Traffic and transportation issues continue to be an important issue for residents of Manor Park. At our MPCA meeting on October 11th, a special presentation on the, "Eastern Cycling Corridor" (ECC), was presented by City of Ottawa staff; Mr. Zlatko Krstulich and Mr. Brian Tweedie. Councillor Peter Clark attended and also spoke at the presentation. Given the potential impacts of the ECC plan on residents of Hemlock, the MPCA (especially Jonah Mitchell who hand delivered notices) notified Hemlock residents directly, and provided them with information on how to ensure their views are considered as part of this planning exercise.

The Eastern Cycling Corridor is part of the overall strategy to improve cycling safety and infrastructure is part of the City's overall cycling strategy as contained in the, "Ottawa Cycling Plan," available at: http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/onthemove/cycling/ottawa_cycling_plan_en.html

We have a long history of transportation and traffic issues on the Hemlock-Beechwood Corridor, and a traffic calming exercise in the late 1990's resulted in the configuration that currently exists today, including the dedicated parking lane on the north side which did not formally exist prior to the aforementioned traffic calming exercise. Traffic speed and traffic volume continues to be an issue on Hemlock and will be part of our Traffic Sub-Committee's work, (chaired by Jeff Thiessen), to improve the overall transportation network in Manor Park.

The original ECC plan presented to the MPCA and Manor Park residents removed on-street parking. This concept caused much concern and generated discussion with City staff and our Councillor. The revised draft plan presented at the meeting attempted to address these concerns while respecting the role that cycling plays in our community and city.

The revised plan attempts to balance the demonstrated and future demands of residents and cyclists. The latest version of the ECC plan maintains parking to meet parking demand as collected by the City through numerous qualitative and quantitative survey methods. Some residents expressed concern with the methodology and results. While additional surveys at different times of the year could be undertaken, Mr. Krstulich invited residents to formally submit what they consider to be a reasonable number of parking spaces.

Numerous suggestions from residents included retaining the existing road layout as is, and creating a new dedicated cycling path in addition to the sidewalk on the north side of Hemlock, to removing official cycling lanes to Eastbourne Avenue, to creating time-of-day permitted parking and no dedicated cycling lane (i.e. no continuous line painting for a cycling lane). The City staff responded to all concerns, and had valid reasons as to why certain options would not work.

The main issue still remains that under the new concept, residents along Hemlock will lose unfettered access to parking and instead will have parking bays created within the City owned right-of-way which exists in front of residents houses (and is currently a combination of grass and sidewalks). The problem with Hemlock is that the current paved roadway is to narrow to accommodate a dedicated parking lane, eastbound and westbound dedicated cycling lanes, and eastbound and westbound vehicle lanes. By creating parking bays on City owned land, all transportation and vehicle storage options would be available.

In addition, City staff pointed out that cycling lanes should have the effect of creating a visual narrowing of the roadway, which in turn can help limit speeds. What is obvious is that the current configuration of Hemlock, which was intended to encourage parking and thereby create a physical narrowing of the roadway to limit traffic speeds, is not working. The current configuration creates a very unsafe environment for eastbound cyclists as the centre-line of the road is not centred as it was moved to accommodate dedicated parking lanes. Further, if the parking on Hemlock was fully utilized on a continuous basis, westbound cyclists would be worse off than the eastbound commuters. However, after more than a decade of use, parking is not fully utilized on an ongoing basis, and the ECC plan is attempting to rebalance the transportation demands on Hemlock road.

The MPCA will continue to seek improvements to the Hemlock-Beechwood Corridor which will reduce vehicle speeds, improve opportunities for alternative forms of transportation such as cycling, walking, and transit, and still allow residents reasonable access to on-street parking. The MPCA recognizes that not everyone will be satisfied with the ECC plan, but we think it is an improvement on the status-quo in many respects.

The MPCA encourages residents to submit their comments to Mr. Krstulich (Zlatko.Krstulich@ottawa.ca) or to Councillor Peter Clark (Peter.Clark@ottawa.ca) as the city will be starting their detailed planning for the Hemlock Road Corridor; between St. Laurent and Birch, in November. Please copy your e-mail to me (a1thompsons@rogers.com), our Secretary (jonah.mitchell@gmail.com) or the Chair of our Transportation Sub-Committee (jeff.jen@rogers.com) will help the MPCA understand the full range of opinions and ideas in the community.

Jeffrey Anderson & Penny Thompson,
Co-Presidents, MPCA