By Andy Nielsen
The team in charge of developing a new pedestrian bridge over the Rideau Canal at Somerset Street W. has presented the public with four possible design options.
The long-discussed footbridge would link Centretown with Sandy Hill, near the Campus Station of the transitway. Last year, the city allocated $800,000 to the planning phase of the project and commissioned Delcan Corp., a private consulting firm, to carry out an environmental impact and feasibility study.
The public got its first look at the proposed designs at an open house held at City Hall this week.
Delcan developed 12 separate bridge designs for the project, based on three different configurations: a moveable low-level span, a moveable mid-level span, and a fixed high-level span.
The low- and mid-level span designs were discarded as unworkable, as were some of the high-level spans. That left four high-level designs to choose from.
“A low-level span would have to be lifted every time a boat went through, to the order of about 1,000 times per season,” said Vivi Chi, manager of transportation and infrastructure for the City of Ottawa.
“The low level ones are too low even to allow clearance for skaters.”
Chi says even a mid-height structure would have to be movable to accommodate larger boats, making a high-level fixed span the best option. The fixed span would have a minimum clearance of 6.7 metres, allowing boats to pass underneath the bridge itself.
Nadia De Santi, an environmental planner with Delcan Corp., says the planners took a number of factors into account in coming up with the four possibilities. These included the environmental impact, the aesthetics of each design, and the functional requirements.
“At our first open house (in February 2001) we asked the public for input,” said De Santi. “We then took those comments and developed them further. From that we developed the evaluation criteria.”
De Santi says Delcan used these criteria to rank the 12 designs and that the four short-listed designs are those that consistently came out on top.
The next step, says De Santi, will be to take the four short listed designs and refine them further, then conduct another internal evaluation. It should provide the single most suitable design, which will be presented at the next open house in next March.
Flora Street resident Peter Thorn, who attended the open house at City Hall, says he doesn’t mind that the process seems slow.
“It’s better that they do it right than they do it too quickly,” he said. “This is a fair chunk of money they’re spending. I want to make sure it (the bridge) is safe and aesthetically pleasing.”
Mary Haydon, of the Driveway, says her main concern is how the crossing will affect the look of the canal.
“I’d like a bridge that that feels like it’s part of the area, one that’s consistent with the homes and the buildings.” Haydon said. “This is an old part of town.”
The city’s Vivi Chi says the plans are carefully considered at all levels of government. The National Capital Commission owns the land on either side of the canal, while Parks Canada owns and operates the canal itself.
“We have been going to them at each stage of this work to get their comments,” Chi said.
Chi says that so far the planners have spent about half of the $800,000 allotted for the project, but they will need more money to move into the next phases of design and construction. Whether they get that money will depend on the city’s next budget.
“It’s up to council and committee to weigh their priorities and other infrastructure needs across the city, and whether this gets to continue or gets delayed a year I don’t know.”