John Dance
A recently released study conducted for the City’s new transportation master plan (TMP) weakens the case for construction of the long-planned Alta Vista Transportation Corridor (AVTC), a four-lane roadway that would obliterate People’s Park between the Lees Avenue apartment towers and Springhurst Park.
The case for the AVTC has steadily eroded over the five decades since it was first proposed. The proposed northsouth link is currently in the City’s “ultimate road network” to link Conroy Road from Walkley Road to Nicholas Street and Highway 417.
However, as The Mainstreeter has often noted, the AVTC would eliminate much-needed central green spaces that serve many core communities; dump traffic into established communities; undermine the use of the new LRT system; and stymie efforts to fight climate change and support biodiversity.
The City’s “origin-destination” (OD) study, conducted in 2022, shows the profound effect that the pandemic had on the amount of vehicular traffic going downtown from elsewhere. Compared to the previous OD study in 2011, there was a 38 percent drop in “daily downtown-oriented work trips.”
The City’s origin-destination study showed a 38 percent drop in daily downtown work trips over a decade. Graph provide by City of Ottawa
“Daily commuting trips to the downtown core coming from Kanata/Stittsville, Orleans, South Gloucester/Leitrim or Riverside South/Findlay Creek decreased by over 51 percent between 2011 and 2022. Daily transit commuting trips from the same areas dropped by almost 70 percent,” the report notes.
The report goes on to say “[T]here is evidence that travel to the downtown is continuing to rebound since the 2022 data was collected, as more people return to the office.” However, other key findings in the OD report show how transportation patterns and “modes” are shifting. For instance, in the decade between studies, the proportion of trips made by walking and cycling increased from six to 15 percent. Similarly, as the City supports the concept of 15-minute neighbourhoods, fewer car trips should be required. Indeed, the average daily “passenger kilometres travelled” decreased from 15.8 in 2005 to 11.7 in 2022. “People are making fewer and shorter trips and [are making] more walking and cycling trips,” the report concludes.
When The Mainstreeter asked the City to comment on whether it still would be supporting the construction of AVTC in light of the OD data, staff responded ambiguously noting: “For some candidate [roadway] projects, different options for the same corridor may be evaluated. In the case of the AVTC, this could include different cross-sections and lane arrangements, or breaking the corridor into segments. A ‘do nothing’ option will also be considered. Criteria for identifying and screening projects can be found in the Council-approved Transit and Road Project Prioritization Framework.”
Unfortunately, as noted previously in The Mainstreeter, the assessment criteria are biased towards more development and increased roadway and they give only marginal weight to the impact on neighbourhoods and greenspace.
In the coming months, the TMP project team will finalize its travel forecasting model, assess future travel demand, identify a detailed set of transportation needs and then identify, screen and evaluate transit and road projects, update the City’s transportation networks, prioritize projects, and develop investment scenarios considering affordability as well as the City’s mode shift and climate change targets.
The final public consultations on the TMP are scheduled for late fall. At this point, Old Ottawa East (OOE) residents will see what the City is proposing to do about the AVTC, which has hung like a black cloud over the community’s future for half a century. The OOE Community Association (OOECA) seeks residents’ comments for inclusion in its response to the City, and requests that any comments submitted be forwarded to info@ottawaeast.ca.
During the City’s lengthy consultation process for the new TMP, the community association has on three occasions asked that the AVTC be removed from the master plan as a vehicular commuter route. “AVTC has been a longstanding campaign, even with support from a former mayor [Jim Watson] when he was in office, but the last battle is yet to be won,” notes Tom Scott, OOECA’s transportation chair.
