Abstract Manager

The City of Ottawa is growing and expected to surpass 1.4 million residents by 2046, representing a 35% increase from 2021. Additionally, changes to work patterns, climate change, and recent major transit investments add additional pressure and opportunities to develop a transportation system that meets the long-term needs and objectives of an evolving city. To achieve its transportation and city-building goals of a dependable, safe, efficient, and flexible system, the City is updating its Transportation Master Plan (TMP).

Completed in two parts, the first part of the TMP developed comprehensive policies to address key themes such as public health, equity, connectivity, land-use integration and climate resiliency. The second part, the capital infrastructure plan, is currently underway and will be completed in summer 2025. This part will identify, evaluate and ultimately recommend transit and road capital projects to support the City’s various transportation objectives. Key deviations from the previous TMP and TMPs from other jurisdictions include an emphasis on meeting transit-needs first and limiting road expansions, which is captured through new policies and the newly developed project prioritization frameworks.

This presentation will focus on the development of the capital infrastructure plan and will outline the TMP process, what best practices were applied, and identify lessons learned. It will discuss the new project prioritization frameworks and how these served to identify and evaluate transit and road projects and the subsequent networks. This presentation will also explore how this TMP lays out three possible future transportation networks: one aimed at addressing all transportation needs, another aimed at providing a more affordable network, and lastly a network dedicated towards achieving its climate targets. The approach to consider multiple scenarios emphasizes the city’s intent to create a more resilient transportation system and a sustainable transportation legacy, while illustrating how different investment levels may yield different outcomes.