Ottawa Highway Bypass Corridor/Ring Road

[Dengler Avenue]

Then MTO, if it even wanna build it, only needs to acquire and secure the land needed for such a bypass until truck traffic becomes a safety concern on The Queensway.

Ps: I just realized that The Queensway is supposed to be “The Queen’s Way”, lol.

Edit: I was replying to accottawa. I have the habit of not quoting people.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

An important question is this: Do a lot of trucks use TCH (417, The Queensway) without making any stop in Downtown Ottawa? (The industrial park by the highway on St Laurent Boulevard doesn’t count.) If that number exceeds 6000 per day, per year, MTO should consider a 4-lane bypass in the south.

Even then, you have to consider what times these trucks are rolling. Because if there are 6000 per day (not a lot considering a highway lane is supposed to transport 2000 vehicles per hour), but they're travelling off-peak, then a bypass wouldn't result in shorter trips.

[Dengler Avenue]

That’s true. TCH flows alright in the middle of the day and in the evening, and great at night. In those cases, a bypass only saves at most 5 minutes.

As for the 6000 figure, you have to be careful here:
MTO actually considers a long-haul to be equivalent to 2.5 passenger vehicles. In that case, we’re talking about 15000 passenger vehicles, which is only slightly short of the AADT on 17 between Arnprior and Renfrew (by 10%). I’d say, that’s quite a bit.

(Originally, I wrote 6000 because that’d be like seeing 4 trucks every minute. From a safety point of view, I’d definitely have that roadway twinned to prevent head-on collisions.)

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

The premise is flawed; it assumes a fixed number of cars with fixed destinations. All real-world evidence proves that congestion prevents a great deal of car trips, and conversely, reducing travel times causes an increase in the number of car trips.



I think you're mistaking a congestion cordon with a highway toll. You're right about a toll, but a cordon charges all entry points, so there's no way to go around or 'toll-shop' a cheaper route.

Do you get the sense that congestion is preventing any car trips in Ottawa?



People just drive around the cordon, and if you put the cordon so far out nobody can drive around then many people don’t need to cross it. A congestion tax works in a city where the downtown has the most congested streets, that isn’t the case here.

[Aylmer]

Is downtown not the most congested part of the city?

[Ottawaresident]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

If we want to truly make a bypass instead of just another clogged road, then it has to be so far from the city that it's impractical for commuting purposes. I'm talking Renfrew to Kemptville to Casselman. I remain to be convinced that there are enough people who actually need this sort of connection. I can only imagine truckers coming down Highway 17 who pass through Ottawa between the hours of 7-9am and 4-6pm who want to avoid rush hour traffic. Considering that this kind of road would have a cost in the billions, I'm just not sure it's worth it.

The thing is, the road you were talking about does not have the need for such a road. If it is too far, no one will use it and it will be a colossal waste. Kanata Barrhaven Riverside South etc. gets sprawl approved frequently and the council needs transportation options. No transit and no roads will not do.

[lrt's friend]

Compared to the 401, there is relatively little truck traffic on the 417 between Ottawa and Montreal. Given that very fact, how much truck traffic actually needs to bypass Ottawa? It is got to be a lot less. So why would a bypass be considered? The traffic issues are within Ottawa itself and to a lesser degree commuting to and from Ottawa.


I would rather us spend the money on upgrading our transit system.


As far as congestion pricing downtown, our transit modal share downtown is already very high. I do not believe this is the destination that is causing congestion. This is why I have long been advocating for transit improvements on key routes outside of downtown, and not necessarily rail. Whatever gets transit moving considerably faster so that at least some people will consider it as an alternative to driving.


Building more and more roads is just going to make our transit system less viable.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Is downtown not the most congested part of the city?

Depends on your definition of Downtown I suppose. I don't usually find it that bad compared to places like the Glebe, Riverside, 417...

[Ottawaresident]

Yeah, I find eastern 417/174, Glebe, Wellington, 417, Nicholas and Sandy Hill are much worse, except for Albert and Slater (Should get better when the LRT opens)

[Acajack]

I'll agree with most about downtown Ottawa traffic - it's not so bad. At least, no worse than many other outlying areas of the city.

The worst parts of downtown are pressure points that lead to either interprovincial bridges (west end of Wellington towards Portage, King Edward, Booth north) or to the 417 like Nicholas or the south end of O'Connor going towards Isabella.

Even Albert and Slater aren't really that bad if you're in a car as opposed to sitting on a bus. Cars are more "nimble" than buses and this is an advantage on those streets.

[Ottawaresident]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Compared to the 401, there is relatively little truck traffic on the 417 between Ottawa and Montreal. Given that very fact, how much truck traffic actually needs to bypass Ottawa? It is got to be a lot less. So why would a bypass be considered? The traffic issues are within Ottawa itself and to a lesser degree commuting to and from Ottawa.

I would rather us spend the money on upgrading our transit system.

As far as congestion pricing downtown, our transit modal share downtown is already very high. I do not believe this is the destination that is causing congestion. This is why I have long been advocating for transit improvements on key routes outside of downtown, and not necessarily rail. Whatever gets transit moving considerably faster so that at least some people will consider it as an alternative to driving.

Building more and more roads is just going to make our transit system less viable.

I can only agreeto disagree. The thing is that if you are going to build sprawl and that is what is consistently happening is that you will need roads. The Transitway within the Greenbelt is great. Orleans Kanata Barrhaven and Riverside South need Transitway. The system needs better service to suburbs. As far as congestion pricing, many people work in dispersed areas in Ottawa, considering that RCMP is in Barrhaven, DND is in Kanata the CRA is in Billings Bridge etc.

Building roads is needed. Or you could make transit better. Roads "work" because they have everywhere to everywhere efficiency. The transit needs frequent and efficient service to every major employment and the major residential areas.

As far as congestion pricing goes, it will help but not really. The 417 only skirts the downtown, which really starts at Gladstone. Even Riverside and Glebe have worse traffic.

The bypass will need to be close to town, preferably through Barrhaven Riverside South and connecting to the 174. The highway will help with suburb to suburb traffic, which happens quite a bit.

-End of rant

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As far as congestion pricing downtown, our transit modal share downtown is already very high. I do not believe this is the destination that is causing congestion. This is why I have long been advocating for transit improvements on key routes outside of downtown, and not necessarily rail. Whatever gets transit moving considerably faster so that at least some people will consider it as an alternative to driving.

I agree with your post, but I want to bring a bit of nuance here. Congestion pricing isn't necessarily about getting more a people onto transit. As many people point out, taking transit often isn't practical for a lot of people for any number of reasons. But what congestion pricing does is more to shift car trips slightly in time or space. If you know that you can save some money by, say, staying at work 20-30 minutes longer, or if you know that the toll is $0 if you run that errand at 10am instead of 9:30, then people shift their habits ever so slightly. It might seem pretty marginal, but traffic is a non-linear thing; if you can get 10% of people to not drive at peak, traffic delays are reduced by far more than 10%. Gothenburg's system reduced car trips by 12%, but reduced traffic delays by half. So those who do need or want to drive get there quickly without having to sit in traffic.

Where transit really benefits from congestion pricing is when that money is reinvested in better service. I'll stick with the example of Gothenburg - a city smaller than Ottawa with a similarly-dispersed employment and transit ridership (pre-congestion pricing). With a maximum charge of no more than $2.60 at peak, it manages to raise over $110M every year, which it reinvests in better transportation services and infrastructure. It's those increased frequencies, new routes, and new LRT lines which increase transit ridership.

[Dengler Avenue]

If political will allows, pilot project for 2~4 weeks, then referendum to decide whether or not to keep the tolls?

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Depends on your definition of Downtown I suppose. I don't usually find it that bad compared to places like the Glebe, Riverside, 417...

I agree. But these points aren't congested because of a surplus of people heading to the Glebe or the 417 - The cars that cause congestion here are likely heading downtown. So if you were to draw a pricing cordon around the Rideau River, up the O-Train trench, and around Île de Hull, you'd likely also see improvements in all non-downtown trips that downtown-bound drivers use. So someone driving from Orleans to Blair would have a faster trip because pricing will have shifted many of the Orleans-to-Downtown trips. The only trips that would see no change are counter-flow, say, Nepean to Kanata.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

If political will allows, pilot project for 2~4 weeks, then referendum to decide whether or not to keep the tolls?

That's what happened in Stockholm. Although it would likely have to be at least a year in order to be able to make good before-and-after comparisons. It's also long enough to justify setting up the infrastructure - it's not super expensive as far as infrastructure goes, but it's still a few $M.

I would disagree with the idea of a referendum, just because I don't think it's a good way of making decisions about infrastructure. But the promise of a vote did provide the political cover to start 1-year trials of pricing in both Stockholm and Gothenburg. In both cases, the benefits in reduced travel times helped to move public opinion from heavily opposed to support. It also allowed for some great before-and-after stats:

[Dengler Avenue]

I actually watched the entire video, but thanks for posting the key figures again.

Time to try this in downtown Toronto too.

[Ottawaresident]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Time to try this in downtown Toronto too.

Yeah. Ottawa is not all that bad compared to other Canadian cities. However, much like American cities Canadian cities are built around the car. Yet the freeway boom has never happened in Ottawa. The Queensway was built in the 60s and 70s. The 416 was in 96 I think. Syracuse is 60% of Ottawa's population but it has two major freeways a bypass a downtown highway and a spur of that downtown highway.

You can't take away the car and give no alternatives. OC Transpo is great but it's not all that frequent in non peak times.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Ottawaresident

Yeah. Ottawa is not all that bad compared to other Canadian cities. However, much like American cities Canadian cities are built around the car. Yet the freeway boom has never happened in Ottawa. The Queensway was built in the 60s and 70s. The 416 was in 96 I think. Syracuse is 60% of Ottawa's population but it has two major freeways a bypass a downtown highway and a spur of that downtown highway.

You can't take away the car and give no alternatives. OC Transpo is great but it's not all that frequent in non peak times.

I was pretty disappointed to learn that many buses come every half an hour during midday too. I’d think that the capital of Canada would have had better public transit...

[OTSkyline]

My thought is that the 417 is even more congested because it's the ONLY highway or major cross-town route for the city.

It's also located pretty "north" of the City and as the city continues to grow (especially south with Riverside South/Barrhaven/Findlay Creek it's just going to get worst. That's why I believe a second East-West highway (or faster/more free-flowing route) should be considered.

There's a lot of East-West traffic in Ottawa but many people are stuck going "up" to the 417, then go back "down" after their exit as the only other alternative is bumper-to-bumper traffic crossing the city on basically Baseline or Hunt Club and having to go through 14+ sets of traffic lights (many of which you need to wait 2 or sometimes even 3 turns before you can finally cross the intersection given the backup).

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

My thought is that the 417 is even more congested because it's the ONLY highway or major cross-town route for the city.

It's also located pretty "north" of the City and as the city continues to grow (especially south with Riverside South/Barrhaven/Findlay Creek it's just going to get worst. That's why I believe a second East-West highway (or faster/more free-flowing route) should be considered.

There's a lot of East-West traffic in Ottawa but many people are stuck going "up" to the 417, then go back "down" after their exit as the only other alternative is bumper-to-bumper traffic crossing the city on basically Baseline or Hunt Club and having to go through 14+ sets of traffic lights (many of which you need to wait 2 or sometimes even 3 turns before you can finally cross the intersection given the backup).

If Ottawa implimented a congestion charge like stockholm sweden then the traffic we complain about would dissipate.