Minutes - 2011-06-29

Minutes of June 29th, 2011 City Centre Coalition meeting

7:00pm at Dalhousie Community Centre

755 Somerset West, at corner of Empress

Present: John Verbaas – Chair, Action Sandy Hill;

Leslie Kirk – Vice-Chair, Old Ottawa East Community Association,

George Wright, Glebe Resident;

Cam Robertson, Dow’s Lake Residents’ Association;

Roland Dorsay, Island Park Community Association; and

Jordan Charbonneau, Centretown Citizens Community Association

1) Administrative

a. Meeting Secretary – Leslie

b. Minutes of May 25th 2011 meeting approved

2) Alta Vista Transportation Corridor: Report on John Verbaas and John Dance’s Meeting with Pierre Sadik (David Chernushenko's office)

- no plan for Ph2 or Ph3 of AVC within next 10 yrs

-at that time EA will require an addendum since will be 10yrs from approval date (2005)

-even given the EA update requirement, the goal is to also work to have AVTC removed from the Transportation Master Plan

-Pierre is to investigate the TMP update process and to locate the updated traffic counts for the roads that were studied in the 2005 Environmental Assessment of the AVTC in order to compare the actual numbers with the predicted numbers

-Old Ottawa East has established an AVTC Working Group

3) Mid-town (Glebe-OECA) canal pedestrian bridge update (Leslie)

- public open house held on June 2, 2011 (first of 3 open houses; next will be this Fall and the last scheduled for next summer)

- a well attended event

- strong expression of view that this project should not be driven by the development of Landsdowne

- there was a good deal of opposition

- feeling that the “needs/justification” phase of the Environmental Assessment was not addressed

- fear that Old Ottawa East would become a parking lot for Lansdowne events

-fear that the bridge would harm Main Street businesses

-too expensive

-interfere with canal’s heritage status

-negative impact on the view

ACTION: -look for support from CCC member Associations in the fall

4) O-Train service expansion

- report on business case presented to Transit Commission Jun 15

- replace 3 current Talent trains with 6 new trains

- increase to 8 minute service via addition of 2 new passing tracks

- estimated as cost neutral because of savings from reduced need for

buses during transitway conversion 2016-2018

-also studying the extension of the line to Riverside South; report coming out in the summer

5) Ottawa River East End Bridge Phase 2B

- report on public consultation meetings

- PCG Jun 7

-some expressed opinion that the meetings aren’t very valuable; process is simply a public relations exercise

- World Café's Jun 11 and Jun 18

- Community Value Plan workshops, Jun 14-16 (only 1-2 weeks’ notice of these meetings was provided)

-John V.’s goal is to require the consultants to clarify how the truck traffic will flow after a bridge is built; to what extent will the bridge help divert truck traffic from downtown? We must know the answer to this question now

-there are 3 more rounds of public consultation to be held

-location to be chosen by end of 2012

ACTION: Leslie to contact openfile to this issue on their radar; determine what they know about the issue

6) Update on LRT Corridor Selection west of Tunney's Pasture

- NCC letter stating case for using the Ottawa River Parkway is not strong enough

-there will be a public consultation at the end of the summer at which time the preferred route will be named then it goes to committee/council

ACTION: defer until next meeting; CCC should be ready to comment to Council and Councillors when decision is announced

7) Interprovincial Transit Study: Still missing in action

- study report now > 6 months overdue

ACTION: John V. To send an email to the person he knows for an update

8) Road Re-development Projects Update:

- Rideau St, Sussex to Rideau River. (John)

-road to be narrowed from 5 lanes to 4 and sidewalks widened between Nelson and Cobourg

-group decided against recommending a dedicated bike lane in favour of

widened sidewalks

-loading zones to be redesigned to be more “European” (ie. extension of

sidewalk delineated with bollards vs intrusion of roadway into sidewalk)

-Outstanding issue: curb lanes are currently dedicated to buses – Is this necessary? What are the statistics on use of the lanes during non-peak hours. Would it be possible to use these lanes for parking during non-peak?

Would it possible to design transit operations on Rideau like Bank Street in Centretown (ie. Bus bays and some operation in shared traffic)?

ACTION: Pursue further discussion through Consultants with OC Transpo re. bus operations along Rideau St.

9) Other Business/News

a. Ashcroft Convent: 2 OMB hearings underway.

b. Canal Pedestrian Crossings Study: Report Came out a few days ago (Jordan distributed the link via CCC listserv)

c. Rideau Street/Colonel By intersection: a number of public meetings were held by the NCC about this intersection in 2008 but nothing has happened since

d. Island Park Drive cycling: NCC has indicated that it will explore

installing bollards on Island Park Drive

e. NCC Roadway policy review: NCC will be conducting a review of its policy of its ownership/management of roadways in Ottawa. This is a very important initiative as any policy change will need to be looked at in the TMP update, will affect the Western LRT selection process, the use of roadways by commercial traffic

f. Transportation Committee Term of Council priority setting (highlights)

-make selection process for determining location for local traffic calming measures less complicated; $33,000 per year per ward will now be allocated for this

- formalize a program for making ongoing improvements to dangerous cycling spots

-re-affirmation to dedicate $2M per year to cycling infrastructure (this is not “new” money)