Ottawa Bypass Corridor

[waterloowarrior]

Deleted a bunch of posts sniping back and forth...

Originally Posted by roger1818

Mods: can we please have this thread tagged as “Fantasy?” I am not aware of any official proposal to build a bypass in Ottawa.

It's been studied by MTO before (don't think the study was ever finalized or released) and is part of their new transportation plan for Eastern Ontario. We should be seeing more from them soon as various consultations are underway with agencies and municipalities right now (in general, not sure about the bypass)
https://ontario.ca/files/2022-04/mto...2022-04-21.pdf

As part of MTO’s work on the
eastern Ontario transportation
plan technical study, explore the
potential of an Ottawa ring road
to reduce congestion in the city
core.

[Dengler Avenue]

Oh wow that was recent.
Then again, it was published 2 months before provincial election 2022. Should we take it with a boulder of salt?

[Truenorth00]

When you don't really want to build something but want the votes of people who care about it....

[Marshsparrow]

There will never be an Ottawa bypass...

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Deleted a bunch of posts sniping back and forth...



It's been studied by MTO before (don't think the study was ever finalized or released) and is part of their new transportation plan for Eastern Ontario. We should be seeing more from them soon as various consultations are underway with agencies and municipalities right now (in general, not sure about the bypass)
https://ontario.ca/files/2022-04/mto...2022-04-21.pdf

As part of MTO’s work on the
eastern Ontario transportation
plan technical study, explore the
potential of an Ottawa ring road
to reduce congestion in the city
core.

Interesting. Looking at the file in the link it is Action Number 17 of 17 planned actions, to give you an idea of where is on their priority list. A pre-election promise to someday study to see if there is any potential for a rink road to reduce congestion in Ottawa isn't a plan, but I guess it does mean that it is one micro step above fantasy (whatever you would call that).

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

There will never be an Ottawa bypass...

Correct!

Ottawa is the destination, with not that many passing through to get somewhere else.

Therefore, a bypass would be for locals to get from suburb to suburb. Sure, also for exurb to exurb, but most would be from the suburbs.

This road would facilitate the Amazon facilities and more such warehouses, to move goods around Ottawa. It will move thousands of low paid jobs to where transit cannot reach.

As someone who lives in the south, a ring road would be the preferred way to cross the city, instead of heading for Bronson and the Queensway. Hunt Club is too slow to cross the city.

So, all this traffic moving to the ring road, would encourage retail to move outward to interchange nodes. The end result is more traffic to reach these new shopping meccas, and retail in more inner areas will continue to degrade further. And retail workers will be more tied into car travel as well as shoppers. Perfect example of induced demand for car travel, and further degradation of transit, which we cannot afford to serve these new retail nodes along the ring road, other than perhaps the most basic service.

[Tesladom]

We don't need a "bypass" for out of town people, we need a secondary route through the city. Many people would find the routes I proposed useful and it would alleviate congestion in the center part of the city



For example: I want to visit my sister in Barhaven from Orleans, I live in Riverside South and work at CSE, I want to go from Barrhaven to Gatineau, Findlay Creek to work in Kanata, I want to go from Stittsville to the Airport. All of these are logical trips that happen every day, and all these trips currently traverse the center of the city on existing roads.

We are at an inflection point now, with 300-500k more people we won't have the capacity. Need to link Orleans, Tewin, RS, Barrhaven and Kanata-Stittsville

[Kelnoz]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

For example: I want to visit my sister in Barhaven from Orleans, I live in Riverside South and work at CSE, I want to go from Barrhaven to Gatineau, Findlay Creek to work in Kanata, I want to go from Stittsville to the Airport. All of these are logical trips that happen every day, and all these trips currently traverse the center of the city on existing roads.

We are at an inflection point now, with 300-500k more people we won't have the capacity. Need to link Orleans, Tewin, RS, Barrhaven and Kanata-Stittsville

You know country roads exist right? They have plenty of capacity for those niche trips. If you live in Riverside South and work at CSE by going through the city centre, that's a you problem. Maybe Barrhaven to Gatineau makes you go through the city centre, depending on where your destination is in Gatineau and which bridge you'll use. Which comes back to a bridge problem, and not a bypass issue.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Deleted a bunch of posts sniping back and forth...



It's been studied by MTO before (don't think the study was ever finalized or released) and is part of their new transportation plan for Eastern Ontario. We should be seeing more from them soon as various consultations are underway with agencies and municipalities right now (in general, not sure about the bypass)
https://ontario.ca/files/2022-04/mto...2022-04-21.pdf

As part of MTO’s work on the
eastern Ontario transportation
plan technical study, explore the
potential of an Ottawa ring road
to reduce congestion in the city
core.

First, sorry for getting baited into it and being part of it.

Second, and back to this.

I know Dengler has been looking at twinning all of the Trans Canada highways and has been diligently looking for studies or anything to point that there is a plan for it as it becomes needed. It appears that with this study we now know this is a potential. It is doubtful that this is just for an election to get votes as it could just as easily infuriate people (As it has here.) I feel a study fora ring road is likely to come out before the next election. It will be good to see the study to show what metrics they are using to show the need or not.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

We don't need a "bypass" for out of town people, we need a secondary route through the city. Many people would find the routes I proposed useful and it would alleviate congestion in the center part of the city

Indeed. Ottawa is generally the destination unto itself as mentioned; the volume of through traffic is minimal in comparison.

The bypass for the out-of-town folks is a much, much lower secondary priority to the point of being dismissed out of hand as justification on that basis. The Province didn't build the 407 around Toronto so that residents of Peterborough and Kingston could get to Kitchener and London more quickly.

Hunt Club should have been the mobility enhancer across the southern portion of Ottawa. It serves incompletely in this role due to choices made long ago, which made it a suburban arterial east of Woodroffe.

Coming from the west, perhaps if "new" Hunt Club was routed south parallel to Woodroffe, east around the airport (following Fallowfield/Limebank/Letrim axis) and parallel along Lester/Davidson with limited access points, it could more effectively do so.

The problem being that such a thing could not be politically 'sold' as a provincial-scale project very effectively.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Hunt Club should have been the mobility enhancer across the southern portion of Ottawa. It serves incompletely in this role due to choices made long ago, which made it a suburban arterial east of Woodroffe.

Agreed. Decisions made by the former cities of Gloucester and Nepean to to allow adjacent development with direct access to Hunt Club crippled it as an arterial. Improvements could be made, at some of the most problematic intersections, but resulting increase in traffic would just move the problem to other intersections.

As I said before, the only way a new bypass could make any sense is if it connected the 416 to a new bridge across the Ottawa river, so that vehicles traveling to/from the south don't need to travel through central Ottawa to get to Gatineau. From an Ontario perspective, the optics of such a project would be poor though.

Extending the bypass west of the 416 would add minimal value though.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

We don't need a "bypass" for out of town people, we need a secondary route through the city. Many people would find the routes I proposed useful and it would alleviate congestion in the center part of the city



For example: I want to visit my sister in Barhaven from Orleans, I live in Riverside South and work at CSE, I want to go from Barrhaven to Gatineau, Findlay Creek to work in Kanata, I want to go from Stittsville to the Airport. All of these are logical trips that happen every day, and all these trips currently traverse the center of the city on existing roads.

This was exactly my point. The proposed bypass is useless to Ottawa residents. What you're suggesting is far more useful.

I actually think what might work is turning Hunt Club from stroad to road. That could be done cheaply and reasonably quickly. It won't be a full freeway. But it would provide some savings to cross-town travelers in the south.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Harley613

My response to the rest of your comment is the same response I have had to everyone's comment on here so far I think? Why aren't you folks thinking about the future? Virtually every comment in this debate so far is based on the current situation, what is happening on the 417 this afternoon. This city will continue to grow rapidly, and will continue to be the worst city from a mass transit and freeway perspective in the entire country if we don't fix both sides of the equation. A broken Suburb-to-Core LRT network will not cut it. One East-West highway will not cut it when we have 300-500 thousand more people in the region in 20 years or so. Period. Full stop.

I was thinking more about this comment and the traffic patterns of the future are far from certain. Studies have shown that members of Gen Z are less likely to get their drivers licence or own a car than the generations before them. The question is if this a temporary blip or is is this the start of a new trend? If part of a new trend, we could run into a situation where even though the population is growing, the amount of traffic remains the same or even starts to decline.

As I said, this is far from certain, and if personal cars are replaced by Ubers, traffic may get even worse, but it is worth at least some consideration.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I was thinking more about this comment and the traffic patterns of the future are far from certain. Studies have shown that members of Gen Z are less likely to get their drivers licence or own a car than the generations before them. The question is if this a temporary blip or is is this the start of a new trend? If part of a new trend, we could run into a situation where even though the population is growing, the amount of traffic remains the same or even starts to decline.

As I said, this is far from certain, and if personal cars are replaced by Ubers, traffic may get even worse, but it is worth at least some consideration.

Perhaps it’s due to this level of uncertainty that MTO puts it at the bottom of the priority list just to show that it has at least been considered.
In that case, things may be as good as they can get (for this topic) for now.

[GeoNerd]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

We don't need a "bypass" for out of town people, we need a secondary route through the city. Many people would find the routes I proposed useful and it would alleviate congestion in the center part of the city

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This was exactly my point. The proposed bypass is useless to Ottawa residents. What you're suggesting is far more useful.

I actually think what might work is turning Hunt Club from stroad to road. That could be done cheaply and reasonably quickly. It won't be a full freeway. But it would provide some savings to cross-town travelers in the south.

You both are completely incorrect. Building all kinds of city freeways for local use is dated boomer mentality and kills cities. That is 100% against all good city building principals. "I need to get from one crappy suburb to another crappy suburb" is not a good argument whatsoever. Get out of your car, take transit, and stop buying homes in terrible disconnected suburbs. If you want to live in a city, but act like it's a small town, just go move to a small town. Building you personal freeways from suburb to suburb is obscenely idiotic city building.

[GeoNerd]

Honestly this is the only ring road that makes any sense. A true by-pass/trucks route around the core of the city for Trans-Canada Highway travel. Of course this would involve carving up the greenbelt and the public would scream, but rationally this makes sense. Maybe if was sunken into the ground with some green over passes like the Herb Gray Parkway it would be less intrusive, but still a public relations nightmare.

Having freeway spurs cut through MerBleu to Orleans, or south of Kanata to Highway 7 is ridiculous. They would just encourage car commuting and sprawl and take people away from public transit.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by GeoNerd

Honestly this is the only ring road that makes any sense. A true by-pass/trucks route around the core of the city for Trans-Canada Highway travel. Of course this would involve carving up the greenbelt and the public would scream, but rationally this makes sense. Maybe if was sunken into the ground with some green over passes like the Herb Gray Parkway it would be less intrusive, but still a public relations nightmare.

Having freeway spurs cut through MerBleu to Orleans, or south of Kanata to Highway 7 is ridiculous. They would just encourage car commuting and sprawl and take people away from public transit.

I partially agree, but would flip that bypass upside down. As others have said, the amount of traffic on Hwys 7 and 17 that isn't destined for Ottawa is miniscule. Much more significant is the traffic on the 416 that is destined for Gatineau or eastern Ottawa is much higher, so a bypass that runs from some point south of Manotick to somewhere close to the Hunt Club exchange would be much more useful (especially if an eastern bridge is built and the bypass is aligned with the highway to the bridge).

In other words, a north/south Ottawa bypass would be much more useful than an east/west bypass. I will try to draw a map when I get a chance.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I partially agree, but would flip that bypass upside down. As others have said, the amount of traffic on Hwys 7 and 17 that isn't destined for Ottawa is miniscule. Much more significant is the traffic on the 416 that is destined for Gatineau or eastern Ottawa is much higher, so a bypass that runs from some point south of Manotick to somewhere close to the Hunt Club exchange would be much more useful (especially if an eastern bridge is built and the bypass is aligned with the highway to the bridge).

In other words, a north/south Ottawa bypass would be much more useful than an east/west bypass. I will try to draw a map when I get a chance.

This makes a lot more sense. It would also serve the airport more directly from Orléans and the eastern suburbs, and from much of Gatineau too.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This makes a lot more sense. It would also serve the airport more directly from Orléans and the eastern suburbs, and from much of Gatineau too.

There just seems to be a lot of difficulty trying to build a freeway crossing over Ottawa River, though, whether or not it straddles 2 provinces.
(I have A9 and A640 in mind.)

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by GeoNerd

Honestly this is the only ring road that makes any sense. A true by-pass/trucks route around the core of the city for Trans-Canada Highway travel. Of course this would involve carving up the greenbelt and the public would scream, but rationally this makes sense. Maybe if was sunken into the ground with some green over passes like the Herb Gray Parkway it would be less intrusive, but still a public relations nightmare.

Having freeway spurs cut through MerBleu to Orleans, or south of Kanata to Highway 7 is ridiculous. They would just encourage car commuting and sprawl and take people away from public transit.

The Herb Gray Parkway is for one of the largest truck routes in North America. I don't think there is anything nearly equivalent in Ottawa. You don't see many trucks with out of province plates and once you get past the 416 transport trucks become pretty rare.