City councillor wary of overpass 'maze' at Orléans LRT station
An Ottawa city councillor is calling plans for an overpass at a future Orléans LRT station a safety risk and a recipe for gridlock in her community.
Orléans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas said she's been flooded with emails from concerned residents after making social media posts detailing what she sees as flaws with the design for Orléans Boulevard at the new Convent Glen station.
"I think that, as a whole, the design is faulty," Dudas said in an interview.
She said residents were initially presented with a very different design, with space for buses to pull out of traffic.
The new design dispenses with that.
It foresees just two traffic lanes — one in each direction — which Dudas warns would force cars to queue roughly every eight minutes as buses stop at the station.
"Everyone who's travelling through this area is going to get jammed," she said.
City trying to 'cram' everything in
Congestion is only one of her worries.
Dudas said the design sticks bike lanes directly through the path of pedestrians exiting buses, calling it a "disaster waiting to happen."
The new plan creates a "maze" of people and vehicles, she said.
"They're trying to cram everything into one small space. And at the end of the day nobody benefits from it."
Residents first saw the new design in January, Dudas said, though in her view it was "buried" in a mountain of other details about the project.
She said she shared her worries with city staff, OC Transpo and contractors without getting anything more than assurances that they'd take her concerns back for consideration.
Dudas said she's also forwarded residents' concerns to OC Transpo, and is planning a meeting to look for solutions — like potentially concentrating the bike lanes on one side of the road, or finding a way for buses to pull out of traffic.
Meets safety, accessibility standards: city
In a statement to CBC on Sunday, the City of Ottawa said the current design meets its standards for accessibility and safety.
A traffic analysis found the proposed configuration would only create "minimal impacts to motor vehicle traffic," said Michael Morgan, director of the city's rail construction program.
"While the possibility exists to make modifications to the design of the bridge at this time, it would be a costly variation that would impact the project schedule and conflict with the results of previous public consultation efforts," Morgan said in the statement.
"Notwithstanding the status of the project, we have committed to reviewing and assessing various design iterations as well as safety and traffic concerns with the councillor."
'Very messy'
Even so, a lot of residents are angry about the design, said Mireille Brownhill, president of the Convent Glen-Orléans Wood Community Association.
Some of the concerns she's heard from the community revolve around traffic congestion near the station and she's personally worried that collisions between drivers, cyclists and pedestrians could increase.
"I think it will be very messy," Brownhill said.
While she's happy to see cycling and pedestrian infrastructure included in the design, Brownhill isn't convinced any major changes will ever take place.
"It's exceedingly irritating that we keep going through this again," she said. "They present a design, people are upset about it, but [the city is] not actually going to change it."
Dudas also wants the original design to be revisited, but with construction well underway, she worries it might be too late.
Still, the outpouring from those opposing the design has been almost unanimous, Dudas said.
"At the 11th hour, as this is being built, we need an actual proposal that reflects the needs of the community," she said.
