Minutes - Jun 24, 2010

7pm, June 24, 2010

Somerset Community Police Centre

393 Somerset Street West

Present:

John Verbaas, Action Sandy Hill, Chair

Cam Robertson, Dow’s Lake Residents Association, Vice-Chair, Meeting Secretary

Leslie Kirk, Old Ottawa East Community Association

George Wright, Glebe resident

John Courtneidge, federal NDP candidate, Ottawa-Orleans

Robert Batistella, Centretown Citizens Community Assn and Citizens for Safe Cycling

David Jeanes, Transport Action Canada

Regrets:

Ida Henderson, Dalhousie Community Association

Pierre Johnson, Assistant to Councillor Clive Doucet

Roland Dorsay, Island Park Community Association

1) Administrative

a. Leslie volunteered to be meeting secretary

b. Minutes of May 27, 2010 meeting approved

2) Interprovincial Bridge (Downtown Truck Route)

    • Phase 2A is wrapping up, Ph2B is to select 1 out of 3 candidate corridors and is anticipated to begin late 2010 with 2-3 yr duration

a. Transportation Committee

    • Sustainable Solutions urging committee to quantify how any east end bridge would divert truck traffic from downtown

    • asked if City can prevent trucks from using King Edward; City said that it could

    • a motion was passed to analyse economic impacts of banning trucks on KingE

b. Meeting with NCC project Manager

    • outright rejection of looking at tunnel option because does not accommodate enough new car traffic

c. Madeleine Meilleur

    • she agrees that any bridge is primarily to ease truck traffic downtown

    • she opposes Kettle Island option because trucks should not be moved to existing neighbourhoods

    • interested in knowing more about the downtown bypass tunnel option

3) Prince of Wales Widening

    • public consultation groups concluded

    • letter sent setting out the reasons that this project should not proceed and how it could be made safer for pedestrians and cyclists if it is to proceed

    • EA to go to Council in July

    • CCC to write to Council explaining why this project does not make sense (Cam)

4) Western LRT Extension Corridor Selection EA

    • first public consultation group meeting has been held with Roland Dorsay attending on behalf of CCC

    • many different corridor options to be considered

    • some comments by consultant appear to show bias in favour of Parkway route

    • a letter to be written regarding the factors that should be/should not be considered in determining the best route (land acquisition costs, speed, capacity, TMP policy, sunk costs of transitway)

    • David Jeanes to review letter

5) Lansdowne Live Transportation Plan

    • many groups have spoken out against the transportation plan

    • CCC to write a letter outlining transportation concerns

6) Pending Items

a. Interprovincial Transit Study

    • Public info session to be held on July 6, 2010

    • report may or may not be available prior to info session

7) Other

a. Update on E-W segregated cycling facility

    • there have been 4 consultations/open house

    • goal is to choose route; once route is chosen the design process will begin (choices include: Welllington, Slater, Albert & Somerset)

    • deadline for comments is June 30, 2010

    • CCC does support cycling but will not take a position at this point in time

b. Christine Leadman held a bus diversion during transitway transition to LRT meeting; was useful and there are still concerns regarding the re-routing of bus traffic during LRT construction

c. Renaming Wellington Street; we do not have a position on this

d. Heritage Ottawa Walking Tours beginning this weekend

NEXT MEETING: August 26, 2010 (location TBD)