Mayor Mark Sutcliffe gave a speech in favor of ending the street use program
The temporary closing of about two kilometers of road to cars has sparked a debate that shows how local leaders have different ideas about how the city should handle active transportation.
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told CFRA radio last Tuesday that he thinks the Queen Elizabeth Driveway (QED) active transportation program should be scaled back.
Coun. Jeff Leiper responded publicly in a post on the Kitchissippi Ward Facebook page, calling the mayor’s position “regressive” and his way of advocating on the issue “inappropriate.”
In an open letter published in the Ottawa Citizen two days later, Sutcliffe said more about what he thought..
He wrote that closing the driveway to cars would make more people’s lives harder than it would help.
The CEO of the National Capital Commission (NCC), which is in charge of Ottawa’s parkways, Tobi Nussbaum, wrote back in the newspaper a few days later.
Nussbaum defended the closing by pointing to the official plan for the city of Ottawa, which sayscalls on the NCC“rethink” Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Colonel By Drive to make them less important for commuters and more important for walking.
For many, the debate over the short stretch of road has shown how local politicians and leaders feel about active transportation and how they think about bigger questions about how the city is built and for whom.
The active use progra
Between Fifth Avenue and Somerset Street, the NCC has set aside both lanes of the QED for active use from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day from July 1 to September 4.
From the middle of May to the end of June, the same stretch of road was closed to cars on weekends and holiday Mondays.
From September 9 to October 9, program hours will be cut back to weekends and Monday holidays.
The NCC said that active use hours may be cut short during “certain major events, such as the Escapade Music Festival and Ottawa Redblacks games.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCC started reserving a part of the QED for pedestrians and cyclists. This was in response to requests for more public space where people could exercise while keeping their distance.
Nussbaum said that the program’s popularity made the NCC want to make it bigger.
In its annual report for 2021-2022, the NCC said that 95% of survey participants wanted to keep the program going.
Services for traffic, transit, and emergencie
In an interview with CBC on Wednesday,Ottawa MorningSutcliffe explained on the QED why he thought the active use program should be cut back.
Sutcliffe said that closing the road between Pretoria and Fifth avenues causes “traffic pressure” in the Glebe, makes it harder for people to get to Lansdowne Park during big events, and makes it harder for emergency vehicles to get to the area.
Sutcliffe knew that limiting the active use program might cause more cyclists and walkers to use the already busy path along the canal, but he thought that the costs and benefits should be weighed against each other.
“If our emergency vehicles can’t get where they need to go on time, or if traffic is building up on residential roads that weren’t meant to be commuter routes, then that might be a bigger problem than the fact that the path is getting a little bit crowded,” he said.
Also speaking on CBC’s Ottawa MorningWednesday, Leiper said that he understands Sutcliffe’s point of view on the issue, but that he still has a “difference of opinion.”
“I think we need to give pedestrians and cyclists much more space for active transportation than we do now,” he said. “It’s backwards to try to take back the space we’ve gained.”
A recent staff report from the City of Ottawa says that when the QED is closed to cars, there is more traffic on the streets around it.
The report also Explained what will happen in July 2022Where Ottawa Fire Services had trouble getting to emergencies quickly because “barricades couldn’t be moved overnight.”
This year, the NCC fixed that problem by letting motor vehicles back in at 8 p.m.
The report found that when QED was closed, there were “about 10–40” more pedestrians and cyclists per hour than when the road was open to cars.
The report said, “Results show that most people who walk or ride bikes still feel comfortable using the multi-use pathway.”
Phil Landry, who is in charge of traffic services for the city, said in an email that the active use program affected nearby traffic, public transportation, and emergency services because of this report.
“The City suggested that the NCC look into other active transportation options, and the City will continue to work with the NCC to make up for any traffic problems caused by the closure of the Queen Elizabeth Driveway,” he wrote.
The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, for its part,has previously opposedConcerns about getting to Lansdowne Park were used to justify the closing of QED.
Program liked, but needs “fine-tuning”: neighborhood grou
June Creelman, who is the vice-president of the Glebe Community Association, said that she has seen the traffic shift for herself.
She said that on rare days with bad traffic, drivers who are forced off the parkway and onto residential streets may become confused or angry and make rash decisions while driving.
But, like many people in the area, she said, she doesn’t have a black-and-white view of the active use program.
“I actually go up there almost every day,” she told him. “I often ride my bike downtown, so I think it’s worth it, and I see a lot of people doing it and having fun.”
The NCC said that 126,200 people used the site.2022: Changes were made to the QED.
Creelman said she supports active transportation on the QED, but she also said she thinks the program could use some “fine-tuning or rethinking” to handle traffic and make sure it works better for everyone.
What are the parkways used for
Nussbaum wrote in an open letter in the Citizen that NCC parkways were never meant to be used by commuters.
He wrote that instead, public organizations must “think creatively, differently, and meaningfully” about how to reduce the city’s carbon footprint.
Some grassroots groups have adopted this way of thinking on their own.
Parkways for People is a group that wants a new way to manage the city’s parkways. In the past, they have come up with ideas likea vision of the QEDAs a natural park between Pretoria and Fifth avenues.
The group told CBC before that it would like to see the NCC’s active use program go all the way to Preston Street next year.
Dave Robertson, who is the vice-president of the cycling advocacy group Bike Ottawa, said that the city has some paths for cyclists but not many good ones.
He said that the paths along the canal that people can use instead of the QED are too narrow and too crowded.
“They are quite old. He said, “We need more room to move more people.” “That’s what the city’s plan is: to switch from cars to other ways of getting around.”
Robertson said that Bike Ottawa wants the QED to be permanently “turned over to people” and closed to cars.
He said that arguments about how local traffic and access for emergency vehicles would be affected are “fallacies.” He gave the example that many paths used for active transportation in other cities can easily fit emergency workers.
“What the mayor is saying doesn’t fit with the climate emergency that has been declared,” he said.