Clarifying Kent traffic calming
I want to take this opportunity to clarify some information presented in your article on Kent St. in the January 26th, 2001 edition of Centretown News.
The article lacks any of the history of the project, which included months of public consultation to discuss the needs and concerns of the community, while maintaining the pre-construction traffic capacity on Kent Street. The modifications resulted from a study commissioned by the former City of Ottawa and Region of Ottawa-Carleton, undertaken to develop a traffic-calming plan for Centretown. After an extensive public consultation process, a final design was developed and approved by the Region’s Transportation Committee and adopted by Regional Council last May.
Traffic calming is a recognized method of incorporating safe roadways into communities. The small sidewalk extensions your reporter refers to do not exist to simply ‘shift traffic side to side.’ Sidewalk bulb-outs incorporate parking for cars and narrow pedestrian crossing distances. There are also many trees planted along Kent Street to remind people that they are driving through a residential community and to break the ‘highway’ look of the street.
Conditions were improved for those walking along and across Kent Street as well as improving conditions for parking, cycling, bus operations, and cross-traffic flow. Although Kent Street is a major north-south thoroughfare through the downtown, one of our downtown’s greatest assets, which maintain it as a vibrant core, is the existence of many residents who live in the communities surrounding and including these roadways.
As is the practice with all modified roads, the City is evaluating the effectiveness and safety of the traffic-calming measures on Kent St. The city relies greatly on public input to develop any roadway plans as well as for the subsequent evaluation of roadworks. Staff will continue to monitor Kent Street and will recommend alternatives to any elements that prove to be unsafe once a proper evaluation period has passed.
Elisabeth Arnold,
Councilor, Somerset Ward