Old St Patrick Street Cycling Facilities

Following consultations with the public and internal City departments, the proposed design was determined to be incompatible with existing transit service on Old Saint Patrick Street. The scope of the project was subsequently modified to eliminate aspects of the design that were incompatible with transit service and to shift the project's budget to improving cycling infrastructure on Cobourg Street.

The revised design is available in the Documents section of the website and is summarized below:

• There will no longer be parking impacts to Old Saint Patrick Street.
• There will be a localized eastbound lane narrowing from 4.8 m to 3.5 m using paint at the existing pedestrian crossing to improve traffic calming.
• Painted sharrows will be added along Old Saint Patrick Street.
• A short eastbound painted bike lane will be added between Patro Street and Cobourg Street.
• The existing bike lanes on Cobourg Street will be extended up to Saint Patrick Street.
• A painted advance bike box will be added at the intersection of Cobourg Street and Saint Patrick Street to facilitate bikes turning left onto Saint Patrick Street from Cobourg Street. This will include minor modifications to the traffic detection loop embedded in the asphalt under the bike box.

Implementation is expected in summer or fall 2024.

• The As We Heard It report has been uploaded to the Documents section. This report summarizes the results of the public consultation.

Design Features

The proposed design adds an eastbound bike lane (1.4 – 1.7 m in width) through most of project area and maintains a shared westbound traffic lane with added pavement markings for bicycles. The bike lane is proposed in the eastbound direction because cyclists using Saint Patrick Street tend to divert onto Old Saint Patrick Street when going eastbound rather than westbound. The project scope is limited to pavement markings and signage. These have been designed to reduce conflict between motorists / pedestrians / transit, and people on bicycles.

Key safety features that are built into the design include:

• 0.9 m wide dooring buffer adjacent to the parking zone;
• Integration of the design with the traffic calming elements recently built; and,
• A variety of pavement marking and signage features.

The design maintains essential parking spaces in front of the church for weddings, funerals and other events.

On-Street Parking

The proposed design had to balance competing priorities for space due to the physical constraints of the street. The safety of vulnerable road users has been prioritized through the addition of the bike lane, pavement markings and signage. Appropriate lane widths for transit operations have been prioritized to maintain current service. Maintaining parking in front of the church is also a high priority to support events such as weddings and funerals. To achieve these priorities, the design proposes reducing on-street parking in some locations.

Currently, Old Saint Patrick has ~18 parking spaces on the north side from April to November; parking is not permitted on the north side from December through March. The proposed design will eliminate on-street parking on the north side of the street year-round. On the south side, Old Saint Patrick currently has ~14 on-street parking spaces; the proposed design will reduce these to ~7 spaces.

While the proposed design reduces the number of on-street parking spaces on Old Saint Patrick, alternative on-street parking can be found on many nearby streets including Patro, Murray, Beausoleil, Clarence, Myrand and Cobourg.

Tell us what you think

Public feedback is a key component to finalize the City’s recommendations. We encourage interested members of the public to fill out the below Online Survey by June 30, 2023.

Accessibility is an important consideration for the City of Ottawa. If you require a disability-related accommodation, please contact the project manager.