Battle brewing over proposed Walkley-parkway off-ramp
By Erin McCracken
Ottawa South News, Jun 11, 2015
A proposed southbound off-ramp to Walkley Road from the Airport Parkway is back on the table, and is the reason why longtime Riverside Park resident Bob Laird is rallying his neighbours to oppose the plan.
Laird, who has lived in his Walkley Road home between Bank Street and Riverside Drive since 1969, said the off-ramp will bring more traffic to the already congested area, a residential community he said is suffering from heavy rush-hour traffic, speeding and cut-through motorists.
Laird has handed out about 250 notices to people in his area in advance of a June 17 public open house about design options being considered for the widening of the Airport Parkway and Lester Road. A 21-month environmental assessment of the project is now underway.
“The idea of trying to handle traffic by just adding roads and bridges, it never works. It can’t work because then people will start to use it,” said Laird.
When the Brookfield Road exit off the parkway was built north of Walkley, it funnelled more cars to Riverside Drive, which is now backed up during peak commute times, as a result, Laird said.
Today, Walkley Road is a busy commuter thoroughfare, and will only get worse with a new parkway exit, said Laird.
“(The off-ramp) will just increase speeding in the off hours and increase the amount of cars in the peak hours.
“What you find out always, and that happened with the Hunt Club Bridge, is as soon as you build something new or bigger, it’s immediately filled up. And the Hunt Club Bridge, the first day it opened, was too small,” he said.
Safety for residents remains top of mind for Laird, just as it did in 1997 when he banded with others in his community to form the West Walkley Residents’ Action Committee.
“People do not realize it’s a residential area,” he said of cut-through motorists.
Together, they opposed the idea of a parkway exit in 2001, and advocated to bring to light worrisome traffic issues, such as speeding in the 50-kilometre-per-hour zone, where there are four schools.
He suspects traffic on Walkley has doubled since then. Today, there are “huge lineups” of vehicles trying to turn left onto McCarthy Road from Walkley before and after work.
“And that would simply increase if we had this off-ramp because that would be one of the routes people would be going for,” said Laird.
The councillor representing the area agrees the off-ramp would have repercussions for residents in his ward, especially those living on Walkley and Southmore, Thorndale and Provost drives.
“The fear is cars will come off of the off-ramp and they will head west on Walkley, and they will either cut through Southmore or McCarthy,” said River Coun. Riley Brockington. “We’re going to put large volumes of cars on streets that were never meant for that volume.”
Expanding the parkway should be “a last resort,” one that is only considered after public-transit ridership is built up, Brockington said, adding that widening the parkway and Lester Road from two to four lanes will have the opposite effect.
The extension of the Trillium light-rail line to south Ottawa communities, such as Riverside South, is included in phase two of the city’s light-rail project, which still needs to secure funding.
“You’re going to make the parkway more attractive to people to drive. What is their incentive going to be to take public transportation when we extend the O-Train?” he said.
An interview and information request regarding the proposed off-ramp was not provided by the city before press time.
The open house takes place Wednesday, June 17 from 6 to 8:30 p.m., with a presentation at 7 p.m., at the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre, located at 1265 Walkley Rd.
Comments on the environmental assessment can be submitted to Colin Simpson, senior project manager with the city’s transportation planning department, by emailing
colin.simpson@ottawa.ca, or calling 613-580-2424, ext. 27881.
For more details on the project, visit ottawa.ca/airportparkway.
http://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/n...kway-off-ramp/