Bendin: Let’s change course on Kettle Island bridge construction

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Despite being symbols of unity and harmony, bridges can also be a source of division and seemingly irreconcilable differences. While a mind open to the lessons of experience can create conditions for resolving them, the opposite mindset often leads to dysfunction and paralysis.

The latter fate is likely to await the inter-provincial transport plans of the National Capital Commission (NCC), which seem determined to solve long-standing traffic problems with the same thinking that created them.

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In 2007, the NCC conducted a multi-year study on behalf of the federal, Ontario and Quebec governments into whether and where to build one and possibly two interprovincial bridges. Public consultations pitted communities along the Ottawa River against each other in a game of musical chairs that ended in 2013 with Kettle Island as the last potential site standing.

A bridge on Kettle Island would connect to Queensway along Aviation Parkway, which runs through established neighborhoods and is next to a major hospital and major cultural institutions. Surrounding residents opposed the plan, as did the director of the de Montfort hospital, who feared that interprovincial traffic would impede the passage of ambulances and put lives at risk. They were joined by local politicians, including Tobi Nussbaum, then councilor for the Rideau-Rockcliffe district and now executive director of NCC, who criticized the recommendation for not adequately considering the impact of the crossing on adjacent neighborhoods. He also highlighted the need to avoid transferring downtown Ottawa’s traffic problems to other communities. Unwilling to ignore these and other concerns, the Ontario government withdrew its support.

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The withdrawal echoed Prime Minister William Davis’s decision to cancel the Spadina Expressway widening in 1971, which had been under construction in Toronto since the 1950s. In fact, he acknowledged that people who express legitimate concerns about the effects of transportation infrastructure on their communities, whether downtown or elsewhere, are not inimical to the public interest, and governments that act on them are not caving in to the so-called NIMBY opposition. When Davis passed away, his obituaries and related media reports cited his decision as one of his notable achievements.

However, the federal government did not agree with the withdrawal and left the scene until 2019, when it announced a unilateral interprovincial bridge initiative. Instead of starting over, he ordered the NCC to update the previously rejected study. Based on the same evaluation factors, As expected, he concluded that Kettle Island remained the “technically preferred corridor.” The conclusion was transferred to Integrated Long-Term Interprovincial Transportation Plan that, amid much talk about process, vision and long-term goals for different modes of transport, will proceed on the basis that a new bridge “in the east” is the best option.

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While this evokes possibilities other than Kettle Island, it still conflicts with Nussbaum’s warning against transferring traffic problems from one area of ​​the city to another and reveals indifference to the consequences for the affected neighborhoods.

The plan’s approach contrasts with the ambitions and achievements of other metropolitan areas. These include plugging up urban freeways, replacing them with less disruptive roads, parks or new neighborhoods, or as Boston, Miami and Seattle did, burying them in tunnels beneath reinvented landscapes. The citizens of Antwerp have gone even further by voting to solve their traffic problems with multiple tunnels that include dedicated underground passages for cyclists.

A transportation infrastructure that prevents the repetition of mistakes while remedying their consequences is not an impossible dream. While undoubtedly costly, these long-term investments are essential to generating prosperity in a world where competition for skilled workers and employment opportunities is increasingly based on quality of life considerations. It is not too late for the federal government and the NCC to change course. But the moment is fleeting, and if it is missed, it risks leaving the Ottawa-Gatineau region “bound to shoals and miseries” and its residents watching an alternative version of their future unfold elsewhere.

Patrick Bendin is a retired lawyer and long-time resident of Ottawa.

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