Just so Ottawa — let's mangle three of five Quebec bridges at same time
Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: June 18, 2019
There are five bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau. This summer, three are partially or fully closed for repair work, which raises an obvious question:
Shouldn’t someone be put in jail for this?
If you regularly drive anywhere near the bridges, you know the past few weeks have been a motoring muck-up — sometimes an unpredictable one — that seems to wreak havoc a good ways from downtown, even in off-peak hours. It’s kooky on wheels.
Sunday morning, I was crossing from Gatineau to Ottawa on the Champlain Bridge where, ironically, no work is going on, and it took 20 minutes to get on the bridge itself. On a Sunday morning. In the other direction, meanwhile, traffic sailed merrily along.
(This, recall, is the three-lane bridge in which two switchable lanes are supposed to carry traffic in the prevailing direction during the morning and afternoon commute. Does the daily lane-switch, with the displaced traffic, need adjusting?)
And poor old Island Park Drive. Good Lord, could it get any worse? Yes, actually. We had family driving from Alta Vista a couple of weekends ago and they got stuck for 30 minutes on a street that more-than-ever resembles a parking lot.
My little delay, compared with yours, was nothing. Some of you are putting up with head-splitting waits every day.
Friends report the six-lane Portage Bridge was just as bad on Sunday, down to one lane in each direction. The Chaudière Bridge, as we all know, is closed to regular traffic until sometime in August, though pedestrians, cyclists and buses are back on the road. But that won’t be the end of it. Work on the old steel structure is to resume in September, but in off-peak hours.
The Alexandra Bridge, meanwhile, is to undergo overnight lane closures this week, Monday to Wednesday, in the Gatineau-bound direction. Starting in July and until December 2020, one lane of the bridge is to be closed, all or some of the time. Oh joy.
Another question: Is there a giant brain in the National Capital Region that has looked at the staging of this road work and is monitoring the impact of closing — in whole or part — some 45 per cent of the interprovincial traffic capacity at the same time?
Doesn’t look like it. The National Capital Commission owns the Portage and Champlain bridges. It doesn’t have a traffic department and seems to have farmed out the syncing of traffic signals to another authority.
The Chaudière Bridge, which normally carries 27,000 vehicles a day, is owned by Public Services and Procurement Canada. When asked if the Chaudière work was on schedule, the department referred me to the website I was just on, which says “August 2019” for the conclusion of this phase. One lane is to close again in July 2020. Sure, why the hell not?
When you add to the mix the closure of Elgin Street, the Carling bottlenecks on the 417, it begins to look like the collected works of a madman. And such an Ottawa story — two cities, a federal department, a Crown corporation, two provinces, two transit systems and, really, no one truly responsible, in either official language. O Canada.
There is some good news on the horizon.
Work on the Portage, which carries 40,000 vehicles a day, should be done within two weeks.
NCC spokesman Cédric Pelletier said there is a “committee of partners” that discusses traffic and infrastructure issues in the capital, and it includes representation from the two cities, the commission and the relevant federal departments.
Work on the Portage, for instance, began early in the season in the hopes of finishing before the Alexandra was narrowed. And the flood, of course, took everyone by surprise, forcing the early closure of the Chaudière.
“We’re fully aware of all the pressure this puts on our traffic system,” said Pelletier. “I think people understand that this work has to be done.”
This is the second year of a $9.2-million overhaul on the Portage and among improvements is the widening of the two-way bicycle track, which will be protected by a steel and concrete barrier.
A spokesman for Public Services and Procurement says it works closely with its partners, public and private, to minimize impacts on users, especially commuters.
“For several months now, Public Services and Procurement Canada and its partners have been closely collaborating on their plans to minimize impacts on traffic,” wrote Marc-André Charbonneau.
As an example, he said work on the Alexandra was postponed to July “allowing for a bit of respite to motorists.”
A bit of respite? Cross that bridge if we ever get to it.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email
kegan@postmedia.com.
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...s-at-same-time
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