Brendan McCoy,
Co-Chair of OSWatch,
the Planning and Design Committee
of the Old Ottawa South Community Association (OSCA)
The Old Ottawa South Community Association, OSCA, represents the community which is just south of Lansdowne Park lying between the Canal and the River on both sides of Bank Street. We have deep concerns about the ability of road, transit and parking infrastructure to support the Lansdowne project. We feel it is absolutely vital that an independent and professionally conducted transportation study be undertaken for this large and important project.
OSCA’s first concern is the proposal to sole source the transportation study to Delcan. This is a firm which participated in developing the terms of reference for the study; they also developed the transportation strategy for OSEG when it made its first proposal to City Council to develop Lansdowne Park. Delcan is now not in a sufficiently neutral position to carry out a transportation study of this project. This firm worked for the original proponent, and drafted a study which concluded that there are no significant problems in managing traffic flows resulting from a large scale development on the site. We and other community groups, and other traffic experts, strongly criticized the original Delcan study's approach as deficient in many aspects. We cannot understand why the City would turn to this group again if the objective is an independent and professionally conducted study. We strongly believe that a competitive bidding process should be chosen to select the firm that does this crucial study.
We also are very concerned that the terms of reference are aimed towards a study intended to show how transportation and traffic solutions will work out for the Lansdowne project, rather than asking whether or not reasonable transportation and traffic solutions exist for it. In our view it is essential that the proposals designed to address traffic and transit problems be fully analyzed in terms of their capital and operating costs. It is also essential that there be an analysis of the costs or amenity losses that traffic or transit problems will impose on other users of local streets, and on merchants and residents in the study area.
Regarding concerns that are specific to Old Ottawa South, we would like to emphasize the need for the following six items:
- Factoring in historical traffic data that the City has, which has shown a significant growth in traffic volumes on Bank Street.
- Including Sunday traffic in any traffic counts.
- Incorporating Sunnyside and similar collectors in the City's traffic modeling studies.
- Taking into consideration in the traffic modeling Old Ottawa South's unique geography as a narrow strip bound by a canal from one side and a river from the other, which limits vehicular access in and out of it to three arteries (Bronson, Bank, and Main).
- Ensuring that proposed Traffic Demand Management strategies, for example eliminating on-street parking, not only be evaluated for the improvements they bring to traffic flow, but also be analyzed for the other impacts and costs they may have. For example in the case of on-street parking reductions or eliminations, costs include the loss of business to local shops.
- The borders of the area surrounding Lansdowne Park for which the study will be carried out need to be expanded to include: Billings Bridge Mall (itself on Bank Street-just South of Lansdowne), the Carleton University campus (a proposed satellite parking site) and the Main - Riverdale intersection (which will be used by traffic avoiding Bank Street).
I wish to finish by pointing out that the Lansdowne project has a price tag of hundreds of millions of dollars and its effects will be felt in this city for decades, before a final decision is made an independent and professionally conducted transportation study is absolutely vital.
Thank you.