The Summer of traffic
The Percy Street underpass under the 417 remains closed indefinitely to cars, bikes and pedestrians, blocking movement into and out of the Glebe for many, including school children. Photos: Liz McKeen
By Matt Meagher
This was the summer that the Glebe was supposed to get two new bridges. At the time of writing, we are sitting at a 50-per-cent success rate. While the Queensway bridge over Bronson Avenue was replaced rapidly as planned, there has been nothing rapid about the Percy Street bridge replacement, which was postponed at the last minute for undisclosed reasons which may or may not relate to heavy rain.
The Glebe is feeling the impacts of the delay. What was intended to be a short closure of the key Percy Street pedestrian and cycling underpass and school route has been stretched out indefinitely. As a result, people on foot and on bikes have few good options to cross under the Queensway, being forced to take long and relatively unpleasant detours when heading downtown.
Perhaps equally impactful is the closure of Chamberlain Avenue between Bronson and Glendale, which has also taken on indefinite status. The upshot of that closure is that northbound drivers on Bronson who are looking to head east towards downtown or the Queensway eastbound are not able to use the Chamberlain-Kent route to get there. Likewise, those heading south on Bronson from downtown can’t turn left on Chamberlain to get to the Queensway eastbound. Always resourceful, drivers have found new routes using the closest residential streets like Renfrew, Powell and Glebe, often maintaining the same speeds that they were driving on Bronson and Chamberlain.
With school starting in September and lots more kids walking and biking on our residential streets, this fast-driving, cut-through traffic becomes even more problematic and dangerous. To date the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has been silent on the closure, and the City has done essentially nothing to mitigate the impacts of the detoured traffic. As the closures stretch on, it is incumbent on both organizations to recognize the impacts and to take the safety of our residential streets seriously.
Queen Elizabeth Drive Closure
Speaking of cut-through traffic, residents on the other side of the Glebe have also seen their share of that because of the NCCʼs closure of part of the Queen Elizabeth Driveway (QED) for active transportation. As currently configured, during closures, QED traffic is diverted onto Fifth, OʼConnor and Strathcona, resulting in traffic volumes that are wholly inappropriate for residential streets. The issue is such a hot topic of conversation that it garnered the attention of the mayor and even the Globe and Mail.
The Glebe Community Association (GCA) has not taken a formal position on the NCC’s program to date, as it recognizes that there is a wide range of interests involved and that options for mitigation of impacts have not been fully explored. As a matter of principle, the GCA strongly supports the active transportation objectives of the program and the expansion of greenspace in our neighbourhood, including the parkland along the Canal. Further, there are some dubious claims by certain opponents of the project – for example, that there is plenty of space for all the pedestrians and cyclists on existing pathways (there isn’t); and that the QED in its natural state is a main commuter route for drivers (which it was never intended to be). On the other hand, the current detour of large volumes of traffic onto residential streets is not a reasonable trade-off either.
Taking that into account, the GCA has spent the past months trying to get the NCC and the City to get together for a full review of the impacts of the program, so they can come up with options to mitigate the negative impacts. Rather than an all or nothing, open or closed approach, suggestions have been made to improve the situation by detouring traffic earlier, so that it ends upon arterial streets rather than Fifth and O’Connor. Unfortunately, the responsible organizations are essentially replying “we’ve tried nothing, and we are all out of ideas.”
The GCA will continue its efforts to get the NCC and the City to work together to monitor impacts and make improvements to the program. And more broadly, there will be ongoing advocacy for the MTO and the City to give more consideration to the impacts of detours during road projects and to give equal attention to creating safe routes for the pedestrians and cyclists on those detour routes. If you would like to assist with these efforts, you are welcome to get in touch at transportation@glebeca.ca.
Matt Meagher is co-chair of the Glebe Community Association’s Transportation Committee.