The NCC finally has a vision for the waterfront
Peter Raaymakers, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 25, 2014, Last Updated: November 25, 2014 4:04 PM EST
When Dr. Mark Kristmanson called a snap press conference last week to unveil the National Capital Commission’s position on western light rail, it caught a lot of people off-guard. And when he “invited” the city to consider two NCC-approved options for getting rail from Dominion to Lincoln Fields — a deep tunnel under the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway lands or a short route across Rochester Field towards Richmond Road — most scoffed.
Mayor Jim Watson called it “meddlesome” on the NCC’s part. Many others, including the Citizen’s Joanne Chianello, rightfully questioned their insistence on “unimpeded public access to the shoreline” when the NCC itself maintains the four-lane Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway impeding that access far more than a 1.2-kilometre, partially buried rail line.
Recent comments by Kristmanson, however, reveal that the NCC may finally be doing the type of grand planning for which they were established.
In an opinion article in the Citizen explaining the NCC’s position, Kristmanson mentioned — almost in passing — the possibility of establishing a waterfront linear park where the Parkway currently runs. The “Sir John A. Macdonald waterfront park,” as Kristmanson called it, would run from the War Museum on Lebreton Flats to Britannia Beach, incorporating the many existing beaches, rapids, and lookouts along the way.
In order to make it a waterfront park in any meaningful way, the parkway itself would have to be removed. Jacquelin Holzman, the former mayor of Ottawa and current member of the NCC Board of Directors, told me that the park “is front and centre in the vision of the NCC and the Board” and said that the NCC has engaged stakeholders and neighbours on the subject.
The fact that the NCC didn’t explicitly outline these plans while explaining their position to the city is a massive failure of communications on their part. Refusing to allow public transit parallel to their existing freeway is a nonsensical decision, but if they are actively considering the removal of, or major changes to, that freeway then it makes more sense. A waterfront parkway is no place for a light-rail line — even if it’s a segment of only 1.2 kilometres, and even if it’s partially buried.
Establishing the Sir John A. Macdonald Park could be the most ambitious conservation project of the National Capital Commission since Gatineau Park was created in 1938. The NCC’s mandate is to take part in projects like this one, conserving key lands for uses that couldn’t otherwise be envisioned in order to improve quality of life in the National Capital Region. They’ve wasted these waterfront lands for over 50 years by turning them into a commuter corridor, but at least they are finally making larger plans for them.
Understandably, Mayor Jim Watson and the city are perturbed by this curve ball. Their alignment for the western corridor of light-rail expansion already made concessions due to NCC concerns, and the city has been proceeding with that alignment under the belief that the NCC would eventually come around to it. But the decision also presents an opportunity for the city, as they now have to find a new route for the Confederation Line’s western extension. That may be just as well, because although the Richmond Underground alignment was an easy option, it wasn’t the best.
The NCC’s decision doesn’t stem from burdensome meddling, but rather from the good intentions they have to undertake a major improvement project in the region. Now it’s up to the NCC to better communicate their plans for a linear park, make contingencies to ensure traffic can still flow in the city, coordinate sights within the park, and — most challengingly — get funding to make it a reality.
Peter Raaymakers lives in Ottawa. He is the founder and executive director of TransitOttawa.ca.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...the-waterfront
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