Getting trucks out of downtown tops list of benefits for Kettle Island bridge, NCC report finds
Limiting truck traffic in the downtown core is viewed by residents on both sides of the Ottawa River as the top potential benefit of a proposed east-end bridge, a new National Capital Commission report has found.
Community consultation is underway on plans to build a sixth bridge across the river linking Ottawa’s Aviation Parkway to Gatineau’s Montée Paiement across Kettle Island.
Plans for a bridge in that location have been drawn up, shelved and dusted off again since the 1990s. The current attempt at getting the project off the ground was included in the federal government’s 2024 fall economic statement.
On Thursday, the NCC
summarizing the first round of public consultation into the latest iteration of the bridge plans.
Of 5,113 responses to an online survey, 38.5 per cent listed reducing truck traffic as the most important potential benefit. That issue ranked at the top of the list for residents in both Ontario and Quebec by a wide margin.
Reducing commute times and providing better options for public transit were a distant second and third.
Meanwhile, the top concern respondents raised about the project was the potential for traffic impacts on nearby neighbourhoods.
Results highlight longstanding divide
Building a new interprovincial bridge over Kettle Island has been a contentious issue for decades.
In 2012, politicians and residents in east-end neighbourhoods successfully scuttled an NCC proposal to revive the bridge proposal.
Then, in 2019, the federal government asked the NCC to resurrect the idea.
Geotechnical studies were conducted in 2022
.
Since then, the government has
for the project.
Area MPs are divided on whether to forge ahead, with Ottawa-Vanier-Gloucester MP Mona Fortier opposing the current proposal, and Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon
. Community groups are likewise divided, with some praising the bridge’s potential to limit truck traffic downtown and others concerned that traffic would merely be diverted elsewhere.
As the latest survey shows, trucks are top of mind for many residents, though views are mixed among politicians as to whether another bridge is the best way to achieve that end.
According to
, about 3,500 trucks cross the Ottawa River each day, with 72 per cent of them taking the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge leading into Lowertown Ottawa.
The latest NCC report included demographic information on survey respondents. Young and racialized respondents were underrepresented, and the survey featured “strong participation” from middle- to upper-income households.
The next round of public input, which will include an opportunity for comment on early design concepts for the bridge, is scheduled for 2026.
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