Yesterday was the deadline to give feedback to the City on Phase 5 of the Transportation Master Plan. Below is Bike Ottawa’s feedback.
11 May 2025
Dear Mrs Armstrong,
I’m writing to you regarding the phase 5 of the City’s Transportation Master Plan update. After having reviewed the available documents, our board has multiple comments to make.
Our main one is the lack of ambition of the planning for active transportation, with a paltry $48M allocated for cycling infrastructure projects in the next 10 years. Compared to the $1.1B planned for the Priority Road Network, this is completely unbalanced.
We can only deplore that the City isn’t using all the budgetary tools at its disposal to accelerate the development of a well-connected cycling network getting people where they want to go, instead of the piecemeal approach we’ve come to expect. Raising the property tax, issuing green bonds, for example, would allow the City to allocate more funds to the development of sustainable transportation. Sadly, the “City’s long-range financial plans” are not part of the conversation.
Instead, the TMP just acknowledges that the current plan won’t allow the City to reach the targets set in the Official Plan. As it is, the TMP doesn’t do enough to build the resilient, sustainable city we want and need, but is a roadmap to feed the City’s car addiction.
Moreover, we’ve noticed that this lack of ambition is not just for active transportation projects:
- The transit mode share for 2046 is lower than what it was in 2005. Unsustainable transport modes are planned to only go down from 72% in 2005 to 66% in 2046, a very small change on such a long timescale. As a side note, we oppose the designation of carpooling as a sustainable mode of transportation comparable to walking, transit and cycling.
- By only presenting a business-as-planned scenario, it seems like the City is making the infamous “There is no alternative” slogan its own. What would happen if we were to fund OC Transpo properly, or invest enough to create in a few years an equivalent to Montreal’s REV? We’ll never know.
- Instead of using the TMP to orient future growth and developments, the City simply acknowledges future greenfield developments, ushering an increase in soil sealing we know to be detrimental to the environment and people alike.
It is our firm belief that instead of “acknowledging the existing reality of automobile-dependent built form“, the City should try and change it, using the TMP as a tool for transformation.
Kind regards,
Guillaume Gaillard, on behalf of Bike Ottawa Board of Directors
Board member
Bike Ottawa
To: Mark Sutcliffe, Matthew Luloff, Laura Dudas, David Hill, Cathy Curry, Clarke Kelly, Glen Gower, Theresa Kavanagh, Laine Johnson, Sean Devine, Jessica Bradley, Tim Tierney, Stéphanie Plante, Rawlson King, Ariel Troster, Jeff Leiper, Riley Brockington, Shawn Menard, Marty Carr, Catherine Kitts, George Darouze, David Brown, Steve Desroches, Allan Hubley, Wilson Lo