Designs for new Ottawa bike lanes to be unveiled at open house on Monday, March 7: reports

Beginning this summer, construction will begin on new $4 million bike lanes on O’Connor Street in downtown Ottawa, connecting Parliament Hill and Lansdowne Park. The cycling route will be the city’s second segregated bike lane, stretching 2.5 kilometers in all.

City council gave the plan its unanimous approval in June 2015.

The new infrastructure will serve riders in different ways along its length. Between Laurier and Pretoria Avenues, where O’Connor is one-way, a two-way separated lane on the east side will be installed. The one-way stretch between Pretoria and Strathcona, meanwhile, will receive both a southbound bike lane on the west side and a northbound contraflow lane on the east. A southbound contraflow lane will also bring cyclists to the north end of Lansdowne Park, which will connect riders further south along a shared route via Holmwood to Bank Street.

Where O’Connor becomes a two-way stretch, the bike infrastructure will vary, but all of it will be shared between cars and cyclists. Here, the Ottawa Citizen reports, most of it will take the form of painted lanes and sharrows.

Installation of the project will roll out in two phases, with this summer’s construction followed in 2018. The lanes, whose detailed designs will be unveiled to the public at an open house on Monday, March 7, will have the effect of making that part of Canada’s capital city more aesthetically pleasing—a benefit that’s sorely needed, some city officials noted.

“O’Connor is such an ugly road,” remarked Somerset councillor Catherine McKenney, one of the city officials planning to attend Monday’s open house, in conversation with the Ottawa Citizen. “It’s probably the ugliest in the ward. This will at least help beautify it.”

Capital councillor David Chernushenko agreed. “Bit by bit, we’re creating a cotinuous, safer, more attractive cycle route,” he said.

Other details, meanwhile, have yet to be ironed out. Winter maintenance on O’Connor—something that would cost the municipality $17,000 per year, reports say—requires a motion in council, something councillors hope will happen this year. The O’Connor bike lane also won’t be the only piece of infrastructure developed this year. Another project will see a two-way lane built on the east side of Mackenzie Avenue, the Ottawa Citizen reports, connecting lanes currently in use on Sussex Drive, St. Patrick Street, and across the Alexandra Bridge to Wellington and Rideau Streets, as well as the Rideau Canada Eastern Parkway. Construction of this section should be completed by early 2017, reports say.

The open house meeting about the O’Connor bike lanes will happen on Monday, March 7 from 7 to 9 pm at Dominion Chalmers Church, 355 Cooper St.