Saint Patrick Street Bridge - Bikeway Modifications

Context

The St Patrick Street Bridge connects Lowertown with New Edinburgh and Vanier across the Rideau River. People use the bridge on foot, on bike, riding a bus, or in a car/truck. One of the groups most served by the bridge is the students of De la Salle High School. The catchment for De la Salle extends from the Ottawa River to Highway 417 and east to St Laurent Street and beyond.

The bridge is due for a major renewal, which the City is proposing to undertake within 5 years. Many parts of the bridge will be renewed, however, owing to the type of structure the drainage ports through the bridge deck cannot feasibly be relocated.

Current Project

As part of the renewal the City is proposing to modify the cycling facilities, on the bridge and extending to the existing cycle tracks west of the bridge.

Objective

The project’s primary objective is to improve the safety, comfort and connectivity of the cycling infrastructure, while maintaining or improving the conditions for the other modes of transportation across the bridge. The proposed modifications will complement other ongoing nearby initiatives to improve cycling safety and connectivity.

Design Features Proposed (south-west end)

A. The westbound bikeway will transition to a raised cycle track closer to the bridge. One of the objectives of this is to mitigate the pooling of water in the bikeway during storm events.

B. At the end of Lower Charlotte Street a new ride-through feature will be constructed to encourage people on bikes to avoid riding on the sidewalk, and to provide better connectivity to local neighbourhoods.

C. The eastbound cycletrack on St Patrick Street will be extended from where it currently transitions to a bike lane, west of Lower Charlotte Street, up the bridge approach slope and onto the bridge, before transitioning to an on-street bike lane.

Given the constraints imposed by the existing drainage system and the infeasibility of relocating drainage ports the raised cycle tracks can not be extended across the bridge.

Design Features (North-east end)

D. The eastbound bikeway currently has an abrupt transition from the on-street bike lane to the raised cycle track at the east end of the bridge. The transition will be smoothed and extended onto the bridge approach slab. This will improve the comfort in two ways. First, the vertical deflection will be a gentler. Second, the transition will be located at a position where there is less momentum developed from the down slope of the bridge, so the rider would likely be going slower.

E. Along the north-west curb of the bridge the on-road bike lane will be maintained. This will be protected by a barrier curb that will separate the general traffic from the bike lane. The width of the bike lane is being maintained with the potential for a future bidirectional bikeway.

F. A dedicated bikeway connection will be constructed between the on-road bike lane and the branch of the NCC’s Rideau River Eastern Pathway. This will provide pedestrians a dedicated and more direct access towards Beechwood.

Following this public consultation, your feedback will be reviewed in finalizing decisions about the project.

City of Ottawa contact for this project:

Adam Hortop, P.Eng.

Senior Project Manager,

Active Transportation Planning

613.580.2424 x20234

adam.hortop@ottawa.ca