By Naomi Johnson
Over 15,000 transport trucks roar past Wadia Oneid’s doorstep every day and her business is suffering because of it.
Oneid’s Flowers on Rideau Street is caught on the route trucks take to the Queensway after crossing the Macdonald-Cartier bridge. Over 2,000 18-wheelers pass by daily.
“Sometimes I feel they’re going to fall down on us or something,” says Oneid.
Oneid says the trucks are so noisy she must keep her door closed, otherwise it’s impossible to talk to customers. Oneid says she’s very frustrated.
“It’s a big problem here on Rideau, for everybody.”
The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and merchants downtown agree the only remedy is to build additional bridges between the Outaouais and Ottawa-Carleton. However, neither can agree where the bridges should be located.
Downtown locations proposed by merchants were dropped from the region’s official plan because council decided the five existing bridges were enough. Any proposals excluded from the official plan won’t even be considered by the region. And this has prompted the merchants to appeal the decision to the Ontario Municipal Board. Josh Moon, the lawyer acting on the merchant’s behalf, will ask the board to put the proposal back into the plan and to make it a priority.
“Thirty years is enough,” says Moon. “We’ve waited long enough for the new bridge, it’s time to put it in the official plan and get it done with.”
The merchant’s proposal includes an east-end bridge linking Gatineau to the Aviation Parkway, across Kettle Island. They also suggest two alternatives, including extending the Vanier Parkway to the Macdonald-Cartier bridge or using the CP Rail corridor near LeBreton Flats.
Although such a proposal would help downtown merchants, rerouting the trucks could wreak havoc elsewhere.
Kathy Kaitola, manager of Prospero the Book Company on Bank Street, says trucks are not a major problem for her business. However, if the downtown merchant’s proposed bridge near LeBreton Flats was ever built, she would be concerned.
“People don’t really like to drive where there are a lot of trucks,” says Kaitola. “If it was through LeBreton Flats it would probably detract from our business.”
The region recently released a proposal ensuring truck traffic would not be a problem for Ottawa’s downtown or neighbouring areas. In fact, trucks would have to travel as far east as Cumberland or as far west as Kanata to use the two proposed bridges. Only the east bridge is currently mentioned in the region’s official plan. Moon says the proposal is unrealistic and an east bridge would only reduce downtown truck traffic by 26 per cent. He questions why trucks would drive 18 kilometres east, only to drive back the same distance once they crossed into Ontario. He says trucks would more likely continue to use a downtown bridge.
Brendan Reid, manager of transportation planning for the region, disagrees, and says trucks would find the region’s proposal an “attractive alternative.”
He says it would do a more complete job of resolving downtown’s “severe problem” and serve the region’s east and west expansion.
“We hope to be able to defend that position and make it quite clear to the OMB that our position is the correct one,” says Reid.
In the meantime, Rideau Street merchants will continue to wait for change. Oneid wishes she’d known a year ago what she knows now about downtown’s truck traffic problem.
“I would have reconsidered coming here,” says Oneid.
The OMB will hear the appeal on April 26.