New interprovincial crossing should be at Kettle Island: study

A new Ottawa River crossing between Ottawa and Gatineau should be built at Kettle Island in the east end, a new study recommends.

The crossing would extend Aviation Parkway near the Rockcliffe Airport across the river to connect with Paiement Rise in Gatineau, passing through the west side of Kettle Island on the way, the National Capital Commission announced Thursday.

The 1.5-kilometre bridge would cost an estimated $400 million to $500 million, and would affect only one residential property, which is on the Gatineau side.

The route was chosen from 10 possible crossings that were considered by consultants Roche-NCE during a 1½-year study funded by the NCC and the Ontario and Quebec ministries of transportation.

The consultants said they chose the route that would:

• Divert the most traffic from downtown Ottawa.
• Have the smallest environmental impact.
• Be cheapest.

The NCC said the new crossing would reduce truck traffic and congestion on King Edward Avenue surrounding areas of downtown Ottawa caused by transport vehicles crossing from Quebec to Ontario via the centrally located MacDonald-Cartier Bridge.

Public consultations on the new crossing will be held later in September in Ottawa and Gatineau, and more detailed studies will be conducted over the next 1½ to two years.

The NCC wouldn't estimate how long it would be before the bridge would be built. However, in the case of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge, four years passed between the final decision to build the bridge and its actual completion, said François Lapointe, director of capital planning for the NCC.

The NCC is a federal agency that manages federal lands and buildings in the Ottawa-Gatineau area.

East-end MPP 'very disappointed'

Madeleine Meilleur, the MPP for Ottawa-Vanier, the Ontario riding that includes the proposed route, said she is "very disappointed to say the least" that the route selected was the same one considered and rejected for the MacDonald-Cartier Bridge in the 1960s.

"This is not the solution," she said. "You're going through a built-in community, you're going through a parkway, you're right on the doorstep of the Montfort Hospital and a long-term care institution."

Peter McDougal, who has lived the Manor Park neighbourhood a few kilometres from the proposed crossing for 30 years, says Ottawa's east end doesn't have the road capacity to support the bridge.

"Once you get off the Aviation Parkway, there's only four routes downtown," he said. "I think it's the wrong choice."

But Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs Jim Watson was pleased with the dismissal of any west-end options for the crossing, which he called a "personal victory." The MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean said the idea of putting the crossing in the west end never made sense and he had fought hard against it.

The traffic data doesn't justify that location, he said, and the river is wider there too.

Secondly, a bridge there would have cut through Andy Haydon Park, described by Watson as "one of the great jewels of our city."

A bridge in that location "would basically cut the park in half and put at risk dozens of people's homes," Watson said.

Rideau-Vanier Coun. Georges Bédard said he is frustrated with the amount of time it has taken the NCC to get the study going and then actually do the research for a new crossing that he said is badly needed.

"We keep on pushing and when you have to keep on pushing, it means that the other party that's actually doing the work doesn't consider it as a priority."