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June 2, 2005 - Are Provincial Transportation Planners on the Same Planet as the Rest of Us?

I just finished reading an article in the Ottawa Citizen about how the Province of Ontario is still planning to widen Highway 417, The Queensway. I don't know whether to be disgusted or laugh. I think it's actually a combination of the two.

The Queensway runs along an old rail corridor at the edge of downtown and stretches east-west throughout the whole city. Currently it is 6 lanes (not counting on-ramps, which can take it to as many as 10 lanes through downtown), but provincial plans have called for widening to 8 lanes through the west and east ends, modifying ramps in such a way as to expropriate houses and parks. What's worse, is that an expanded Queensway will obviously be a magnet for more cars and trucks traveling to the core, rather than using public transit.

Specifically, the current plan calls for widening through the east end to accommodate 8 lanes of traffic. This will actually hurt the design of some areas. For example, at the Island Park exit, most of Hampton Park is slated for destruction to accommodate a roundabout for better traffic distribution. Say it to yourself in more stark words: we are supposed to tear up a community park so that rush hour commuters don't have to deal with traffic lights?

In The Glebe, one of Ottawa's healthier neighbourhoods, the Board of Education's Media Centre on Bronson Avenue would be expropriated to create a direct connection between Chamberlain Street and the Queensway, presumably to make it safer. However, two things come to mind when reading about this.

1. The transportation planners refer to it as "the old Board of Education Headquarters", as if it weren't occupied, or of any great significance. Is the media centre that currently occupies it not of any use, or of so little use that we're willing to sacrifice it so that people don't have to turn at the lights to get on to Chamberlain?
   

2. Access to Chamberlain Street will only create more traffic. As it stands now, the Chamberlain/Isabella Streets corridor only act as distributor lanes for The Queensway. By creating a direct link between the Bronson offramp and Chamberlain, planners are sneakily widening the capacity of the Queensway through the core, something they had to back off of in their original plan. Traffic will only get worse through the Glebe, as people now have better access to "short cuts" like Percy and Lyon Streets, which is already a problem.

At the westbound Parkdale offramp, 18 houses will be demolished to improve traffic flow. Oddly enough, this one actually might make sense. As it stands, Westmount Street, a narrow one-way residential street acts as the ramp. Apparently some of the homeowners have eagerly awaited this day. While it is sad to think that we hit a point where we have to expropriate valuable urban fabric because it has been so debased by automobile traffic, it's something that probably should have happened years ago.

The other thing that strikes me is the apparent disconnect between municipal and provincial planning around this issue. Politically, it has been a fight between the province and many municipal politicians. There is by no means a consensus around the need to widen The Queensway. Suburbanites generally approve of the plan, while urban residents and their councillors are generally opposed to it, since they'll feel the brunt of it as thousands of single-occupant vehicles try to wend their way through downtown neighbourhoods.

However, the biggest planning disconnect is that the provincial planners appear to have no regard for the Official Plan that the City of Ottawa has just produced. In it, the City has set a goal of a 30% transit modal split and has planned to build LRT lines along such key east-west corridors as from Cumberland to Kanata through the south end of the city, along Carling Avenue from Richmond and Carling all the way to Preston and Carling, and along Montreal Road from the Rideau Centre to Blair Road. In addition, a Transitway is planned for Baseline Road from Woodroffe Avenue to Billings Bridge Shopping Centre at Bank Street. These three light rail lines alone could actually carry more people than the Queensway, widened or not! Given that the City has set out an ambitious, yet attainable and rational transportation plan that provides plenty of capacity for future growth in travel. Furthermore, it actually matches up with the need to do whatever we can to meet our Kyoto commitments, something we should all have in mind when thinking about these sorts of projects.

What fundamentally seems to be at work here is a fundamental disregard for the priorities of municipalities in this province. Rather than consulting seriously with the City about whether there is a need for highway expansion in Ottawa, the province has assumed by its own criteria that there is a need, and as a result, pays little heed to the City's own plans. However, the need for expansion is somewhat dubious.

While it has been agreed by just about all that there is a need for strategic widening of the Queensway, particularly through Kanata where it is actually woefully small for the amount of travel that travels it, Ottawa does not suffer from the same levels of congestion as other major cities in Canada do. There is almost no manufacturing or heavy industry evident in the Ottawa area, so truck congestion is not a huge problem. Furthermore, our rush hours certainly have not ballooned to encompass several hours in the morning and afternoon peaks. Ottawa's rush hour is certainly worse than it was ten years ago, but is still remarkably short, lasting no more than two hours for each peak period.

So how do we get out of this mess? As with hockey, I believe that the best defense in this situation is a good offense. I think it's time that Ottawans dared to dream of a Queensway-less future. It's not quite so silly as you would think. Consider these points:

1. Major North American cities such as Portland and San Fransisco have actually torn down major expressways in the last two decades. Despite fears that this would lead to increased congestion on neighbouring streets, this never materialized. Similarly, Toronto tore down the eastern leg of the Gardiner Expressway a few years ago, and I can assure you, being a resident of that general area, it is not traffic chaos. Interestingly, Toronto is now contemplating removing the eastern leg of the Gardiner as far west as Yonge Street now.

2. Jacques Greber, the Parisian planner that the National Capital Commission hired to develop a plan for Ottawa in the 1930s and 1950s foresaw a major artery running through the Queensway corridor. HOWEVER, he did not envisage an elevated highway with limited access. Instead, what Greber thought best for this corridor was a boulevard (apparently only the French, Italians and to some extent, the Spanish are unafraid to use these) with space for a cross-town commuter rail service.

Clearly people have had many different visions for this corridor (which began its life as a rail corridor) and we are not forever wedded to having an elevated highway.

The above-mentioned article makes reference to The Queensway as Ottawa's main artery. I would like it to become Ottawa's main street. What I would like to see happen in this corridor is this:

1. Remove The Queensway, at least from the downtown core, immediately and replace it with a boulevard. Although a boulevard would still be quite wide (in Europe they often run as wide as 12 lanes - think about the Champs d' Elysse for a moment), it would still be a better alternative. Lanes in boulevards are often organized so as to allow higher-speed through traffic to move efficiently, while allowing slower local traffic to travel in the outside lanes and can accommodate parking.

   While it is true that such a configuration would slow down the speed of travel somewhat, I think it strikes a fair balance between travel speed and urban fabric.

2. Extend the planned Carling Avenue light rail line to run through the new boulevard and eastwards to Hurdman Station. As the Queensway is progressively removed, the line could be extended further out in both directions to accommodate increased demand.

   Let's face it: commuting in a car really is not a pleasant way to do things. Having spent a short stint commuting on The Queensway a few years back, I can tell you it's one of the pivotal events that turned me into an avowed public transit user. Now, I either walk or take the streetcar (that's while I'm here in Toronto) and I have the time to read, daydream or just relax and unload the stresses of the day, rather than add to them.

3. Allow for the highest quality urban development along the boulevard. No longer would The Glebe and Centretown have a Berlin Wall between them. What's even more exciting is that it would provide new opportunities for healthy urbanism in Ottawa. No long would Chamberlain, Isabella and Catherine Streets be damned to an existence as run-down collector lanes for the Queensway. Instead, they could become part of such a boulevard, with grand (yet low-rise) apartment buildings, shops and even a place to stroll when the weather is nice.

Of course, this is not going to happen tomorrow. However, little in the planning realm does. The point is that we need to rigorously examine and question proposals like this to see if they make sense. If they do not, we need to then dare to use our imaginations to find a better way.