A possible transportation solution that began as a pipe dream and evolved to a proposal at city hall has once emerged as rural Ottawa residents retain hope for a ring road south of the urban core.
For decades, rural communities have watched as heavy truck traffic began navigating through small villages south of the city in efforts to avoid congestion, highways and traffic lights on their routes.
Marc Sauvé, president of the Metcalfe Community Association in Osgoode ward, says the idea has been floated for about a decade, but has gained momentum in the last five years as rural councillors and residents continue to search for a solution.
Metcalfe, a small village about 35 kilometres south of the downtown core, was amalgamated into the City of Ottawa in 2001 as part of Osgoode Township. It’s a commuter town with an estimated population of less than 2,000 people, and its main streets are quiet, lined with residential lots, parks and small businesses.
In recent years, though, Sauvé said residents have become increasingly familiar with heavy traffic from transport trucks that divert their routes through the small town.
“The 53-foot trucks, the double tandems, anything that's going east to west, to or from the [Highway] 416 goes through the villages,” said Sauvé. “The intent is to somehow get the large trucks, at the very least, to bypass the villages with a ring road, which could go around.
“I can see it from their perspective, but from the residents’, the noise, pollution, the safety issues — roads out in rural Ottawa are not very wide, which causes concern. In the wintertime, it's even worse because the roads are narrower and the plows go by. That's the problem,” he explained. “Our solution is to have them not come through here. And how do you have them not come through? Have them go around.”
The village of Manotick has been vocal about the heavy truck traffic on its streets and raised concern in the media about the safety and pollution impacts of the trucks’ presence. The Manotick Village Community Association (MVCA) has committed to working with elected officials to advocate for a solution, and has voiced support for a ring road.
The community has shared questions, particularly about the intersection of Bridge and Main Streets, in the heart of Manotick, where the streets are narrow and corners are tight, and raised concerns about traffic and safety when trucks maneuver through.
Many of the affected communities have also met with MPP George Darouze, former city councillor for Osgoode ward, who has voiced support for a ring road both at Queen’s Park and during his time at city hall.
Turned down at council
While not necessarily a new idea, it was the subject of renewed debate in 2025 when city council approved the Transportation Master Plan — and chose not to include support for a ring road in it.
The final draft added directions to encourage “all levels of government” to support a “full and fair evaluation” of a southern ring road, but it was removed from the final draft by a motion tabled by Coun. Laine Johnson.
Coun. Tim Tierney said the intent of the language around the ring road is to provide “alternatives” in the city that align with the province’s priorities.
“If we don’t set out a vision—and if [Johnson’s] motion passes—we’ve discounted looking at a vision document in this [Transportation Master Plan],” he said at council. “It’s a major miss. The whole goal of that—when we missed the boat in the past with some others—was to set out a vision.”
Johnson argued that the idea of a ring road had been explored and rejected by previous councils and that it would be “excruciatingly expensive” for the city to maintain, even if initial costs were taken on by the province. She also said a ring road should fall under provincial jurisdiction.
“I feel that we have enough problems to solve with other levels of government: food insecurity, public health, mental health, child care deficits, housing, supportive housing, and without a doubt, most relevant to this Transportation Master Plan conversation, effective and affordable public transit,” she wrote in a post on her website.
She criticized what she called an “eleventh-hour motion to offer specific support to a ring road for Ottawa” that introduced last-minute issues without debate.
“At no time did staff give the decision-makers around this table their advice on the matter. It didn’t appear in the modelling as a solution. It didn’t rise as a project because it was a project that was unworthy of this Council’s attention,” she said. “Despite that, it came as a surprise, last-minute motion that was raised and voted on without any opportunity for public consultation, for study, for serious discussion.”
Instead, her motion urged the province to take an evidence-backed approach to its own transportation goals, but took the authority and responsibility for the ring road off of the city.
Her motion was carried with 16 in favour and eight against; councillors Glen Gower, Theresa Kavanagh, Rawlson King, Jeff Leiper, Riley Brockington, Shawn Menard, Cathy Curry, Johnson, Sean Devine, Jessica Bradley, Stephanie Plante, Ariel Troster, Marty Carr, Wilson Lo, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Isabelle Skalski
Councillors Matt Luloff, Tim Tierney, Catherine Kitts, Allan Hubley, David Hill, Clarke Kelly, David Brown and Steve Desroches were opposed.
Since then, the ring road has not made big headlines again at council chambers, but the idea has remained top of mind for rural communities and councillors, and it has gained renewed traction in recent months.
Gaining momentum
Moving in the background, councillors have been meeting with Ontario Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria to discuss the province’s openness to a ring road, and during a visit to Ottawa on April 21, the minister told attendees of a Mayor’s Breakfast event that the province is “absolutely” open to exploring a ring road.
“I think what you’ve seen is a lot of growth on the outside parts of Ottawa. [Darouze] has been a very public champion for it, many of your councillors as well,” said Sarkaria. “With respect to the concept of a ring road, and this is an important one, and I think there’s a good case for that, and it’s something I’ll be looking at closely.”
He added that there are “plans in the works” and that the province’s first step will be to look at the “feasibility” and possibilities for establishing an alternative route.
One of the ring road’s biggest advocates has been Tierney, who chairs the city’s public works and infrastructure committee and has been a prominent voice in support of the idea.
Although Tierney’s ward is not rural, he said he regularly hears from his residents about traffic concerns that are exacerbated by the presence of big trucks.
“Over the next two to three years, there's going to be a lot of bridge impacts, provincial bridges that have to be replaced. You're going to see a lot of detours, even a lot more traffic, and people want to spend time at home with their families,” he said. “They don't want to sit in that vehicle all day. It's great to see public transit, but it doesn't work for everybody, and of course, it doesn't work for shipping vehicles.”
He said that, in addition to himself, councillors Brown and Hill have met with Darouze and Sakaria “on multiple occasions”, and that the minister was “actually kind of shocked” that it was voted down for the Transportation Master Plan.
“I was not happy about that, and the public let people know they are very upset,” said Tierney. “So I'm glad the province has stepped in to fix a problem that was made last year, and now we're going to move ahead.”
In March of this year, the MVCA was invited with Darouze to meet with Sarkaria to discuss the community’s concerns.
In a post to the organization’s website, the MVCA said Sarkaria was “familiar with the situation and receptive” to community concerns.
At the meeting, all parties discussed solutions, MVCA said, including “the extension of Earl Armstrong Road, river crossings and a ring road concept.”
“Financial assistance from the province was part of the conversation as it will require commitment from all levels of government to see these costly solutions become realities.”
Tierney said his understanding is that if the ring road is greenlit, the province will fund “100 per cent” of the construction project as well as costs for maintenance.
He said it would be considered a 400-series road under provincial authority, monitored by the Ontario Provincial Police and maintained by the province.
“We lost here already because it was stripped out of the Transportation Master Plan… And under no illusion, it could take six or seven years to actually get some resemblance of a ring road or a bypass,” said Tierney. “But if we don't start now, we're gonna have the same conversation six or seven years from now, saying ‘Wow, the traffic's even worse’.”
Are there other solutions?
The MVCA has conducted two of its own studies to highlight the problem, and Rideau-Jock Coun. Brown has spearheaded efforts for a comprehensive approach from the city to address the truck traffic. In 2023, he launched an inquiry to examine the process of removing Manotick’s Main and Bridge Streets from the approved truck network.
Brown has also worked to secure funding for upgrading nearby Century Road; once that is complete, trucks can rely on Century Road, and the city can consider a year-round ban on heavy trucks on Manotick’s Main Street. Currently, trucks are banned in certain areas for 42 weeks out of the year.
“We're taking incremental wins now so we don't have to wait years for the perfect solution,” Brown said in a message to residents.
His message did not directly address a ring road concept, but he said he is encouraging council to approve an alternative route that “meets the design, weight and height requirements” while “minimizing” impacts on the community.
“Without this viable alternative identified and constructed, any motion I would move at council today would not be successful,” Brown said.
Not a magic fix
For her part, Osgoode Coun. Skalski has voted to remove the ring road from the transportation plan despite her ward being home to rural communities like Metcalfe and Greely, where discussions of a ring road.
In an interview with the Ottawa Lookout, Skalski said she supports exploring measures to mitigate truck traffic in rural communities, but that she would like to see more work happen before firm decisions are made.
“I think there's work to be done. There are studies to be done to figure out, ‘how do we move these trucks efficiently through our city?’ Is that the same as moving from the [Highway] 417 to the 416…I don't know,” she said. “I feel like we all talk about this as this solution, but I don't know that we're all defining the problem in the same way.
It's like we're hoping this is the solution to all of our truck problems. But depending on who you talk to, the truck problem is different.”
She said she’d like to see studies surveying truck companies to examine where trucks are coming from, what their destination is, and what routes they’re using, as a starting point, and to make sure that all parties are “talking about the same thing.”
Although she voted in support of Johnson’s motion when the issue came to council last summer, she reiterated that
While she supports the concept of the ring road, she said it’s too early to take a firm position without knowing the details.
“ [I’m] supportive of working with the province if they wish to do the studies…I think it has incredible potential for our economy,” she added. “There's just lots of work to do before we can really understand exactly what that means and exactly what the impacts are.”
An election issue
As a rural resident and community advocate, Sauvé said that although the issue may have been shot down at city council, rural residents are watching how their councillors address issues like this one — especially with an election on the horizon.
“They can only do so much, in fairness to them, without getting support from the rest of them. If it's something on LRT, you'll get 20 votes, but when it's this issue, the ring road doesn't seem to get that support,” said Sauvé. “ And I think that's the problem.”
He said ongoing issues on rural roads, like stop signs, traffic lights, safety and road conditions, are exacerbated by the big trucks, and it can be difficult for trucks to stop quickly for certain rural conditions, like an oncoming piece of farm equipment sharing the road or wildlife crossing.
“With the election coming, it could be part of someone’s platform. People in the debates will ask these questions, but it happens every debate every year, and it stays where it is,” he said. “So there's no one really advocating. We don't know who's advocating for it. And if you don't know that, you feel nobody is.
“I know [Darouze], and [Skalski], and [Brown] and [Tierney] bring it up, but they can only do so much without support. We just want to see some progress.”
