A Bad Choice
No to Kettle Island, Yes to Healthy Communities
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NCC Decision: 3 options to go forward
Click here for details.
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The Kettle Island corridor is a bad choice for a new inter-provincial trucking route joining Ottawa and Gatineau. A Kettle Island bridge and trucking route would:
- Threaten the health and safety of the largest number of people of any crossing alternative;
- Seriously impact the Montfort Hospital and Montfort Long Term Care Facility;
- Fail to remove trucks from the downtown core;
- Degrade National Capital assets; and
- Not address transportation needs of the 21st century—public transit and future growth outside the core.
Take a look at the Battle of Kettle Island video for an overview of the issue.
Blog Postings:
You can view blog postings and associated discussions on this website by Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Category, or you can view archives of all postings by month. Use the navigation tools along the right side of this window. There is more reference material available within the top navigation bar, including Press Clips, a compilation of media coverage of the proposed Kettle Island bridge.
Background:
The Interprovincial Crossings project is currently underway, led by the National Capital Commission with funding from the Ministry of Transportation of Quebec and the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, to recommend the location for a new Ottawa-Gatineau bridge (Phase 1) and to complete an associated environmental assessment for the selected location (Phase 2).
Upon completion of Phase 1 of the project, Kettle Island was selected by the consultants as their technically preferred option, with a recommendation to take forward only this option to Phase 2. This recommendation has heavily based on technical factors (primarily traffic projections and cost) and gave little consideration to, among other things, the negative impacts on communities in the vicinity of the corridor.
Click here for a detailed map that highlights the impacted communities and institutions along the Kettle Island Corridor.
How did Ottawa residents feel about Kettle Island being identified by the consultants as the technically preferred alternative? The response at the final public consultation on September 24th says it all:
The project stakeholders recognized the shortcomings of the consultants’ analysis and did not accept their recommendation. The stakeholders have decided that further analysis is warranted on the top 3 options in Phase 2, taking into greater account public transit, economic development, and the negative impact on communities in the area of the new corridor.
The 3 options that will be considered in Phase 2 are displayed below: Kettle Island (red), Lower Duck Island (blue) and Gatineau Airport (green).
View Larger Map
Phase 2A, with a mandate to define the process for the final selection of one corridor and the associated Environment Impact Assessment, was initiated on Oct 14th, 2009, with the selection of AECOM-Delcan as the consultant. Phase 2A is scheduled for completion in June 2010.
In Phase 2B, the final corridor will be selected based on the process defined in Phase 2A. The project will then focus on preparing an Environmental Assessment for that corridor alone. Phase 2B is scheduled for completion by December 2012, with all required approvals obtained by December 2013. Construction could conceivably begin by mid 2014.
Overview:
Vanier, Overbrook, Manor Park, Manor Park Hill, Manor Park East, Dunbarton Court, Viscount Alexander, Castle Heights, Carson Grove, Cyrville, New Edinburgh, Lindenlea, Rockcliffe Park will be negatively impacted by the construction of an interprovincial crossing at Kettle Island. Picture the Queensway cutting a community of approximately 100,000 in two.
Present congestion on the roads that would be impacted: Montreal, Beechwood, Sussex Drive / Rockcliffe Parkway and Vanier Parkway indicates that the existing infrastructure barely supports the current traffic congestion. This infrastructure will have trouble supporting the planned increase in density in Vanier, the Claridge Development at Beechwood and Vanier Parkway and the Airbase development, and cannot be expected to handle the substantial traffic flow increase that would result from the Kettle Island crossing.
Community and environmental disruption for those areas in close proximity to the Kettle Island crossing location would be significant. Houses in Castle Heights, Manor Park East, may need to be demolished. The RCMP stables and the RCMP Musical Ride, a National Icon, would be threatened. The Aviation Museum would be negatively impacted, possibly grounding flights to the adjoining Rockcliffe airport and the Flying School. Sailing on the Lower Ottawa River would be severely disrupted.
The widening of the Aviation Parkway to accommodate up to 3000 trucks daily (see note below) and increased vehicular traffic would negatively impact Cité Collegiale and the Montfort Hospital. It would compromise existing designated green space, bicycle paths and parks which are not compatible with high volumes of traffic.
High emissions and noise resulting from projected increases in commercial and vehicular traffic would be extremely disruptive to adjacent neighbourhoods, and the incremental traffic flows on residential roads within those neighbourhoods would have significant impact on the quality of life within those communities.
Delays to the movement of people and goods due to increased traffic would be economically detrimental to the businesses on Montreal Road and Beechwood. Increased traffic along Sussex Drive and the Rockcliffe Parkway would be incompatible with tourism development in the National Capital region. Transfer of up to 3000 heavy trucks per day (see note below) through one core area in downtown Ottawa to another core area in Ottawa-Vanier is not a solution.
A Kettle Island bridge is not integrated with future land use plans and longer range urban growth. Ottawa’s future transportation needs should include a ring road such as those that exist in other national capitals. Other proposed solutions and locations appear to be significantly more favourable with far less residential, environmental and cultural disruption while being more compatible with future transportation growth.
The project selection process is heavily biased towards technical considerations (primarily truck traffic flow and cost), and does not adequately represent the impacts on and the interests of communities and people in and around the new corridor.
Note: The consultants say that by 2031, if the Kettle Island Bridge is built, there will be 3,900 trucks crossing the river each day and 1,800 of them will cross via Kettle Island. However, the study also concludes that trucks could be entirely banned from King Edward in the future. In this case, Kettle Island trucking traffic would increase dramatically.
What can you do about this? Express your concerns and spread the word to encourage others to do the same. Participate in the discussions on this website. Contact your local federal, provincial and city representatives who have been elected to act in your best interest. Together, we can stop this.
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