News & Status

Near the end of November 2007, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) has send responses to the bump-up requests submitted. Bump-up requestors have the opportunity to enter into negotiation and meet with MTO to resolve outstanding differences. These meetings should take place in January 2008. After negotiations, both sides should inform the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) of their positions since the MOE will rule on the bump-up request.

The MTO is proposing to widen the Queensway without having compared more sustainable alternatives like transit.

In the October 2007 provincial election all the candidates were asked to state where they stood: in favour of more roads for more cars and for more pollution or in favour of transit and cleaner air for Ottawa?

The City Centre Coalition sent a questionnaire to candidates running the area affected by potential Queensway widening (Ottawa Centre, Ottawa-Vanier, Ottawa South and Ottawa West-Nepean). See the candidates' responses and their positions on Queensway expansion.

The Ottawa East Community Association also sent a letter to all candidates in the Ottawa Centre riding asking them about the Queensway expansion. See those questions and the candidates responses.

The recommendations to widen the Queensway have been challenged by a bump-up request send in on February 27th. You can add your voice of support by:

E-mailing the Minister of the Environment
or writing::
The Honourable John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment
135 St. Clair Ave W, 15th Flr
Toronto ON M4V 1P5    

Let the minister know you agree the bump-up submitted by the City Centre Coalition, Transport 2000 and the Ottawa Group of the Sierra Club of Canada.

The MTO released their recommendations on January 29th 2007 for the Queensway. March 2nd is the deadline for bump-up requests to be sent to the Minister of the Environment and the project engineer at the Ministry of Transportation. However, you can still write to the minister after March 2nd in support of the bump-up that has already been sent in.

The Province of Ontario is poised to accept recommendations to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to widen the Queensway. The excuses for this road building boondoggle are safety and capacity but the result will be more traffic, more congestion, more pollution and hundreds of millions of dollars less spent on better alternatives.

Along with many ramp configuration changes the current proposals include widening the Queensway on both sides by one lane west of Island Park/Carling as well as widening on both sides east of Metcalfe. See the executive summary on the MTO site and/or the full report details at www.417ea-tesr.com.

See the section on how to help out for more details.

Brief history:

Since this study began in 2003, Ottawa has seen a steady worsening of air quality. No city has ever improved air quality by laying down more asphalt. Cities with the most roads have the worst air. It is time the Province of Ontario takes responsibility for improving not worsening this situation.

The first round of public consultation was in January 2003, which included a long list of costly (in every sense of the word) alternatives such as those pictured in the animation at the top of this page.

The second round of public consultation took place in June 2004. Of note: the alternatives which involved the most severe expropriations (such as those pictured in the animation above) are no longer being considered. The removal of these alternatives is progress but they are still looking at widening sections of the Queensway instead of focusing on more cost effective and healthier choices for moving people.

The third an final round of public consultation took place in June 2005. Road widening remained a central part of the recommendations.

See a copy of Barry Wellar's Citizen article from 2005 on Queensway widening.

On July 11th 2005, the Queensway Coalition gathered for a Parks over Pavement: Trees and Smog Coffee Break to highlight the nonsense of promising cleaner air by building more roads and the continued threat of Queensway widening.

For an overview of current proposals see the Info on Alternatives section. A link to the Ministry of Transportation's site on this project is available on the Road Widening page within the Info on Alternatives section.

There have been five Public Advisory Committee (PAC) meetings:

1. in January 2003 (see the January minutes) right before the public consultations, to introduce the project and scope of the study,
2. in May 2003 (see the May minutes), to update the schedule to allow for factoring in the City of Ottawa's new Official Plan,
3. in April 2004, (see the April minutes) to update the preliminary alternatives that will be considered and to ask for PAC input on weightings to be used in sensitivity analysis,
4. in June 2004 (see the June minutes) with the final preferred alternatives to be developed in more detail and presented to the public in late June.
5. The last PAC was held on May 31 2005.

The Queensway coalition along with the Sierra Club hosted a Smog Breakfast on June 18th 2003 to raise awareness about proposed provincial Bill 25, which would give the provincial minister of transport more power to designate highway corridors with less influence from municipal official plans and environmental assessments.

Updated December 20, 2007.

See Help Out for details on what you can do.

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