The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

You can't pour two jammed east-end freeways into one expecting traffic to flow in a uninterrupted fashion.

There are physics involved so efforts to "fix" the Highway 417-174 Split for $45 million are likely to fail. That's not to say that the money won't be spent, but its effectiveness in moving traffic is likely to be marginal at first when extra capacity is created. And as time passes, those new lanes will fill quickly as the east end grows.

In fact, that short extra-capacity window is likely to steal riders from the Transitway which in the east end is used by a higher percentage of riders than any other place in the city.

Where the so-called fix of the Split will be effective is in garnering votes for an Ontario Liberal government as it approaches election day on Oct. 10. The Liberals, for all their attempts to finance green light rail in this community, aren't so idealistic on transit as to rise above the muck of building bigger freeways. Voters will fall for wider roads to commute faster any time. More lanes, faster traffic, right? Wrong.

The fact of the matter is that wider roads just don't work. If they did, there wouldn't be traffic jams today. Patrons of Scotiabank Place in the west end know this only too well. Traffic creeps and crawls on the westbound lanes of the Queensway east of Moodie Drive as the freeway narrows from six to four lanes. The crush of regular Kanata-bound drivers combined with arena patrons can't cram into fewer lanes without delays. Once past the Moodie interchange, traffic speed increases.

The same principle applies each morning at the Split. No minor tinkering with two freeways joining into one is going to change west-bound congestion much.

Furthermore, $45 million is just wasted money from a health and environment viewpoint. Long-distance car commutes in this city contribute mightily to the No. 1 source of pollution here -- auto exhaust. If we are to build a green community and set an example for the rest of the country in the nation's capital, Ottawa won't do it by building better interchanges. Wider roads aren't cleaner roads. They are just more cars packed into a small space.

Building or widening freeways just doesn't work. Look at the 12-lane Highway 401 across the top of Toronto. It was conceived as a route so big it would never be congested. Now it even sees midday traffic jams.

The east end deserves the same kind of good transportation as the west and south parts of the community. It should be safe, fast, economical and green. But that isn't car travel.

Instead, the McGuinty government should be encouraging city hall to move ahead quickly and efficiently on a light-rail system that serves all parts of the city. That $45 million should be put in the kitty for rail, not to facilitate more car travel.

Wider freeways are just wasted money.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007