SkyscraperPage Forum - Greenbank Road Realignment and Southwest Transitway Extension Project

Long-awaited Greenbank Road realignment in Barrhaven set to break ground
Greenbank Road has become an important artery in and out of Barrhaven's Half Moon Bay community. A long-anticipated realignment project is set to expand the road to update the infrastructure in the sprawling suburb.

By Natasha Baldin, Ottawa Citizen
Published Jan 21, 2026 | Last updated 37 minutes ago

Rows upon rows of houses blanket Barrhaven’s Half Moon Bay community, now among the fastest growing subdivisions in Ottawa. It’s a far cry from the vast land and local roads that defined its rural past.

Before its rapid expansion, Half Moon Bay was largely farmland with barns and small developments dotting the area. It was connected to the rest of Barrhaven by a narrow, two-lane bridge bookended by tight, 90-degree turns on either side.

A realignment of Greenbank Road was advertised to residents on glossy pamphlets as early as 2006 as the community started to grow. Greenbank was shaping up to be the spine of the new community, and plans promised upgraded infrastructure designed to handle the growing volume of suburban traffic heading into and out of the suburb.

Two decades later, though, the original road infrastructure still remains. Greenbank realignment plans were pushed back as the city shifted funding priorities in Barrhaven throughout the 2010s to increasing safety at rail crossings following a tragic Via Rail-OC Transpo crash in 2013.

“It was a really stark reminder that at-grade rail crossings were unsafe,” Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill says. “And what that meant is that people at Half Moon Bay experienced further substantial growth in the community without the arterial that was predicated on that growth happening.”

After an additional $56 million was earmarked for the project in the 2026 city budget, Hill says, shovels will finally hit the ground this spring on the long-awaited infrastructure project.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Hill says. “I’ve been talking about the work towards this for a long time, and a lot of people have been quite cynical for sure, and I can understand that — it’s a big job and they’ve been waiting for decades.”

The full realignment project will involve construction of a new, four-lane roadway all the way from Barnsdale Road to Marketplace Avenue with segregated two-lane bus rapid transit running through the median. A new, wider bridge will be constructed over the Jock River, and the new road will continue northeast before reconnecting with the old Greenbank Road at St. Joseph High School on the other side.

Hill says the work will be completed in several phases. The first phase, slated to start this spring, will begin work to realign the road from Riverboat Heights to Cambrian Road, providing better connection to the new Food Basics store and other commercial developments springing up nearby.

With the bridge component now fully funded, Hill says he expects construction over the Jock River to begin immediately after that. Further portions of the project from Cambrian Road south to Barnsdale Road are expected to be funded in future budget cycles.

Part of increasing connectivity in and out of Half Moon Bay will include improved transit access for residents. Hill says some people living in newer parts of the subdivision routinely have to walk up to two kilometres to get to the closest bus stop, which is often only serviced by a local route.

“Busing in Half Moon Bay right now is not acceptable and it needs to be improved,” Hill says. “(Currently) we’ve had to make do with putting bus routes down roads that weren’t really designed for it, which highlights the narrowness of roads and the haves and have-nots in terms of transit streets.”

The realignment plan also involves a future Park & Ride facility at intersection of realigned Greenbank and Kilbirnie Drive.

As for the current Greenbank Road, Hill says the route won’t be decommissioned entirely, but instead will be used as a local road once it’s relieved from arterial responsibilities. The current bridge over the Jock River will become pedestrianized, he adds.

While the western edge community brushes right up against Highway 416 at Barnsdale Road, there’s currently no interchange available, something else Hill says he’s looking to address to increase connectivity into and out of Barrhaven.

“If you’re in Half Moon Bay right now, it can take 20 minutes to get out of Barrhaven because there’s no interchange down there,” he says. “This is a huge deal. Everybody that lives in Half Moon Bay knows that this is how transit is going to be improved in the area.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/green...ment-barrhaven