The ring road debate: Council removes it from the Transportation Master Plan, but one MPP wants it built

If you’ve ever driven down the Queensway, into Manotick, or on any major highway in Ottawa, you understand the city is in the midst of a congestion crisis. It is not a wonder why: the city has reached a population of one million people and is expected to grow by 400,000 more residents in the next 20 years. 

One potential solution pushed by some councillors is to build a ring road – also called a beltway or bypass – which is a major highway that forms a route around a city or metropolitan area, rerouting traffic away from the core. 

In the U.S., it is common to see interstates with auxiliary ring highways that bypass cities. In Syracuse, for example, motorists can take I-481 to go around the city before reconnecting with I-81 on the other side of the city. Even Highway 407 in Toronto acts as a partial ring road around the GTA.

Ottawa’s long proposed ring road would also divert transport trucks going through Ottawa off the Queensway. If ever built, it would start around Highway 416 south of the Highway 417 interchange in the Barrhaven area, past east of Richmond and north of Manotick, and then connect to Highway 417 east of the city near Vars or Cumberland. 

Beacon Hill-Cyrville Councillor Tim Tierney presented the ring road idea to the city’s public works and infrastructure committee, saying it should take priority in the east end instead of building a new interprovincial bridge over Kettle Island. He said trucks could be rerouted off Highway 417, which is the only major east-west artery in the city. 

Tierney’s motion for the city to pursue a full and fair evaluation of a southern ring road passed 9-2 at the committee level.

However, when the motion got to full council on July 23, it was rejected. 

The motion to remove the ring road evaluation in the Transportation Master Plan (TMP) was made by Councillor Laine Johnson. On Facebook she said her motion was designed to “correct what I considered to be a misstep made during the final minutes of the last public meeting about the plan, which was an eleventh-hour motion to offer specific support to a ring road for Ottawa.” 

Johnson also said through surveys and meetings, there was no ambition for a ring road and noted previous councils had also rejected the idea. Her replacement motion called for all levels of government to prioritize sustainable data-driven transportation infrastructure investments. Johnson wants more effective management of truck traffic throughout the city, including the urban core.

Tierney questioned Johnson about the inclusion of the ring road in the motion.

“I actually had a ring road in there and it’s not in there,” he said in the meeting. “Would you take a friendly amendment to put the word verbatim what is in the document?”

“No I wouldn’t accept that,” replied Johnson. “The motion is to remove the ring road out of the TMP.”

A number of councillors changed their vote, including Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and recently elected Osgoode Ward Councillor Isabelle Skalski, the former Greely Community Association President. 

On social media, many constituents made it clear they were unhappy that she would not support a motion that would directly benefit her own ward. Skalski then posted on social media, defending exploring the potential for a southern ring road despite voting against it.

“We can all agree that truck traffic in our rural villages is terrible and that potential solutions, like ring roads, to reroute traffic effectively are urgently needed,” she posted on Facebook.

Local MPP shows support for ring road project 

The ring road debate has caught the attention of newly elected Carleton MPP George Darouze, who is the only PC representative for the Ottawa area. 

A former city councillor for Osgoode ward, which Skalski now represents, Darouze has long advocated for a southern ring road to take the truck traffic out of Manotick and Greely and off Bridge Street and Mitch Owens Road.

“It should be a priority for the City of Ottawa,” Darouze told the Ottawa Lookout. “There is no argument, and there is no issue. There is no politics. It’s very simple. This is something that is needed.”

Darouze recently opened his new constituency office in Dickinson Square in Manotick. Just a few hundred feet away, approximately 1,000 transport trucks a day roll past along Bridge Street, which turns into Mitch Owens Road at River Road.

“Bridge Street and Manotick Main Street is the busiest intersection in the city for truck traffic,” said Darouze. “This has been a long-time issue. The previous Rideau-Jock councillors have been dealing with this issue. The current councillor, David Brown, has been a champion for trying to take this truck traffic out of the Village of Manotick since he was elected.”

The idea for a ring road has been discussed off and on since the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton in the early 1980s, long before amalgamation, long before Highway 416 was built, long before the rapid population growth of the area, and long before Amazon and its warehouses were even an idea.

The problem of truck traffic through the village is nothing new. With the heavy construction of new homes and infrastructure in Barrhaven over the past couple of decades, there has always been a daily parade of tractor-trailers cutting through the village between the quarries and pits in southeast Ottawa to construction sites in Barrhaven.

A decade ago, hopes that the Vimy Bridge between Barrhaven and Riverside South would help alleviate the traffic problems in Manotick. While it took cars that would slingshot through Manotick to get between Barrhaven and Riverside South out of Manotick, the new bridge was not designated as a truck route.

When the Amazon warehouse in Barrhaven was built, the truck traffic intensified in Manotick. Now, there is a second Amazon warehouse planned for the community. This is in addition to the Amazon warehouse along the 417 at Boundary Road, which also has its fingers in the pie of truck traffic on Mitch Owens Road through Greely and Manotick as a route to 416 South.

“We have trucks that deliver goods between Montreal and Ottawa and Toronto,” Darouze said. “They use Manotick as a cut through between Highways 416 and 417. They come through here because it’s the only route they have.”

As the population of South Carleton grows, the problem will only get worse.

“We need to find a southern connection so we can relieve the pressure in the communities that are affected,” Darouze said. “We also have to get these trucks off Mitch Owens Road. The city keeps approving Amazon warehouses and other big warehouses, but the impact of these warehouses and the truck traffic they bring is being ignored.”

Darouze said that a southern ring road would alleviate truck traffic in the urban core, as trucks would bypass the city to get around the city rather than go through it.

“We have been going over this for years, and it was brought up multiple times at last fall’s Ottawa Rural Summit – we cannot solve Ottawa’s problems with a one-size fits all solution,” Darouze said.

To move forward, Darouze said that the city needs to show the province that a ring road is a priority. Despite council’s vote, he is not letting the ring road issue go.

“If the city of Ottawa does not see this as a priority, I will work with the Mayor and with the city so that they know that this is a serious priority for rural residents in Ottawa.”