Mark Sutcliffe answers criticism about his posts on social medi
Bikers, runners, and walkers may not have much time left to have the Queen Elizabeth Driveway all to themselves this summer, but the debate over the long-term future of the “active use” program has entered a new, heated phase.
About 200 people took part in a “critical mass” bike rally on Saturday. Two social media posts by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe helped get people excited about the event.
Last week, Sutcliffe posted a video in which he asked the National Capital Commission (NCC) to rethink the QED part of its summer program, which limits drivers’ access to a 2.4-kilometer stretch of the street between May and October.
He said he was worried about access for emergency vehicles and traffic on nearby streets, and he asked that morning and afternoon rush hours for cars be changed.
“Think about how many cars have to move every minute so that one or two cyclists can use the road instead of the nearby Rideau Canal path,” Sutcliffe said while filming himself on the QED Tuesday afternoon.
In his post, which he shared on Wednesday, Sutcliffe also said that new data shows that very few cyclists and pedestrians use the QED when it’s closed to cars.
“During the whole two and a half minutes, not a single person on foot or on a bike passed me,” he wrote.
Cue the backlas
Both the way Sutcliffe’s message looked and what it said were quickly criticized.
Neil Saravanamuttoo, one of the people who organized Saturday’s ride, said, “I don’t think the mayor knows how much anger and fury he’s caused.”
“When our mayor decided to make that video, it gave us a reason to get more people out to talk,” said Linda Mathies, who took part in the ride, which is a regular summer event.
Sutcliffe said in an interview that the discussion had “taken on a life of its own” and that critics have wrongly called him an opponent of active transportation.
“I have no problem with closing Queen Elizabeth Driveway north of Pretoria Bridge into downtown at certain times to make room for bikes and pedestrians,” he said, adding that he only has a problem with the stretch from Pretoria Bridge to Fifth Avenue.
“It really comes down to figuring out where more space for cyclists and pedestrians can be made. And my point is that this isn’t the case.”
2nd tweet posted during stor
Last month, Sutcliffe and NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum wrote open letters to each other in which they argued about the QED.
The city then did a six-day study, some of the results of which were shown briefly at the end of Sutcliffe’s video post.
“Some people didn’t see it,” said Sutcliffe.”A lot of people were asking, “Where are the numbers?”
So, in a follow-up post on Thursday, Sutcliffe put the numbers and vehicle numbers from before the program began in a more prominent place. It came out the same afternoon that a big storm caused flash flooding and power outages in the city, and while the city’s LRT network was still having problems.
Saravanamuttoo, who works for a non-profit that was started by Sutcliffe’s main opponent in the 2022 mayoral election, said that the timing of the posts was “baffling.”
Saravanamuttoo said, “We’re in trouble with our light rail system.””Extreme weather events are happening all around us, but the mayor only wants to talk about a few kilometers of closed road.”
Saravanamuttoo also criticized Sutcliffe for not including pedestrian usage statistics when he used study numbers. He said Sutcliffe may have been trying to take attention away from Ottawa’s troubled LRT system, which Sutcliffe called “preposterous.”
“The city is capable, my office is capable, and I am capable of dealing with more than one issue at a time,” Sutcliffe said.
“In one of the statistics I gave, I mentioned both pedestrians and cyclists and pointed out that the total number of pedestrians and cyclists using the pathway in 2019 is higher than the number of people using both the road and the pathway in 2023.”
Sutcliffe said that the response to his QED posts in emails, phone calls, and conversations with people affected by Thursday’s flooding has been “overwhelmingly positive.” He also said that social media doesn’t give a true picture of what people think.
“If it were, I wouldn’t be the mayor of Ottawa right now,” said Sutcliffe.
The future of the program is up to the NCC
Maria Somjen, who is 76 years old and lives half a block from the QED, wants it to be closed to cars for good because she feels safer riding on it.
“I’m getting old,” she said as the bike rally riders went by on Saturday.”It looks nice and big. If I get a little off course or lose my balance, I have a lot of room here, and I love it.
The NCC, which will decide the driveway’s fate in the end, said that there have been 74,000 “visits” to it since May. “Less than 1,000 people a day,” Sutcliffe said. “This is the same or even less than the numbers I gave from the City of Ottawa.”
So, will it happen again next year?
“The NCC is gathering more information and conducting more public surveys during this season,” a commission spokesperson said in an email. “The results will help shape future versions of our active use initiatives.”