Stop The Kettle Island Bridge

10 things you should know about the bridge project

1. A bridge at any of the three corridors being considered (Kettle Island, Lower Duck, or Gatineau Airport):

• Will not solve the truck problem on King Edward
• Will deteriorate communities and green space
• Will not integrate well with public transit
• Will encourage urban sprawl
• Will encourage more car commuting, and will increase traffic problems

2. The NCC describes the scope of the current project phase as being to pick “the least worst option” among the three corridors being assessed. No variations beyond those three specifically defined corridors are being considered within this project.

3. The final corridor selection will be made in late Summer 2012, after which all project activity will focus on submission and approval through the Canadian Environment Assessment Act for the selected corridor. This final phase of the project is expected to be completed by January 2013. Upon approval, the bridge will be ready to build, subject to funding and initiation of the required infrastructure project.

4. Based on their approval of the scope of this phase of the project, the funding partners (NCC, Province of Ontario, Province of Quebec) have concluded that any of the three corridors being considered would be suitable for a bridge and trucking route.

5. The Province of Ontario waived the requirement to undertake an Ontario Environment Assessment for this project, thereby eliminating all safeguards to citizens, requirements, and legal protections that this legislation provides to citizens. However, the Province of Ontario has requested that a higher degree of emphasis should be placed on community impacts, public transit, and economic development when making the final selection.

6. The next round of public consultations is planned in February 2012, where the public will be able to see exactly what a bridge and truck route at Kettle Island would look like. Functional designs and mitigation measures for all three options will be presented for comment. Also within the February consultations, the public will have an opportunity to provide input on weighting of the factors that will be used to assess and compare the three potential bridge locations. When applied to the “bridge formula”, these weighting will, ultimately, define which of the three potential bridge locations is selected.

7. In the first phase of the project, Kettle Island ranked as the worst of the 12 corridor options being considered at that time in the categories of factors relating to negative impacts on people and communities along the corridor. However, these factors were assigned a combined weighting of only 13% by the technical oriented committee who assigned weightings behind closed doors. This same committee assigned a combined weighting of 54% to the factors relating to traffic and cost.

8. By increasing the relative importance of Phase 1 factors related to negative community impacts, the “bridge equation” identified other corridors as being more favourable than Kettle Island.

9. We need to ensure that negative impact on communities and people is assigned the weighting it deserves during this final phase of the project, and that it is not overshadowed by technical and cost considerations. Please participate in the upcoming consultation and provide your feedback.

10. The MPCA and the MPCA Bridge Committee are working hard to defend our community against this threat. We have engaged industry consultants, urban planners, and lawyers to strengthen our cause, and there is more to be done as we prepare for the coming months. But we need your financial support.

If you can spare a donation, big or small, towards the bridge fight, please send a cheque to:

Manor Park Community Association (MPCA)
PO Box 74211
5 Beechwood Ave
Ottawa, ON K1M 2H9

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No integrated transportation plan a testament to NCC’s failure

University of Ottawa professor Gilles Paquet, the former head of the panel that gave the NCC a strong vote of confidence 5 years ago, is now openly criticizing the organization and its actions.

Here are a few excerpts from today’s Ottawa Citizen article:
‘Timid’ NCC could become irrelevant, former review panel head says

“What we need at the NCC is leadership that is going to take the advantage of all the precedents that exist to be a champion for the federal capital region, rather than the timid operator they are now,” said Paquet, senior fellow at the university’s Centre on Governance.
…
“The fact that they are invisible or they indulge in evasive thinking is condemning them to become more and more irrelevant. To my mind this is the kiss of death.”
…
Paquet points to numerous proposals, including rail links to the Ottawa and Gatineau airports and loops around the capital, that have gone nowhere. Waterfront development has been talked to death but nothing has happened. He says the fact the nation’s capital hasn’t been able to create a modern, integrated transportation system is a testament to the NCC’s failure.
…
“Transportation is the key element in this region. If you were able to deal with the transportation issue — not just railroads and bridges but the river as well — this would be a different place,” he said.

Paquet has co-edited a new book:  The Unimagined Canadian Capital.

Challenges for the Federal Capital Region
Too many stakeholders have neglected their duty of imagining an inspiring federal capital region for Canada. Under the auspices of the Forum of Federations, a number of persons interested in the fate of Canada’s federal capital region came together to examine the challenges facing the region and to put forward suggestions to deal with them.

In this report on the brainstorming exercise conducted in January 2011, professionals, academics and elected officials take stock of the vast array of assets on which the federal capital region can build; probe the many sources of failures in coping as effectively and creatively as one would expect with the diversity, trans-border, financial and governance challenges; and make suggestions to ensure that the federal capital region does not remain “unimagined” in the future.

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