By Keely Grasser
An $80,000 traffic study examining how to make Booth Street safer won’t reduce the road’s thick, speedy flow of cars, say some Centretown residents.
The city-sponsored study looked at ways of making Booth Street safer, between Scott Street and the Queensway.
Citizens say traffic on the mainly residential street is too heavy and goes too fast. The street is a major traffic route between Ottawa and Gatineau.
“Many of the residents think there is too much traffic on Booth Street,” says the area’s city councillor, Diane Holmes.
The study’s recommendations, presented late last year, include lowering the speed limit, widening boulevards and sidewalks, adding pedestrian signals and enforcing the prohibition of commercial trucks on the street.
Holmes says that the suggestions work for slowing traffic down, “but they don’t deal with the fact that we should be reducing traffic on Booth Street.”
She says that another larger study should be done to look at ways of diverting traffic away from the area.
“Many of the residents would say, yes, we do need (the proposed) recommendations,” Holmes says.
“But we need to look at the broader picture.”
This study was not intended to look at reducing traffic on Booth Street, says Ron Jack, lead consultant of Declan Consulting, the firm that ran the study.
“The study didn’t have the scope or budget,” he explains.
The recommendations are meant to slow down traffic, and make driving, walking and biking on Booth Street safer, says Jack.
Lowering traffic volume is a much bigger job, he says. To significantly reduce traffic, major changes would have to be made to both ends of the street to redirect the traffic elsewhere says Jack.
A larger-scale study on lowering traffic volume would have to be conducted to see what effects redirecting traffic would have on nearby routes like Preston Street and Bronson Avenue.
Actions to lower traffic on Booth Street would have major effects on a large area, says Bob Streicher, the city’s area traffic manager.
Streicher says it’s unfortunate that misunderstandings over the scope of the study have occurred between the community and the city’s traffic planners.
“We did try to work with the project teams,” he said, which had community representatives on them.
The public was invited to give their comments about the draft. “We’re still looking at the comments we’ve received,” Streicher says.
The study is still in draft form, and city staff will look over it in the coming months. The final presentation won’t be presented to city council until later this year.