By Alexis Kazanowski
An anxious Centretown activist is still waiting for construction of the Rideau Canal Pedestrian Crossing to begin, but the City of Ottawa has yet to commit to a date.
“I want the bridge yesterday,” says David Gladstone of the Centretown Citizens Community Association.
The overpass would connect Centretown with Sandy Hill, near the Campus Station of the transit way.
The long-discussed footbridge, originally proposed in 1984, would give Centretown residents easier access to the University of Ottawa and provide pedestrian access between the existing bridges, Laurier and Pretoria, which are now a kilometer-and-a-half apart.
“We have been studying the bridge for three years and they still don’t know when it’s going to be built,” says Gladstone.
The city narrowed the original 12 design options down to two in June. Both options are high-level designs, far enough off the canal to allow for both skaters and boats to pass underneath the bridge without having to make the overpass movable.
Chris Gordon, project engineer with the City of Ottawa, said the city would continue to make refinements to both options in terms of construction material to be used and the final width of the structure.
Gordon said construction would not start before 2004, but said it would more likely be a year later.
“It depends on council’s funding in further budgets,” he says.
According to Michael Richardson, president of Citizens for Safe Cycling, the designs are less than perfect.
“Both of them have rather sharp turns at the east side which is going to make it difficult for snow plows and cyclists,” says Richardson.
“It’s not the 100 per cent solution, it’s the 94 per cent solution, but it’s important that the bridge go ahead.”
Richardson said the sharp turns may be a “minor annoyance” to cyclists, but said they were much less annoying than having to bike the extra one-and-a-half kilometres to one of the existing bridges.
Compared to some of the earlier designs that were ruled out, the remaining options are pedestrian friendly.
“We’re relatively happy, there was much worse,” says Richardson.
Richardson says, the cycling group is going to push to get the bridge in next year’s budget.
Vivi Chi, manager of transportation and infrastructure for the City of Ottawa, said the city is wrapping up its final document report and environmental assessment, outlining the details of the project. The reports should be released this month.
The city is required to publish both evaluations for a 30-day public review process and Chi said there would be an ad published when it is released.
Chi said copies would be available at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, the Ottawa Public Library and at City Hall.
Gladstone says city staff are stalling on the bridge and are “playing hard to get” when questioned about a definite construction date.
“Throughout the entire process they never gave us a straight answer,” he says.
For now, the only way for pedestrians to cross the canal directly at Somerset West is to wade through the water.