Community Rallies to Stop the Buses on Albert/Scott Streets

Ottawa- (January 22^nd, 2014) Today, residents who live near Albert and Scott streets rallied to demand that the city revisit a plan to divert as many as 2500 buses a day onto a widened roadway. They called on the city to find creative solutions that would divert fewer buses through their neighbourhood.

“Today’s rally, particularly on such a cold day, reinforces how the community has been frozen out of the decision making process for Confederation Line bus diversions,” said Dalhousie Community Association (DCA) president Michael Powell. “The current plans for diverting all Transitway bus traffic through our neighbourhood will cause a nightmare of safety, health and liveability issues. It is simply not acceptable.”

The construction of the Confederation Line will require that the Transitway between Lebreton Flats and Tunney’s Pasture be closed to bus traffic beginning in 2016. The current plan is for Albert and Scott Streets to absorb the entirety of Transitway traffic for the duration of LRT construction. The Dalhousie Community Association, along with other community groups, has pushed the city to consider diverting as many buses as possible along alternate routes, such as the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway and the Queensway.

“Our community has been trying to work with the city to find a solution that allows for Transitway operations to function as normally as possible with as minimal a disruption to our community as possible,” continued Powell. “In fact, all indications that we had received were that no final decisions had been made. We were very upset to find out in December that the city, without consultation, had opted for a final plan that is the worst possible outcome for our neighbourhood.”

“The LRT is a major city building exercise and Ottawa will be better off when it is completed. We hope to work with the city and RTG to find a solution that meets all of our needs,” concluded Powell. “Nothing about the LRT means that the city can abrogate its responsibility to minimize harms during the process.”

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The Dalhousie Community Association is the volunteer organization that represents the interests of residents of Ottawa’s Chinatown, Little Italy and Lebreton Flats. For more information, visit www.ottawadalhousie.ca.

For more information:

Michael Powell, President
president@ottawadalhousie.ca