Alayne McGregor
The Queen Elizabeth Driveway (QED) will again be reserved for active transportation this summer – but over a shorter length on weekdays.
During July and August, the National Capital Commission announced, the driveway will remain car-free 24 hours a day, seven days a week, between Somerset Street and Pretoria Avenue. However, this is shorter than the 2023 July/August closure, which extended to Fifth Avenue.
When asked why the shorter distance, a spokesperson said the NCC decided that the Somerset/Pretoria section “would be most optimal for a 24/7 car-free space.”
On weekends and holidays, the closure will extend to Fifth Avenue, with the Glebe section car-free from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has repeatedly opposed the car-free QED, arguing that the Glebe section in particular interfered with traffic going to Lansdowne. In a poll on his website, he called for a “balanced” approach that would only close the driveway to cars on weekends and holidays because weekday closures would cause “significant delays for emergency vehicles, congestion on neighbourhood streets, and increased commute times.”
The NCC ran its own active use survey about its parkway closures last July to October, with 10,686 responses. Respondents were emphatically in favour (88 percent) of the QED closures. In 2023, it counted more than 133,000 visits on the QED, an average of 1,502 per day.
Erin Maher of the advocacy group Parkways for People said that not having the Glebe section of the QED available on weekdays was a “real disappointment.” Having a virtual linear park there was really appreciated by residents and visitors over the past few summers, she said, and she personally used the closed parkway to go shopping on weekdays.
She observed the Glebe section being as well used as the Centretown section, and she expected the Centretown section to now be more crowded on weekdays.
Moving cyclists off the pathways onto the road?
Mayor Sutcliffe said he observed the pathways still being heavily used even when the QED was car-free. Maher suggested the NCC encourage cyclists to use the Moving cyclists off thew p to give pedestrians more space on the paths.
The NCC has said it will be exploring the feasibility of installing segregated bike lanes on the QED and Colonel By Drive in order to “ease the pressure on the canal pathways and enhance pedestrian safety while separating faster-moving cyclists from the limited pathway space.”
Animating the linear park
There may be more than just walking and cycling in the car-free QED. The NCC is promising animation opportunities, “creating an ‘open street’ concept.” More details will come soon, it said.
Maher said Parkways for People plans to hold a public brainstorming session to suggest what the car-free section could look like. She suggested children’s bike rodeos, movie nights, community picnics, dances, evening bike parades with lights could all be inexpensive ways to animate the area. Community groups could meet there, too: the Ottawa Urbanism Book Club could pull up chairs there to discuss their latest book, she suggested.
A cool space in the summer heat
She also pointed to the value of this greenspace along the canal as a cool area in Centretown’s heat island in the summer. “There’s just limitless opportunities to use the canal area as as climate mitigation and offer it to people who don’t have access to air conditioned spaces. We could still do so much more in greening the space.”
Read the 2023 article: