The popularity of cycling in Ottawa has the city looking across the pond for potential inspiration in constructing roads to better serve all local residents, whether they bike, drive or walk.
The city has already been inspired by Dutch designs in rebuilding busy roadways to make them safer for cyclists travelling across the city’s core.
O’Connor Street is the latest downtown road set to undergo construction in order to make it more cyclist-friendly. A public information session on cycling infrastructure will be held at Dominion Chalmers Church on March 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. The session will present the planned bikeway and allow residents to view detailed designs for the project. City representatives will be available to answer any questions.
Construction on O’Connor is slated to begin this year.
“It will provide exclusive space for cyclists within the roadway north of Isabella Street, and permit north-bound cycling along the full length of O’Connor Street,” said Somerset Ward Coun. Catherine McKenney.
Phase one of the project from Laurier Avenue to Fifth Avenue is budgeted to cost $2.8 million.
Mobycon is a Dutch “sustainable mobility” consulting firm with offices in Ottawa that was brought in on the O’Connor Bikeway project after its role in redesigning other “complete streets” in the city, such as Churchill Street.
These streets focus on safer roads for all “mobilists”—people on the move. But Elizabeth Allingham, director of Mobycon for North America, said the firm isn’t just copying what works in the Netherlands, but adapting that country’s approach here in Canada.
“(The Netherlands) believe that everyone has a right to come home, regardless of the mode that they use,” says Allingham.
The Dutch model recommends bike lanes separated from traffic when speeds reach 50 km/h, but also that separation is not necessary when enforced speed limits are at 30 km/h—making this the ideal speed limit for most neighbourhoods.
“What we know is that people make mistakes all the time,” says Allingham. “The idea is that you find ways to design your cities so that when those mistakes happen they’re not fatal.”
“As a nation in Canada, the stats are much too high,” she says.
The City of Ottawa announced a “Towards Zero” traffic policy in December 2011, outlining that one fatality or serious injury is too many.
According to Transport Canada, there were more than 1,900 motor vehicle fatalities nationally in 2013 and around 10,300 serious injuries, both numbers representing about a seven-per-cent decline from 2012.
In 2010, a year before Ottawa’s zero-tolerance traffic policy was implemented, there were 38 fatalities and 149 serious injuries in the city. In 2014, according to the year’s road safety report, there were 29 traffic-related fatalities, increasing slightly from 27 fatalities in 2013.
Don Grant, executive director of the Ottawa Centre EcoDistrict, says the Netherlands is a “haven” for cycling.
OCED hosted Mobycon CEO Johan Diepens and designer Dick van Veen for a public talk on Dutch street design on Feb. 11 in Ottawa.
“Motorists tend to think that roads are for cars and their (Mobycon’s) main message was roads are for people and you have to think of everyone as a mobilist,” says Grant.
Grant stressed the speed of oncoming traffic and the separation of bike lanes when speeds reach above 50 km/hr, giving the example of elevated bike lanes along Churchill Street and the full loop now available for cyclists around the downtown core.
“This is a big deal for cycling in Ottawa,” he says.
In an email, McKenney said the planned O’Connor Bikeway will connect communities by providing a continuous north and south cycling connection. A new pedestrian crossing on the east side of the O’Connor/Isabella intersection, just south of the Queensway, will also be implemented, allowing pedestrians to cross separately from the left-turning lanes.
Between Wellington Street and Pretoria Avenue on O’Connor, a physically separated, bi-directional bikeway on the east side of the road is planned, with bike lanes on both sides from Pretoria to Patterson avenues.
Between Patterson and Monkland avenues in the Glebe, there will be a northbound shared use lane and a southbound bike lane on the west side of the road.
And from Monkland down to Glebe Avenue, there will be bike lanes on both sides, with a southbound bike lane on the west side and a northbound shared use lane from Glebe to First avenues.
The bikeway will wrap up from First to Fifth avenues with shared use lanes.