Quote:
Originally Posted by Harley613
So incredibly wrong. Just look at Calgary as an example. The ring road has done so much to improve quality of life, the economy, and reign in sprawl. Ottawa will continue to lose opportunities to diversify the economy, grow the burgeoning logistics sector, ease ever worsening gridlock through the core, and stop the spread of the outer suburbs without a proper ring road. So many people just 'NEW ROAD BAD. INDUCED DEMAND. BAD FOR ENVIRONMENT' without realizing we aren't over building by creating a ring road, we are just barely catching up.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phil235
Agree that this route is going to be underused, but I do see the potential for induced demand. Assuming that the ring road is somewhere near the city, I think the induced traffic would come from suburb to suburb travel, and a big expansion of places like Leitrim and Greeley. More car dependent development will equal more cars.
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Suburb to suburb travel happens when you connect residential areas and employment nodes. I'm not sold that Leitrim or Greeley would ever be major employment hubs or even substantial suburbs. But proposed idea doesn't even connect to them:
A road that runs 10 km south of Barrhaven isn't going to be a ring road. It serves nobody but Kars, Metcalfe, etc. And even then, it's basically a faster drive to the 416. Marginally helps going between Kanata and Embrun. Works as a bypass. Useless as a ring road.
If there was ever to be a ring road for Ottawa, it would basically be where Bankfield Rd and Mitch Owens Rd are today. Who wants to tell Manotick that we need to bulldoze a path right through the centre of their community for a new highway to enable marginally faster travel between Limoges and Stittsville?
There's probably a case for Hwy 7 to extend its dual carriageway till Hwy 15 and for 15 to be upgraded from Carleton Place to Kingston with a Smith's Falls bypass. But an Ottawa bypass to connect Perth to Embrun is rather useless.