Abstract Manager

The design of three protected intersections on Scott Street in the City of Ottawa illustrated unique challenges in the incorporation of enhanced active transportation measures into a constrained urban environment. Scott Street is an arterial road that runs parallel to Line 1 of the Ottawa LRT system and was used as a main avenue of traffic for busses into the downtown core while the LRT was being constructed. The corridor has also been a identified as a portion of the City’s Crosstown Bikeway No. 2, a main east-west cycling corridor that would allow cyclists safe and comfortable access to and from the downtown core. The intention of this project was to remove the no longer needed bus lanes and reallocate the space to improve the active transportation of the corridor and upgrade the three signalized intersections within the limits to provide protected facilities to link the adjacent neighborhoods with the LRT stations east and west of the project limits. The barriers created by the LRT corridor on the north side of Scott Street, including the two overpass’ and one underpass, resulted in the need for detail review of the required facility widths as well as amendments to some active transportation warrants to ensure that a safe, accessible, and intuitive active transportation facility was provided.

In coordination with the City of Ottawa, Robinson Consultants carried out an evaluation of the intersections at Parkdale Avenue, Carruthers Avenue, and Bayview Station Road. These evaluations included consideration of design and control vehicle accommodations to allow for modifications to the proposed design to support dedicated cycling and pedestrian facilities.   The City of Ottawa had recently developed it’s ‘Protected Intersection Design Guideline’ which provides guidance on the incorporation of dedicated cycling facilities, as well as accessibility measures, into signalized intersection designs, however, the significant constraints of the Scott Street corridor required considerable refinement of the philosophies and design principles presented in the guideline to ensure the dedicated cycling facilities were in keeping with the intent of the guide to ensure user expectations and overall safety and operations were consistent through the corridor and the overall network.

Detail design of the proposed protected intersections have been completed and it is expected that construction will be completed over Summer 2023.