Ottawa Highway Bypass Corridor/Ring Road

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by silvergate

I mean, why not? Current truck traffic between Montreal and ... maybe Sudbury? definitely does not justify an Ottawa bypass. We could just as easily spend that money on building regional transit connections and serving them with car-shares or local busses.

The 417 through Ottawa is a fairly major cross-country routing for trucks travelling between Atlantic Canada-Quebec and northern Ontario and western Canada.

Though I think that most goods that are travelling between these regions probably travel by train, and not by truck. (As opposed to Quebec-Ontario traffic on the 401 that is more heavily truck-oriented.)

Also, my guess is that a lot of truck traffic that is going cross-country, even if originating in Montreal and points east, probably needs to go through the GTA or Golden Horseshoe anyway before heading north and west.

All of which reduces intercity truck traffic on the 417 through Ottawa.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I think a lot of our goods come in by truck to warehouses on the outskirts and are then moved by smaller vehicles within the city. Not many goods would be transported through Ottawa that are not destined for Ottawa since we are off the main corridor, the 401.

Correct. These tend to be concentrated around Innes and the 417 in the east, and around Merivale and West Hunt Club in the west.

[harls]

Imagine an extended 50 crossing the Ottawa River west of Gatineau.. how many cross country trucks would that remove from the 417?

(it will probably never happen - but I think the corridor still exists in some places..)

[GradualFuture]

This end of your proposal is literally impossible. Cardinal Creek Village extends right up to the boundary, and all the land here is privately owned and zoned for residential. Not happening.

Best (and only) option you'll get is a bridge at Duck Island, which is on the west side of Orleans on greenbelt land.

Originally Posted by Harley613

The 174 interchange could be done with minimal expropriation at this time, but the clock is ticking. Logical sensible ring road options are disappearing every year due to the shortsightedness of this city's leadership. This city won't stop growing but we never plan ahead.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

By-pass mentioned in new draft Eastern Ontario Transportation Plan
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/10020...-stronger-eastern-transportation-network

https://www.ontario.ca/files/2022-04/mto-eastern-ontario-transport-plan-en-2022-04-20.pdf

As part of MTO’s work on the
eastern Ontario transportation
plan technical study, explore the
potential of an Ottawa ring road
to reduce congestion in the city
core.

Shouldn't one of MTO's biggest priorities in Ottawa be finally fixing the interprovincial trucking route? It barely gets a mention. I thought this was a Provincial responsibility.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by GradualFuture

This end of your proposal is literally impossible. Cardinal Creek Village extends right up to the boundary, and all the land here is privately owned and zoned for residential. Not happening.

Best (and only) option you'll get is a bridge at Duck Island, which is on the west side of Orleans on greenbelt land.

Expropriation is part of every major urban highway project in Canadian history. The route I'm showing is one the least detrimental possible.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Correct. These tend to be concentrated around Innes and the 417 in the east, and around Merivale and West Hunt Club in the west.

Which is why the priority of any bypass should be to get trucks from the 416 to the eastern warehouses and from the 417 east to the western warehouses (and between the eastern and western warehouses). We can then build off of that.

Originally Posted by TransitZilla

Shouldn't one of MTO's biggest priorities in Ottawa be finally fixing the interprovincial trucking route? It barely gets a mention. I thought this was a Provincial responsibility.

Technically it is a provincial responsibility up to the boarder, but that "last mile" is often given little value by provinces.

[sgera]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Ottawa must be the only big city in Canada with only 1 highway that services (or crosses) the city. IMO the 174 and 416 don't really count as they don't really service intracity travel much - more long-distance travel.

As a resident of Manotick, i think 416 is becoming increasingly an inter-city transport corridor... for Manotick, Kemptville, and Barhaven with the Amazon warehouse and the new Strandherd Drive widening....if you look at the traffic counts over the last 20 yrs...it's consistently rising. I believe that the case for a ring road will mount as truck traffic east/west across the Manotick bridge is growing to dangerous levels...think about the need to connect both Amazon warehouses (YOW1 and YOW2) in the east and west and avoid Queensway congestion.

Further, i would argue the 174 is the busiest 4 lane highway (about to be 6 lanes post LRT phase 2). Don't forget about Hwy 7 (4 lanes) to Carleton Place..it is amazing how many houses are coming up there. Last, don't forget about hwy 5 and 50 in gatineau....both freeways are technically in the NCR region. while true that we have one cross-city freeway on the Ottawa side...i would say we have 5 freeways in the NCR.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Also, my guess is that a lot of truck traffic that is going cross-country, even if originating in Montreal and points east, probably needs to go through the GTA or Golden Horseshoe anyway before heading north and west.

Not to mention that a lot of the truck traffic in the GTA is destined for manufacturing facilities in the 905, so it's not just stuff being delivered to consumers.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Am I the only one that thinks road connectivity will remain as important, if not more important, in our near future when cars are all electric and self driving?

Personally I don't think so. Self-driving, electric cars address a few problems associated with personal vehicles (environmental impact, pollution), but they don't address some of the big ones (congestion, parking, development of greenfields, generally the space they take up). They also aren't very compatible with great urban spaces. Our cities will continue to intensify, and people will continue to demand a better division of space in urban neighbourhoods, and there just isn't going to be room for more cars in our cities, regardless of the type.

I can see a bypass as being a replacement for the Queensway in terms of traffic travelling through the city, and the Queensway becoming an urban boulevard, but I don't think it is good planning. It will be built in greenfields, contribute to continuing sprawl and induced demand. I don't see it as a priority anytime soon.

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Am I the only one that thinks road connectivity will remain as important, if not more important, in our near future when cars are all electric and self driving?

EVs are a great way to greenwash the terrible design of our city. If we're going to confront the "climate emergency", focusing on building more roads is a bit of a weird way to do so.

[Tesladom]

They should reserve a corridor for future connection between 416 and 417, and I think it should be just north of Fallowfield and along Leitrim (airport connection)

I will wait for the "no more roads" lobby to bash this

[hwy418]

Whether you like or not, Ottawa will need a southern bypass highway at some point in the future. To not plan for one would be foolish. The movement of people and goods for a city of greater than 1M in population requires a good network of roads and highways.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by hwy418

Whether you like or not, Ottawa will need a southern bypass highway at some point in the future. To not plan for one would be foolish. The movement of people and goods for a city of greater than 1M in population requires a good network of roads and highways.

I guess the question that I have is a) when is this type of bypass actually necessary and b) is this really planning for the future? It's definitely the kind of planning that we have done for the past 80 years, but is it really that forward looking?

In terms of a city of 1 million people needing a bypass, is that really the case? Toronto didn't get the 407 until the late 90s, when the GTA was in the neighbourhood of 4 million people. And that was in an era of virtually uncontrolled sprawl that I don't think we want to repeat.

It isn't obvious to me that the need in Ottawa is imminent, given the size of the city and the much smaller percentage of traffic passing through the city. Reserving a corridor makes sense, but I'd rather see actual construction put off for several decades at least while we concentrate on making a more dense and transit-oriented city. There's also no doubt in my mind that a highway like this will accelerate sprawl - one look at Carleton Place and Arnprior shows what happens when that type of infrastructure is built.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by phil235

In terms of a city of 1 million people needing a bypass, is that really the case? Toronto didn't get the 407 until the late 90s, when the GTA was in the neighbourhood of 4 million people. And that was in an era of virtually uncontrolled sprawl that I don't think we want to repeat.

The 401 through Toronto was actually intended as a "bypass" when it was built in the 1950s, long before the urban area swallowed the corridor.
https://www.thekingshighway.ca/Highway401.htm

In Ottawa's case, is there is enough through traffic on the 417/Queensway to warrant one? Other considerations: Would it be a benefit for the airport to have better connections to the 416 and 417? Also, is the urban area planned to grow substantially on the city's southern flank? I don't have an opinion about the need for it (and I agree the potential sprawl issue is big)... I'm just wondering about questions like that.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

The 401 through Toronto was actually intended as a "bypass" when it was built in the 1950s, long before the urban area swallowed the corridor.
https://www.thekingshighway.ca/Highway401.htm

In Ottawa's case, is there is enough through traffic on the 417/Queensway to warrant one? Other considerations: Would it be a benefit for the airport to have better connections to the 416 and 417? Also, is the urban area planned to grow substantially on the city's southern flank? I don't have an opinion about the need for it (and I agree the potential sprawl issue is big)... I'm just wondering about questions like that.

Yeah, I did think about the 401, as Toronto in the 50s would have had a similar population to current day Ottawa. It was really the only fully cross-town route in the city, as the QEW-Gardiner only runs west. But there are similarities for sure.

I think your questions are good. I’d add whether a transportation corridor is going to look the same in 30 years, or whether we should be looking at something that combines transit or some other elements.

[Truenorth00]

It's a question of where growth will happen. If we're heading to 3 million, I certainly a massively disproportionate amount of that is in Gatineau. And I hope a lot of that is intensification.

Also, why is a bypass needed? Toronto happens to lie on the major corridor. Ottawa does not. There's not a lot of traffic on the 417 that is thru traffic. And I don't imagine that will change, even with 3 million residents.

[OTSkyline]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's a question of where growth will happen. If we're heading to 3 million, I certainly a massively disproportionate amount of that is in Gatineau. And I hope a lot of that is intensification.

Also, why is a bypass needed? Toronto happens to lie on the major corridor. Ottawa does not. There's not a lot of traffic on the 417 that is thru traffic. And I don't imagine that will change, even with 3 million residents.

Gatineau, although growing at a faster rate because it is smaller, will not absorb the majority of the population growth in Ottawa-Gatineau. And although we are trying to improve on intensification (and we might make some progress), it's foolish to think that we can stop expanding the urban boundary and building SFH/Semis/Townhomes and only build towers within the greenbelt.

We're already seeing the majority of growth coming from the south (Barrhaven, Riverside South, Findlay Creek and now potentially Tewin?) To me a southern bypass or highway connecting the 416 and 417 make a lot of sense. Right now the Queensway is too far "up", we need another route more south. Or else you'll have these 500,000 south residents pilled up on these 2-lane dirt roads like Leitrim, Earl Armstrong)

[Dengler Avenue]

Speaking of sprawl, I’m surprised that there’s none west of Highway 7 until one gets to Arnprior. Are there municipal bylaws that prevent places like Carp from getting built up? I don’t think the green belt goes that far. Or is it because of DND which still has some operations in Carp?

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Speaking of sprawl, I’m surprised that there’s none west of Highway 7 until one gets to Arnprior. Are there municipal bylaws that prevent places like Carp from getting built up? I don’t think the green belt goes that far. Or is it because of DND which still has some operations in Carp?

Ottawa Municipal Urban boundary/village boundaries are what stop the villages from expanding to greatly.

Villages are even more limited and the city for the most part had tried to stop or stall all estate housing developments.