who enter from the Champlain Bridge would presumably be minimized.
According to the material presented by the NCC, the two-lane option, which would be similar to other scenic parkways in the capital, has several advantages over the current four-lane configuration.
It would prevent the speeding that is now endemic on the parkway, where traffic regularly zips along at 80 kilometres an hour despite a posted limit of 60 km/ h.
It would also provide more opportunities to fully segregate cyclists and pedestrians on separate paths and provide space on the parkway for commuter cycling.
Finally, the two-lane option would add more riverside open space. For example, NCC officials said the two-lane option would increase available open space by 38 per cent along a 1.2-kilometre section of the parkway that will run over the city’s future light rail transit line. By comparison, the four-lane option would encourage higher speeds and provide fewer opportunities to fully segregate pedestrian and cycling uses, the NCC says.
So far, the NCC has adopted neither of the parkway options, and any change would only occur in the medium to long term, after many other park elements have been developed.
The linear park idea — a key part of the NCC’s efforts to reconnect residents with the national capital’s waterways — has been under discussion since 2014.
The NCC has already held workshops on the linear park in 2014 and 2015, and heard from many participants that it should narrow or relocate the parkway.
In November 2014, NCC chief executive Mark Kristmanson assured commuters that the agency wasn’t planning to tear up the current four-lane road any time soon.
“I’d hate to make commuters worry that we’re somehow going to make their lives more difficult in the short term by changing anything,” Kristmanson said at the time, though he added: “Maybe some day car use will change. Maybe traffic patterns can be looked at.”
Closing the parkway’s westbound lands to vehicular traffic was the most notable feature of a January 2015 linear park plan developed and presented to the NCC by graduate students from Queen’s University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning.
In their plan, two-way traffic would travel on the two existing eastbound lanes, while the westbound lanes would become a four-season route for commuter cyclists, relieving pressure on the waterfront pathway and making it safer and more welcoming for pedestrians.
On Wednesday, the NCC posted a questionnaire to its website, seeking feedback about the linear park concept, including whether the two-lane or four-lane scenario is preferred. Participants have until midnight April 13 to complete and submit the questionnaire.