Quote:
Originally Posted by Ottawan
The Citizen must have taken the article down - the link was to their website. Next time I'll quote the article in the post.
In summary: it was about the City studying two locations for pedestrian bridges - one accross the Rideau river connecting Somerset St. E in Sandy Hill to Donald St. in Overbrook, and the other connecting Fifth Avenue in the Glebe to Clegg St. in Old Ottawa East. |
Corktown’s success drives interest in pedestrian bridges
Popularity of once-controversial span spurs committee to OK $1M feasibility study
By Patrick Dare, The Ottawa CitizenNovember 10, 2009 12:02 AM
Pedestrian Bridges
Photograph by: Robert Cross, The Ottawa Citizen.
OTTAWA — The Corktown Bridge has been so successful that the City of Ottawa is going ahead with a $1-million feasibility study on two other pedestrian bridges.
The Corktown Bridge is the pedestrian-cycling bridge across the Rideau Canal that links the University of Ottawa with the Golden Triangle neighbourhood of central Ottawa. Construction of the $5-million bridge was hugely controversial, with many councillors saying it was a waste of money because the Laurier Bridge was nearby.
It narrowly won approval, was built, and has become one of the city’s most applauded public projects. Day and night, pedestrians and cyclists cross the canal on the bridge and many visitors have commended the city for the look of the structure and the fact that it has created a new view of central Ottawa.
On Monday, the transportation committee approved a budget that includes the feasibility study on two more pedestrian-cycling bridges. One of the bridges, proposed by Capital Councillor Clive Doucet, would link Fifth Avenue in the Glebe with Clegg Street in Ottawa East. The other would span the Rideau River, connecting Donald Street in Overbrook with Somerset Street East in Sandy Hill.
Mona Abouhenidy, manager of strategic transportation planning for the city, said there’s been a shift in opinion on council about such projects due to the success of the Corktown Bridge.
She said the bridge has become an important link between neighbourhoods and is popular even in winter, when fewer people are walking or cycling and the Rideau Canal is frozen.
“It has been successful. We underestimated the value of it,” Gloucester-South Nepean Councillor Steve Desroches said. “It has exceeded expectations.”
If the feasibility study supports the proposed bridges, they could be built within four to five years.
The proposed new bridge over the canal would require a lot of consultations with the federal government because of the canal’s designation as a world heritage site. The Corktown Bridge took 20 years to build, largely due to the need to get approvals.
But Councillor Jacques Legendre, of Rideau-Rockcliffe, hopes that the pedestrian bridge between Donald Street and Somerset Street could be easily engineered, approved without much difficulty and constructed for a relatively modest amount of money.
Legendre says that the water in the Rideau River there is only about ankle-deep and that section of the river is very flat; in fact, people roll up their trousers and walk across the river in summer.
He says that without a navigable waterway to cross, the pedestrian bridge need not be elaborate and there are far fewer planning problems. The other alternative in the area for pedestrians and cyclists is the Cummings Bridge, which has only one bicycle lane and a lot of fast-moving traffic.
Legendre recently discovered that many years ago, there was a wooden pedestrian bridge on posts at the Rideau River location. In winter, the bridge would be taken out.
Legendre says that if the Donald Street-Somerset Street bridge is built, people could easily walk or cycle all the way from Overbrook to downtown without having to deal with heavy traffic on streets such as Montreal Road.
“It makes the city more livable,” said Legendre.
Doucet said the study, coupled with about $16 million planned to be spent in 2010 for cycling and pedestrian facilities, were “glimmers of hope” for a city that usually spends almost all its transportation money on roads.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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