By Joe Boughner
Kent Street resident Michael Flavell is frustrated.
The City of Ottawa is poised to move many of the sidewalk extensions installed along Kent Street last fall to the other side of the street – straightening out traffic lanes in the process.
Flavell says he is glad to see the sidewalk extensions that made traffic shift from side-to-side go.
But for him, the whole project has been a waste of time.
“It’s better than it was,” he says. “But it was even better before they made (the street) into a slalom run.”
The confusion associated with the side-to-side movement of traffic is the biggest reason for the city’s decision, says Michael Flainek, director of traffic and parking operations.
“We did a lot of follow-up study after we put the measures in place. There was a lot of confusion and anxiety, not all drivers were driving the same way.”
Originally, sidewalk extensions were placed along Kent Street, forcing traffic lanes to shift laterally. The goal of these extensions was to shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians and leave more room for on-street parking.
A report to the city’s transportation committee last week suggested the two of the extensions be removed and new ones placed on the other side of the street.
Traffic lanes will be straightened out, but the crossing distance for pedestrians will still be shorter.
Flainek says there was some immediate concern about using any traffic-shifting measures on a multi-lane road like Kent Street.
“We were very hesitant to put vertical shifts (raised intersections) on major roadways, it’s usually done on lower-tier roads,” he says. “Since there was no data available we were ordered by (the former regional) council to put in these lateral shifts instead.”
Flainek says city staff was willing to take it on as a pilot project, but says driver behaviour did not change as a result.
Somerset Ward Coun. Elisabeth Arnold says she is happy to see the changes being sent to council, and thinks the motion will pass without too much trouble. She was a supporter of traffic calming measures along Kent Street, but says she asked staff for a report after she heard complaints from residents about the traffic shifts.
“It has become abundantly clear that the residents don’t like the weaving,” she says.
Arnold says her office has received a lot of “unsolicited public consultation” in the form of e-mails, phone calls and faxes regarding the changes.
Arnold voted in favour of the report.
Although the $100,000 it will cost to fix Kent Street is available from last year’s budget, Flavell says the whole plan has been a waste of money.
“Now, they are just saving face, they think the public is stupid enough to believe they’ve fixed the problem, but they wouldn’t listen to begin with,” he says.
“Kent Street will never be beautiful. People move onto these thoroughfares because they are cheap to live on, then they want to make them into country lanes.”
Flainek says the decision is based on public safety.
“Traffic calming is a large public consultation effort,” he says. He likens the situation to someone driving slowly on the Queensway. “Driving 40 km-h may be safe, but not on the Queensway. You can’t have people driving differently from everyone else.”