City Scars
Allow me to get a little provincial for a moment… actually, a little municipal. At The Ottawa Citizen, I cover the topic of a cancelled bridge project and the effects on one particular community, Lowertown – a neighbourhood that has little money little political clout:
To cross King Edward as a pedestrian, you either have to engage in a little bit of real-life Frogger — dodging traffic as you run to the median, before continuing to the other side — or you must walk blocks to one of the streets that actually has a crosswalk (you then must wait until the light finally changes). If you want to cross King Edward when driving, well, you do not want to cross King Edward when driving.
This is why the recent decision of the provincial government, killing a proposal for a new bridge at Kettle Island, is such a gut shot to Lowertown. It is a forgotten little neighbourhood with little room for expansion and few connections to other communities. It is a community that has neither the economic nor the political clout to force governments to concern themselves with the neighbourhood’s problems. It is not Manor Park. It is not the Glebe
A little background: King Edward Avenue is a main road through downtown Ottawa which leads to a bridge to Quebec. It is about ten blocks from Parliament Hill and creates a divide between the Byward Market (a major tourist/entertainment hub, with lost of new condo development) and Lowertown (a poorer neighbourhood with no such attractions). Transport trucks drive through downtown and cross the river via King Edward. It’s ridiculous and it creates a nasty barrier between the two neighbourhoods. For decades, Ottawa has been trying to build a new bridge in the east end to connect with Quebec.
After years of study (and millions of dollars), the provinces of Quebec and Ontario – along with the National Capital Commission – decided to go ahead with a new bridge. Within weeks of the announcement, it was scuttled by the Ontario government (despite having been a part of the planning process). It was pure NIMBYism. The neighbourhood of Manor Park didn’t want a new bridge near their neighbourhood.
Manor Park, being more politcally important, won, and Lowertown will continue to suffer.
A hat tip goes out to Timothy Lee for his coverage of urban development.
Lowertown has to hope for the salvation of other poorer neighbourhoods in other North American cities: gentrification. It will mean the current inhabitants won’t be able to afford to live there anymore but Lowertown will have more clout.Report
This is, of course, a reasonable fear. Development and prosperity might hurt some people, but it might help some people as well.
Even if King Edward is ever tamed, I don’t think the gentrification that’s going on in the Market will totally over-run Lowertown. I think it might turn out more like Hintonburg, where there is a lot of development and some gentrification, but still some pockets that have remained fairly unchanged (the streets just south of Scott St. and just west of Bayview, I think it’s Bayview, come to mind). Similarly, much of Little Italy has kept its original character despite a lot of recent development.Report
Nice post Jon.
Is “lowertown” kind of like “unobtainium”? If you’re going to pretend that class disparities don’t affect the political process at least give the disenfranchised neighborhood a name like “importantburg” or “center-of-the-universe-bury”, amirite?Report
It’s called Lowertown because in the original settlement of what became the city of Ottawa, the area that is now Parliament Hill was the higher ground with a cliff that had a clear view both up and down the river and thus was taken over for a military fort and other sundry military outbuildings. Lowertown was the area at the foot of the cliff and thus the name.
It’s still an impressive cliff and the views are still great, with a superb fireworks display every July 1.Report
See river photos about mid-way down the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_RiverReport
Thanks, Chris.
DRS is correct that Lowertown’s name is based on simple geography and not some class system (sort of like how Ontario was Upper Canada and Quebec was Lower Canada). Still, it’s always struck me as sadly ironic that such a poor area had the name Lowertown.
When Mechanicsville started with the gentrification, you never heard that name anymore. First it was Wellington West (Wellington being the name of a prominent street), and now Hintonburg (which is the historical name of a community, but the name has kind of expanded to cover more communities).Report
I definitely figured it was the case that “lowertown” came from geography. It is strange coincidence though.Report
Bridges have a way of being built, obstreperous administrations notwithstanding. It just takes more time. The NIMBYs can only stay on top of a given issue for so long. Eventually, good sense will triumph.
I’ve looked at the problem in Google Earth. The most sensible approach would be to route the traffic over to the Vanier Parkway or better yet, to elevate the 5 roadway all the way to the 417, as was done through New Orleans, Louisiana with Interstate 10. If King Edward Street had been properly done, back when they were screwing with Urban Renewal, it would have been elevated right through. The intersection at Rideau is a colossal botch: I’ll bet traffic hangs up there all during daylight hours and is the scene of many accidents.Report
I don’t know what the accidents stats are, Blaise, but it is most definitely a mess for traffic.
You say bridges have a way of being built, but it’s been decades that Ottawa has been trying to get a new bridge built, and this is the closest we’ve gotten. I think all the political will has been used up, and I doubt the Quebec gov’t will want to work with Ontario any time soon, considering that Ontario had worked on and agreed to the plan, then within about a week of the announcement, reneged. All that being said, I hope you’re right.
IIRC, the issue with the Vanier Parkway was the environmental impact. It was one of the top three (I think) locations considered in the recent study.Report
I don’t know how well-connected you are to the Movers and Shakers on this issue, but the example to follow would be New Orleans at Canal and Claiborne. Note how I-10 is elevated over Canal Street and Claiborne serves it as a parallel feeder.
Were the same approach taken with King Edward Avenue, all the way through to the onramp and interchange at the 417, no bridge need be built. New Orleans managed to preserve Canal Street and Claiborne both. Granted, the traffic thunders overhead on I-10 but there’s business all along Claiborne, the old cemeteries, too.
The political realities being what they are, KE is already slagged with traffic and nobody seems to care. But elevating the 5 could follow several different routes: coming across Pont Macdonald Cartier, the elevated route could follow Dalhousie through to Nicholas, leaving a KE offramp for local traffic.Report