(Ottawa, January 30^th, 2003): Today, community and business leaders joined Councillors Clive Doucet, Jacques Legendre, Madeleine Meilleur, Ottawa Centre MPP Richard Patten, architect Barry Padolsky, Tundra Semiconductor Corporation's Chairman of the Board Dr. Adam Chowaniec, and Transport 2000 President David Jeanes, to let the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) know that its proposals to widen the Queensway through Ottawa are unacceptable.

What widening the Queensway means for Ottawa neighbourhoods along the entire length of the corridor:

-Catherine, Isabella, and Chamberlain streets become 401-type service lanes which will increase the size of the Queensway through Ottawa to at least 14 lanes by integrating these city streets with new, long lead ramps. (In the 401 Toronto configuration, is there any difference between a service lane and a thru-lane?)

-widening Greenbank from 4 lanes to 6 thru-lanes and eight lane intersections.

-more noise for the hundreds of houses, at least six schools, five churches, and several community parks that currently abut the existing Queensway on more than 50 local streets.

-the loss of year-round mature conifers and greenspace.

-turning Booth Street into a Queensway ramp.

-the loss of Heritage buildings like the Old Town Hall on Main Street.

-the loss of family-willed park space like Ballantyne Park on Hawthorne.

-turning our back on over two decades of the new urban planning principles that reject expansion of destructive urban freeways.

What the Ottawa Coalition Against Queensway Expansion wants:

That the Province re-write the terms of reference for the study, with the engineering consultants Totten Sims Hubicki, to exclude any city-centre widening of the Queensway;

That there be equity provincial funding for transit and road options;

That provincial consultants work within the City Official Plan.

What community leaders, business leaders, architects, and politicians are saying about this toxic recipe for Ottawa’s quality of life:

Business Leaders:

Brian J. Murray, Sakto Corporation:

"Sakto Corporation, a property developer in Ottawa and a firm believer in the philosophy of "smart growth", feels that it would be unwise to use public funds to expand the Queensway."

"While all parties agree that congestion on the Queensway is a significant problem, we feel that a much better solution would be to expand the city's O-Train light rail system. Extend the system north to Gatineau, south to the airport, and east-west using existing rail corridors which already link many fast-growing areas of the Ottawa area. This would be cheaper and faster to implement than expanding road capacity, and would cause far less disruption to traffic on our existing roads."

John Doran of Domicile Developments Inc:

"We do not support the widening of Highway 417 through the central area for the following reasons: the investment required to acquire property and construct the expanded road system should be invested in improving public transit, and the burden of an expanding municipality should not be borne by the central area in increased noise and inevitable loss of housing."

Jim McKeen, President Loeb Glebe, Glebe Business Group member:

"As a business owner in the Glebe community, I am concerned with the proposed expansion of the 417 in the Ottawa area."

"I believe that any transportation solution needs to be from an Ottawa perspective, with a balance between road systems and rapid transit development."

"I do believe that the expansion of the 417 in the east and west of Ottawa due to increased urban development is required, but this must be twinned with a mass rapid transit solution to deal with commuter traffic to the center core."

"To put all our eggs in one transportation basket is not a sustainable solution."

Planners and Engineers:

Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky:

"By announcing its intent to widen the Queensway through the heart of Ottawa, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has unwittingly revealed its prehistoric (1950s) view that wider highways and more cars create greater cities. The City and people of Ottawa have, to their credit, challenged this view and are diligently forging a new Official Plan for our city that is based on the principles of Smart Growth and Sustainability. This translates into the conservation of existing neighbourhoods and investing in a superb public transit system as an irresistible alternative to the SUV. The MTO initiative must be abandoned immediately."

David Jeanes, President, Transport 2000:

"The Province is widening the Queensway in stages, from the edge of the city inwards, with no overall plan for how the city can absorb the traffic growth in the urban core. The widenings both east and west of 416 are not dealing with the well-established need to complete the west Transitway to Kanata even though it has been planned to run in the same corridor. The changes proposed to many city interchanges will negatively impact city streets, bus routes, and even access to the Civic Hospital campus, two major shopping centers - St. Laurent and Bayshore - and the Morrison Drive business area."

Community Leaders:

Pierre Johnson, President, Ottawa East Community Association:

"Why should residents of Old Ottawa East sacrifice a park, our Old Town Hall Community Centre, and some of the best housing stock in the neighbourhood to accommodate a plan which will create more congestion, more noise, and more pollution? Where is the equity in the Province saying it is willing to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to road expansion versus the $12 million they are committing this year to help the City purchase new buses? This plan to widen the Queensway assumes most people won't have a choice about using their cars in the rush hour. By 2021, with 50% more people in Ottawa, this is a plan for more bad air days and asthma."

Anne Scotton, President, Glebe Community Association:

"Experience across North America has shown us that responding to growth pressures through road building is more expensive, worse for air quality, and more destructive to communities than transit-based solutions. Two light rail lines can carry the equivalent of 16 auto lanes.

David Gladstone, Chair, City Centre Coalition:

"It's not as if we don't already have a process for planning an Ottawa with a healthy core, clean air, and a comprehensive transit system. Ottawa's next Official Plan must unequivocally require that the Queensway from the Highway 416 interchange to Ottawa's eastern boundary not have additional lanes added, with increased east-west transportation demand in the urban area being met through rail-based rapid transit and Transportation Demand Management. We insist that the Ontario government respect our walking/cycling/transit-first Official Plan."

Cam Robertson, Dow’s Lake Residents’ Association and City Centre Coalition:

"Every ten years or so the idea of turning Chamberlain, Isabella, and Catherine into 401-type collector lanes is floated. It gets rejected because it’s the wrong way to respond to growth pressures."

Bruce Ballantyne, whose grandfather, Henry F. Ballantyne, designed the Old Town Hall:

"In 1929, our family donated a large piece of land to the city in Ottawa East as a community park to benefit the residents of the area. The donor, James Ballantyne, was a local merchant who cared about his community and had been actively involved. He was ahead of his time in realizing that green space was important to a community to make it a welcome place to live in. Two-thirds of the park was consumed by the Queensway in the 1960s, and the remainder is now threatened by the Ontario government's plan to widen the Queensway. Has the Eves government not been listening to the calls for reducing the impact of cars on our communities? Are they stuck in the mid-twentieth century? The provincial government's priority now should be to preserve and protect our city communities and make them healthy and enjoyable places to live in whether downtown or in the suburbs. Our city needs as much green space as possible for people to enjoy regardless of the size and none should be sacrificed for the benefit of the automobile. Our family will be supporting the Ottawa East community in its fight against the 417 plan so that the land that James donated over 70 years ago will be saved."

Politicians:

Ottawa Centre MPP Richard Patten:

"I continue to receive daily numerous letters and emails from concerned residents of the potential destruction to our neighbourhoods. I shall be fighting this option in their interests."

Transportation and Transit Committee Chair, Councillor Madeleine Meilleur:

"With 400,000 extra residents predicted in the city over the coming two decades, bringing with them an estimated 200,000 new cars (and a disproportionate amount of this growth concentrated in the suburban areas) we need to find affordable, and environmentally-sensitive solutions to the transportation problems of gridlock, air pollution, and reduced quality of life."

Transportation and Transit Committee member, Councillor Jacques Legendre:

"This issue gets to the heart of the debate regarding how we grow as a city. Smart growth demands that we provide effective alternatives to single-occupant car commuting so that we can protect quality of life in communities throughout the city, suburbs, rural areas, and the downtown included. Excessive traffic affects everyone. A proper review, based on modern transportation system concepts, is essential for Ottawa. Moreover, the review must seriously consider all of the identified options and needs, as well as the consequences, of the recommended approach. We cannot proceed toward 2020 with 1950s thinking."

Transportation and Transit Committee Vice-Chair, Councillor Clive Doucet:

"Since the MTO proposals were made public a development chill has set in along the corridor. We need the provincial government to shelve this plan now and work with city planners and politicians, not against us."

"What are we doing a draft official plan for when the most important part of the city transportation-transit system is not in our control? There is a real disconnect here between the Province and the city. This is not a balanced or effective way of growing our city's transportation capacity. It's imposing a provincial highway solution on a roadway that needs a city solution. "

For more information:

Councillor Clive Doucet, Capital Ward

580-2487

*A note on air quality and health:

Smog poses a grave risk to our health even at very low doses. With smaller airways and rapid breathing, children are exposed to a greater amount of pollution when the air is bad thus increasing the harmful impacts of smog. This is particularly true for asthmatics who act as smog barometers and often recognize dangerous levels before others.

The 1996-7 National Population Health Survey, Health Canada found that 12.2% of Canadian children had asthma as diagnosed by a physician. These rates have been rising over the past two decades. The Student Lung Health Survey of 9 sentinel health units across Canada between 1995-6 found that 32% of respondents identified outdoor air pollution as among the most commonly reported triggers.

The Ontario Medical Association is so concerned by these harmful impacts that they launched an information program to encourage parents to recognize signs of smog stress. Asthma has become a chronic health problem. Controlling environmental triggers can have an important impact on improved their quality of life.