News & Status

At the beginning of August 2008, the Minister of Environment gave the Ministry of Transport of Ontario (MTO) the go-ahead to proceed with their recommendations which include widening the Queensway. The Minister rejected all the bump-up requests made by citizens and community groups which challenged the completeness and correctness of the MTO's Environmental Assessment (EA).

The response from the Minister of the Environment failed to get answers to all the issues raised in the bump-up request and the Minister refused to reconsider his decision and get answers to the outstanding questions.

For more details, see
the original bump-up from February 2007,
the follow-up correspondence from May 2008,
and the most recent request for reconsideration from August 2008.

The Province of Ontario is poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to widen the Queensway. The excuses for this asphalt-centric project 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:

The MTO released their final report on January 29th 2007 for the Queensway with recommendations for widening.. Several bump-up requests were submitted against this project including the one documented on this website.

Near the end of November 2007, the MTO sent responses to the bump-up requests submitted. Bump-up requesters had the opportunity to enter into negotiation and meet with MTO to resolve outstanding differences. These meetings took place in January 2008. Some progress was made but many issues, like the widening of the Queensway, remain unresolved.

During the 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.

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 commuters in the rush hour.

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 January 2, 2009.

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