Chapter 3 – Current and Future Conditions 3.1 Ottawa’s Transportation System The City of Ottawa is home to about 800,000 people. Although the city covers an area of some 2,760 square kilometres, only 10% of this area is urban while the rest is agricultural land, villages, marginal and forested lands, and wetlands. The City of Gatineau and its surrounding rural area, across the Ottawa River in the Province of Quebec, has a population of about 300,000 people. Together, these cities represent the largest urban area in Canada after Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Ottawa’s unique mixture of rural, suburban and urban communities is generally acknowledged to provide a quality of life competitive with any Canadian city. One of Ottawa’s unique characteristics is that its transportation system lies within three government jurisdictions, each of which has specific interests with respect to the planning, design, construction and maintenance of its own facilities. While most of the road network is owned and maintained by the City, major intercity highways (namely Highways 416, 417 and 7) are vital links under the responsibility of the provincial government. Some of Ottawa’s transportation infrastructure is under federal jurisdiction, including five interprovincial road bridges and the roads and multi-use pathways lying within National Capital Commission jurisdiction. One international and three general aviation airports, two passenger railway stations, an intercity bus terminal, two ferries and a freight yard also serve the city. Ottawa residents are served by an extensive, multi-modal transportation system that includes walking and cycling facilities (on-road cycling facilities, sidewalks and multi-use pathways), transit services (on-road bus services, Transitway, O-Train, Park & Ride lots), roads (freeways, arterials, collector and local roads) and parking facilities (on-street and off-street). The City owns and operates about 6,000 kilometres of roads including arterial roads, collector roads and local roads as well as a freeway (see Chapter 9 for more information on these). Arterials account for about 1,300 km, while collectors make up about 1,700 km and the remainder are mostly local roads. The City also owns and operates about 1,500 km of sidewalks, 300 km of multi-use pathways, and 150 km of on-road bicycle lanes. The City also operates 15 off-street parking lots with 1,600 spaces, and 3,750 on-street parking meters. The City of Ottawa’s transit service is known as OC Transpo, and has more than 900 standard and articulated buses in active service. In addition to regular on-road bus services, the City has an extensive rapid transit system including 28 kilometres of busway known as the Transitway with 30 stations, 21 kilometres of bus lanes on freeway shoulders, and an 8-kilometre light rail line with five stations, known as the O-Train. The City also operates a specialized transit service for persons with disabilities, Para Transpo, that uses a fleet of 76 lift-equipped vans and 68 cars. A growing number of fully-accessible low-floor buses are also in regular service, and will comprise the entire OC Transpo fleet by 2015. 3.2 Current Transportation Demand Ottawa residents use automobiles more than any other mode. It is estimated that in 2001, about 250,000 person-trips were made in a typical weekday afternoon peak hour. Of these, about 74% were by automobile, 15% by transit, almost 10% by walking and just under 2% by cycling1. Almost 90% of households own at least one motor vehicle, with urban households owning an average of 1.2 each, and rural households owning an average of 1.9 each. Transit ridership, which is a principal concern of this plan, fell and then rose over the last decade (see Figure 3.1). It declined steadily during the early 1990s, hitting a low of 65 million annual transit trips in 1996. Since that time, however, ridership has grown an average of 5% each year to reach over 86 million trips in 2002. Ottawa has the highest transit ridership per capita of all Canadian cities other than Montreal and Toronto — over 100 annual transit trips for every resident — and the highest rate of all North American cities of a comparable size. The Para Transpo service carries about 600,000 passengers annually. Goods movement is also a significant element of total travel demand in Ottawa. Trucks carry almost all the freight that moves within and through the City, amounting to 480 million tonnes annually compared to 900,000 tonnes by rail and 14,000 tonnes by air. About 4% of all freight trips in Ottawa are to and from Gatineau — about 3,500 trucks crossed the Ottawa River each day in 2000, representing less than 2% of overall daily bridge traffic. Figure 3.1 –
3.3 Future Population and Employment The City of Ottawa is expecting substantial growth in population and employment by 2021, with new residents and workers placing considerable pressure on its transportation system. Figure 3.2 summarizes these growth projections according to the major geographic areas illustrated in Figure 3.3. Figure 3.2 shows that the city’s population is projected to grow about 50% from 2001 to 2021. Of the 400,000 new residents, 18% will live inside the Greenbelt while 73% will live in urban areas outside the Greenbelt, and 9% will live in rural areas. The number of jobs is projected to grow about 50% from 2001 to 2021. About 40% of new jobs will be located inside the Greenbelt, while 55% will be in urban areas outside the Greenbelt and about 5% will be in rural areas. Figure 3.2 –
Figure 3.3 –
1 Modal share estimates for 2001 have been developed based on 1995 origin-destination survey data, and verified with federal Census data collected in 1996 and 2001 as well as annual transit ridership and multi-modal traffic counts collected by the City of Ottawa. |
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Official site of the City of Ottawa
