Ring Roads, Bridges and Missed Opportunities for Orléans
There’s been a lot of talk lately about building a southern ring road around Ottawa. Let me be clear: I support it. In fact, we need two new east-west connections and neither should be seen as a replacement for a new interprovincial bridge.
Here’s what we actually need:
An inner ring road connecting Hunt Club / Walkley across Highway 417 to Innes / Brian Coburn Boulevard. This would allow drivers and transit users to travel from Orléans to South Ottawa without detouring downtown first.
An outer southern bypass, a new highway connection between Highway 417 and Highway 416 that would allow trucks and long-distance traffic to bypass Ottawa entirely.
These projects are about serving very different purposes and some recent suggestions to trade one for the other are completely off base.
A new interprovincial bridge is about improving the flow of people and goods between Ottawa and Gatineau. It would remove heavy trucks from downtown streets, strengthen regional trade and support thousands of daily commuters. It’s a vital nation building project and it has nothing to do with whether or not we build a ring road.
Meanwhile, both the inner and outer ring roads are about moving traffic within or around Ottawa, easing congestion and giving East-End residents, like those in Orléans, faster, safer connections to the south and west ends of the city.
So what’s the City doing about all of this? Nothing. While there is a passing mention of the inner ring road in the recently approved Transportation Master Plan, it is decades away from seeing the light of day, if ever. And there is NO mention of a new southern highway connection.
Why? Because instead of getting these ideas properly evaluated early in the process, some city councillors tried to jam them in at the last minute, after years of silence.
Yes, it made for great media drama, but it didn’t deliver results for Orléans. And once again, our community was left out.
The Province has flagged a southern ring road as a key transportation priority. For it to work, this will need to be a new provincial highway, not a City road.
I’ve raised this with the Minister before and I’ll continue to do so. So far, the Ford government has been more interested in digging a tunnel under the 401 than addressing Ottawa’s real transportation needs, but I’ll keep pushing the Premier and his team until they do what’s right for Eastern Ontario.
Because Orléans can’t wait forever.