Community Impact of Road Expansion Projects on Ottawa East

Background

In 1907 the village of Ottawa East was annexed by the City of Ottawa. At the time, The Ottawa Journal described the little village as "a most desirable area". In the 1960s the old village was bisected by the construction of the Queensway thus hurting the livability and desirability of the area. Over time, Ottawa East has regained its desirability. The currently proposed Queensway expansion would cause even more harm and for no benefit to the City of Ottawa as a whole.

The Alta Vista Transportation Corridor and Queensway Expansion Threats

In the case of the Alta Vista Corridor, we know parallel routes to downtown such as Main Street would have significantly increased congestion to compensate for lack of capacity at Nicholas. This would result on more cut through traffic, more air pollution emanating from the neighbourhood.

For the Queensway Expansion, the impacts are more severe and numerous:

loss of most of the greenspace separating homes from the highway north-east of the Nicholas westbound on-ramp,

loss of homes on north side of Hawthorne (some of the oldest and finest housing stock in the neighbourhood),

loss of businesses on north side of Hawthorne (loss of critical mass of small businesses at northern end of Main hurting remaining commerce),
loss of town homes on south side of Harvey (most of which are less than two years old),

loss of Ballantyne Park on Hawthrone near Main,
loss of heritage Old Town Hall, the heart of the old village, the most important building and symbol of the original village,
loss of Community Centre housed in the Old Town Hall (meaning local residents would need to travel by car to other neighbourhoods for many community activities),

visual blight of widened Queensway on both sides over the canal and to the north side of Hawthorne,

reduced value of homes on Harvey, Hawthorne, Montcalm, Havelock and neigbouring streets,
increased noise and pollution from additional cars and cut through traffic (air pollution being fickle and inclined to go where ever the wind blows would be shared with the rest of the city).

The proposed Bill 25 would enable this type of expansion to be approved without Environmental Assessment and without consideration of the city’s official plan. In effect, the MTO could "slam dunk" this project without allowing us reasonable recourse.