Downtown Ottawa traffic stalls with Wellington Street closure
Closing a portion of Wellington Street a few days early in preparation for this year's Canada Day has snarled traffic in downtown Ottawa during rush hour, as detouring Ottawa and Gatineau buses clogged the downtown.
Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill is usually closed the morning of Canada Day, but this year the street closed on Tuesday so that security checkpoints for the Canada 150 celebrations could be set up on the road.
That forced buses from both Ottawa and Gatineau to detour onto Albert and Slater streets, and downtown traffic — already constricted by light rail transit construction — slowed to a crawl first in the morning, and again in the evening commute.
Naturally, commuters weren't pleased.
Just one block of Wellington was closed — from Bank Street to O'Connor Street — with the westbound lanes opening up in the afternoon.
More road closures are happening on Wednesday, beginning at 5 a.m., with Elgin Street southbound closed from Wellington Street to Queen Street, and the Wellington Street turning lane closing from MacKenzie Avenue to Elgin Street southbound.
