Transcript: Rejects Red-Turn Ban, Approves Parking - Comité de l’infrastructure et des travaux publics — le 26 février 2026 | Summary 778

Rejects Red-Turn Ban, Approves Parking - Comité de l’infrastructure et des travaux publics — le 26 février 2026

Bless you. All right. Good morning, everybody. Uh, thank you for uh Oh, can I get the audio up in there just a bit if that's okay? Thanks. Perfect. Oh, she was just waiting. Hi, Jessica. Good morning. Um uh first of all we're uh I would like to do an acknowledgement that we are here on the Anesnab Alangquin territory. Uh the people of the Anesab Alangquin nation have lived on this territory for a millennia. Their culture and presence is nurtured and continues to be nurtured on this land. This point we do have regrets from councelor Johnson. Uh but I will turn it over to the committee coordinator for roll call today. Please. Councelor Bradley here. Councelor D. Ro here. Councelor Divine here. Councelor Dudes here. Councelor Gower here. Councelor Johnson. Councelor Low here. Councelor Lulov here. Councelor Scowski here. Councelor Troster here. Vice Chair Kitz here. Chair Tierney here. You have quorum chair. Great. Thank you. So at this point I'm just going to go through the agenda. Um let's see here. We have uh no declarations of interest. Uh we have confirmation of minutes uh 23 from September 27th, 2025. Is this item carried? Great. Thank you. We have a response to inquiries. We do have uh nine delegations to speak on this today. Uh I'm going to just lift it uh if that's okay with committee to add to the agenda. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Uh so that will be added. Uh we'll take that and put that we're going to do a little rejigging because we do have a couple things I think that might clear anyway, but if we do require it, we do have people from the MTO here as well today. So, we'd like to put that up front. So, I'll go to uh when it comes to the uh highway 417 rapid bridge replacement at Woodruff and Maitelland Avenue, we do have some slides on that. Uh do people want to have a presentation discussion on that? I think that's very important. So, that would be good. Theresa is in. Good. So, we'll hold that. You guys will be first on deck. Uh item number six, planning and building services department. Yep. Yep. Uh Canada North transitway environmental assessment study. Uh we have uh no delegations to speak on this one. Uh I think we've been well presented on this one. It's EA. Does anyone see the need to put this item on the agenda for discussion? Seeing none, is that item carried? Great. Thank you. Uh item number 6.2, private approach. Uh again, I think we've been beaten to death on this one. We do have a presentation if you feel necessary. Uh there is no delegations on this one. I think it's a good news story. Uh that being said, does anyone want to hold this item for further discussion? Yes. Yes, J. Councelor D. Ro, that's been held. Thank you. Uh so item number seven of course we have status update public works and infrastructure committee and then uh we have no in camera items. So we'll go back up to the and is the status report received. Sorry next page received. Thank you very much everybody. So we'll go back to the first item on the agenda. As mentioned we'll get uh the bridge replacement to go first. It's just simply a matter of course because we brought them in and now we have nine delegations that weren't originally on the agenda have been added after. So we'll get MTO to come forward. We'll load up the slide deck and we'll do some introductions. Thank you. All right, gentlemen. Um, just looking here. Great. If you want to introduce yourself, I believe we have a Lincoln McDonald and Bruce Monroe. Got the right people here today. Perfect. Says it in their name tags. Uh, please give us your presentation today. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Ben Monroe, a lead engineer with MTO Project's delivery office. Link McDonald. I'm the project manager for the consultant on this job with Stantech. You want to so we'll start. So, uh, as the presentation shows, it's the Highway 417 rapid bridge replacements, uh, particularly Woodruff and Matland Avenues. Uh, this is the first of two contracts. Second contract will follow this one. It's for, uh, Richmond and Pinerest replacements. Uh just an overview as I said uh the project limits are basically from Matland Avenue to the 416. Um the red circles are contract one, the blue are contract two. Next slide. Um, in general, it's the rapid replacements for the Woodruff Avenue and Matland Avenue underpasses, including active transportation facilities on the structures. Uh, reconstruction and a profile adjustment at Woodruff and Maitland Avenue to meet current uh, highway bridge design code requirements, new retaining walls at Woodruff Avenue, and an extension of the existing ones at Maitland. Three overhead sign relocations, one on the eastbound lanes, two on the westbound lanes. uh highway reservicing uh 417. This is why the extension is up to 416, the highway 416, because it's throughout that corridor. Uh and then some snow barrier installation on the Clyde Avenue underpass. Next slide, please. Uh scope of work basically is establishing a fence construction staging area. They're located both within the interchanges. Uh construct the new decks at an integral pier. It's an innovative solution uh within the staging areas. Widening of the abutments and construction of the superructure, demolition of the existing bridge decks uh including weekend closures uh reinstatement of decks using the rapid replacement technology. Again, weekend closures, profile adjustments, approach reconstruction and restoration of the impacted areas. So, in general, Maitlin Avenue and Woodruff Avenue are raising by about 750 millimeters on profile to meet the required standard. Mland Avenue is being widened by 10 meters approximately 3.25 to the east, 6.75 to the west. That's to accommodate the active transportation facility as well. Woodruff Avenue is got a 6.5 widening all of it to the east and that again is to accommodate the active transportation facilities. Next slide, please. This is just a cross-section showing Woodruff Avenue. You can see the uh the 2 m sidewalk, 2 m cycle lane. There is a.3 delineator strip between the two of them that is taken off of that. So approximately 1.85 for both. Uh there's a buffer to the high to the roadway 0.9 a.5 m shoulder 3 and a half meter lanes throughout. Uh Woodruff has a median cap. Um and then on the next slide is Melan pretty well the same crosssection. Um, it's just no median cap in that one just because of the turn lane requirements. Next slide, please. So, this is a staging area for Woodruff. It's in the northwest inner loop, as you can see. It's circled in red. Uh, next slide. So, at Woodruff, we're uh the slide says 24 hours. We're actually now looking at 24 to 48. We're trying to see if we can do some additional highway work within the closure period to try to help save time on the end. Uh Wood Avenue is to be closed for approximately 6 to 7 weeks. That is for the abupment and superructure construction as well as the profile adjustments. Um and then we have a 48 to 72-hour full closure of the 417 again for the sliding the new bringing the new bridge in in place and finishing off the abupments. Uh, as noted, um, for we're hoping to use ramp surfing at for at Woodruff for that closure because of the the off-ramp from the eastbound and the westbound. They line up pretty good, so we can take them off the eastbound ramp and put them back on westbound around the around the interchange. Uh, ramp closures with regards to Woodruff Avenue do include the Woodruff Avenue east to south, northeast, and southwest ramps. Those are long durations, but as I noted, the south to west we're hoping to use uh as ramp surfing. Pinerest Southeast, Pinerest Northeast, and the Mland North Southwest ramps are also impacted during those closure periods. Next slide, please. So, this basically just uh shows the detouring routes for Highway 417 during the closures. Uh we are utilizing baseline and Carling similar approach that's been done on previous RBRs within the corridor. Um I won't get into the details. It's hard to read it anyway. Uh but that's basically how it's done. And like I said, we're ramp surf around the Woodruff Avenue closure. Next slide, please. Um, again, during the rapid replacements, another closure requirements for the for the uh in place work. Um, too small to really get into. So, I if if you have questions, I can answer them, but uh I proceed to the next slide, please. This is the act of transportation and pedestrian uh detours. Uh we have met with uh uh with the city on staff on this as well as we've had three MTAC meetings to discuss this um what routes are available what's what's possible. Uh I will note that uh yesterday we received an email from staff asking us to look at a couple of different other options that uh is still currently under review. Next slide please. Mland Avenue. Again the staging area is in the northwest quadrant of the inner loop. Next slide, please. Uh, again, we're looking at a 24 to 48 hour closure to try to maximize what we can do when the highway is closed. Uh, Mland Avenue is going to be closed for a little bit longer period of 7 to 8 weeks because the widening is greater. Um, 48 to 72h hour closure again for the actual bridge replacement. Ramp closures here include Woodruff south to east, Woodruff northeast, Matland west to north, which is a long duration closure. Uh, Carling east to west, Matland east to north south. The Mland east to north south ramp actually is a double ramp. We are closing one of the lanes on that ramp uh for the duration of the construction, but during the actual replacements and the demolition, it'll be fully closed. And then the uh Mland West and north south ramp. Next slide, please. Again, we're utilizing baseline and Carling as our detour reading for around the construction zones. Um, next slide. Similar aspect here with regards to the closure at Maitland. Uh, we are using La Perry and up and around. Next slide, please. I apologize for how small they are, but the detail is really difficult to read here. uh pedestrian cycling uh detours uh similar to uh to the route for the closure. It's around the Perry air and around the the construction site. Next slide please. Um traffic incident management coordination. We have met with the traffic uh incident management group uh reviewed the the requirements of this project with them. Um, there'll also be a requirement within the contract to have an in an incident management team in place. It'll include city of Ottawa uh staff uh traffic center, MTO operations, emergency services, the contractor, and the heavy lift operator. Uh, extensive coordination and continuous contact between the IMT team members will be key to the delivery of this project. Uh, there's also requirement within the contract for a communications plan. So, we'll be utilizing media, newspaper ads, radio, and use of social media to inform the public of the closures and and uh detour routes. Uh traffic detours in effect during the rout placement of the weekends and side roads will all be communicated. Uh advanced notification and PVMS signs will be utilized to communicate that to the public. Uh and there's also requirement to do a dry run as far as the lift and the meeting and coordination meetings. Next slide, please. Project timelines. We're looking at a contract submission at the end of March, tender period April to June, award late June with construction and contractor on site sometime in July of 2026. Uh the bridge replacements themselves and and the demolition will happen in 2028. There's a lot of preparatory work in advance that has to be done with the abupment widenings, retaining walls, uh and whatnot. So the Melan replacement is slated for late spring early summer of 28. Woodruff would follow in the summer late summer of 2028 of 2028. We are still looking at methods and efforts to try to expedite the schedule if possible. Um but that right now is our timeline. That's what's going to be reflected in the contract. Next slide please. And that is our presentation. We are open to questions if uh if anybody has any. Great. Uh, thank you very much. I I appreciate that. One quick. Okay. And forgive me um for those that are joining us today. I appreciate it. Uh, councelor Brockington, councelor Kavanagh. We'll go to committee members first if that's okay. So, uh, we have councelor D. Ro first, then councelor Kavanagh, and then councelor Brockington. Oh, councelor Low, you're in there, too. So, I'll go start again. D. Ro Low Gower Kevin Brockington we'll get there. Thank you chair. I want to thank um the ministry officials for their participation today. I think it's always um positive when we see very close collaboration between the city of Ottawa and our provincial partners when it comes to our 400 series. So I thank you for coming today and um I'm sure we'll be uh we'll be friendly to you. My questions are to staff chair. I'm not sure if there our traffic staff are there to respond to questions. They are. Thank you. Um, one thing I've observed and residents have observed from time to time is when there's construction or disruptions on some of our major arterials uh along the 417 series that there are potentially congestion problems uh along the Hunk Club corridor as people substitute. And I think there's a feeling from time to time that there's a focus on the immediate ground zero, which is where this is happening. And obviously want you to be sensitive to the residents who live here, but there's u other impacts at other intersections. And I sometimes wonder if you have the eyeballs on the again ground zero, but also on you have eyeballs on other intersections as well that may be seeing pressure as a result of um of of the closure because people are adjusting their patterns and frankly avoiding the area. So, I wonder if Traffic could just comment on this that you're looking at the entire network when things like this happen um and you're making adjustments and again not just at ground zero but in other potentially um impacted routes that are used by uh by commuters. Thank you. Thank you through through you chair. Yes. Uh the uh city's traffic control center will actively monitor the network, the entire network uh throughout the um the closures as well as the uh the uh ongoing work. Um, we maintain continuous contact with the Ottawa Police Service, Ontario, uh, Provincial Police, OC Transpo, and the contractor during the replacements themselves so that we can ensure rapid response to any congestion, collisions, transit impacts, or unexpected behaviors uh, during the replacements. That's for the entire network. Okay. Thank you. So, if I was to describe this that at our traffic monitoring headquarters, you would have a person, even if it's a weekend, um, or people looking at the cameras for ground zero and you have people looking at the intersections in other parts of the city in addition to the, you know, hunt club and or Breto and King Edward, which I think you're we're always keeping an eye on. There's some intersections that are, you know, chronically problematic. You'll have the resources there to keep an eye on the other the other key intersections in the city like Hunt Club corridor. That's correct. We also have traffic management inspectors that are on call to be able to be deployed uh into the field to uh help with any situations that arise as well. Okay. All right. I'll leave it there, chair. Thank you very much for those answers. Great. Next on the board, uh it's actually uh councelor Gower. Sorry about that. Okay. Thanks, Chair. Uh my question is about what planning and integration occurs with OC transpo. Two things come to mind. Just making sure OC transpo has increased capacity to move more people by by bus or train during these construction events and also ensuring that OC transfer is aware of dates so they don't schedule LRT maintenance on the same weekend or something that would take trains out of service. So yeah. So, what kind of integration and uh involvement do you have with OC Transpo? Uh OC Transpo has been at the MTAC meetings. They're aware of the closure dates we're talking about. Uh we will follow up within with them to confirm that they're aware of this, but they'll have to adjust their schedules based on those closure requirements. Um I will note that uh you know given the duration of the of the project, it's 2 and 1/2 years. It's a little bit flowable and and stuff can change a little bit as far as coordination. Uh I know that with detour routes and stuff like that as far as pedestrian cyclist we tend to tweak them a little bit during the construction just to meet requirements. So as far as OC transfer goes there are bus stops impacted because the highway's gone the road is gone for that period. So they have to find an alternate scheduling and routing for those areas. Okay. And hopefully by the time you're doing these bridge replacements, we will have a functional train out to uh to Moody and Alangquin, which will take the pressure off of uh give people an option on the days when these highways are out of commission. So, thanks. Well, well, well said. Uh councelor Low. Thanks. Uh thanks, chair. Um that was part of my question as well is uh is is that you know at at that time we're anticipating that the western extension of the LRT could be open. Um do do you foresee any any work that will understanding that the north south alignment um under the 417 is quite close to woodruff. Um do you do you foresee any um requirement sometime between anytime during the project um when when there may be impacts to to the tracks uh down below uh we don't anticipate any impact to LRT tracking. Okay. Right. There will be some coordination requirements with regards to construction zone overlaps. Y uh with regards to the the highway paving operations because we are paving up to the four up to the 416. So there's some coordination between MTO operations and and LRT to find timelines for doing that. Um but that's the only impacts that we foresee in this contract. Mhm. If things progress later than they're supposed to, contract 2 will definitely have to have coordination with LRT if it's still under construction. Okay. No, understood. Um my second question is you note that uh the rapid bridge replacements will happen in 2028. I think it's reasonable to assume that the um multi-week closures of the two street uh two roads will sort of end with the bridge replacement. Yes. Right. And then there's about a week delay after the bridge is in place for us just to clean up the approaches and stuff like that. But yeah. Okay. And then also fair to assume that the two closures will not happen at the same time. They will not happen at the same time. Good. Uh good. That's uh that's all my questions. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And uh councelor Kavanaaugh. Thank you very much, Chair. And uh thank you to M MTO for the cooperation. Um people don't realize it, but the act of transportation had to be uh brought in there. Um and um it was through cooperation with the city that uh was able to do it for both projects. And I appreciate that. I worked uh very closely with councelor Johnson who's on the other side of the bridge and myself and um I know our residents are going to benefit a great deal um on the both for pedestrians um and for cyclists. So, thank you for all that for all that cooperation. I really appreciate it. Um, I am aware though um safety is an important issue for both pedestrians and cyclists and one of the issues is off-ramps and I'm just wondering what measures um will be taken so it's safer for pedestrians and cyclists at these um as they pass by the off-ramps. Um so just so so you're clear right and on ramps our our contract ends before we hit the actual ramp terminals. So we are providing at services on the bridge only it's not on the approaches to the bridges. That is a city requirement and and a city responsibility. Okay. But I know MTO is responsible for the ramps. So Okay. So current so currently they'll stay the way they are right now like with if they're marked with a crosswalk that crosswalk will remain. Yeah. So so we do need some precautions for that but no I appreciate it. Um it's already been mentioned about um you know coordination. Um I'm aware that the Carling Avenue uh rehabilitation for the bridge which is uh um just down by Lincoln Field um is going to be done in 2027. So um if it gets delayed that's another factor to look into. Um hopefully all stage two will be done by then cuz um we've had closures, major closures of Woodruff um as you're aware. Um and um so so that's important. So so appreciate it. But um overall um I appreciate the work with uh Councelor Johnson and I and the city on on getting this so that pedestrians and cyclists can cross over north south. Thank you. Thank you very much, councelor. Councelor Brockington. Thank you, chair, and thank you as well for the presentation today. A lot of investment by the ministry uh in the auto area on on the uh Queensway network. So, it's good to see. How old are the bridges? Late 50s. Oh, most of them. Okay. Uh the active transportation that you mentioned, um I'll just reference Meland first. There's no cycling network infrastructure that leads to the bridge. If I recall correctly, this is almost on the border between councelor uh Johnson's word and my own. So to city staff, my assumption is the bridge surface will have active transportation infrastructure built on it, but we will then connect that infrastructure to city streets at some point. Is that the plan uh through the chair? Yes. The city has a project to uh build in the neighborhood connectivity to those uh cycling facilities over the highway uh after uh the construction work on the highway is concluded. So those have been prioritized. It's not like we're going to build it on the bridge and then wait many years before the city roads actually connect to that bridge infrastructure. Uh in the case of Matland, we're looking at coming in uh very soon after the uh construction work is completed and then Woodruff uh after that. Okay. Very very well. Um my only other question to you is and not your area perhaps of responsibilities. Who do I contact to get information about the Bronson work, the Bronson off-ramp work? Do you have a a ministry contact we can connect with after? I'm not going to ask those questions today because it's not germanine to the agenda, but I just need a contact. Yeah, you can send them to myself if you want. Perfect. Thanks very much. And just to staff, when we've had bridge replacements in the vicinity of Carington, Car becomes a parking lot because what happens is Carling is the default detour. Carling becomes gridlock. And what people do is they come into Carington to go east west to avoid the Carington gridlock. So to hear that we will quote actively monitor the network. There's no one that we can reach out to on the weekends. The police are non-existent. There's no one at the city. And so what we're looking for in advance of of these projects particular matland is because I heard leerier mentioned which is in Riverward is to have a discussion on some some temporary calming measures. We're saying we're not saying we don't want people through the neighborhood because you have to be realistic but there's got to be a way to safely accommodate significantly higher volumes of traffic in a residential community. Some of my residents probably don't want this to begin with, but given that we have very limited options during a short period of time, we have to be reasonable, but there's got to be some safe ways to accommodate this. We're we're seeing significant volumes of traffic. It's a short period of time. Uh but there needs to be a better discussion with with the local counselors. To councelor D. Roshia's point, sometimes we just focus on the immediate area where that bridge work is happening and we don't realize there are significant spillover effects. Um, so I would like to speak with staff. We obviously have time, two years. Um, but that is a key point that residents of Carington have raised every single time there's a bridge replacement project. Finally, uh are these projects timed with the Carling Avenue uh bus lane project between Broadview and Bronson. Like this project continuously has been delayed and we keep hearing it's because we're waiting for other pieces to fall within the area. And also the repaving of Bronson between the Queen's Way and Canal. It is an absolute disaster right now and I keep hearing staff want to wait for other key infrastructure projects including 417 work before other city major streets can be done. So the Carling bus lane project Bronson resurfacing are we waiting for the 417 project to be completed uh through the chair. So that's certainly one of the considerations uh in terms of coordinating the work is uh making sure that we're not uh having construction or or changes being implemented that impact uh those diversion routes. There's also coordination with the underground infrastructure works and some of these uh surface works along Carling are sort of tied under uh tied into uh the timing of those underground projects and how those get prioritized. So there's a number of different considerations, but that's certainly part of it. So, chair, can I just get um uh I don't think I need a direction, but just maybe staff can issue a memo. Uh we keep hearing about uh requests from the community and and other stakeholders about the Carling Avenue bus lanes. They've literally been on the books for 10 years. We postponed them because we wanted the Trillium Line to open first and now we want the hospital built. This is probably one of the most lowhanging fruit projects that's cheap. It's not like a B rapid bus quarter like a baseline. It's simply paint and some signage. So if if staff could just reply, what are we waiting to happen before that project gets advanced? If they could just reply in writing, that would be appreciated. Absolutely. Uh yes, we're happy to do that. And just to clarify, there are different sections along Carling and so some of those may be able to be advanced sooner than others and we can clarify that as well in our response. Great. Yeah, really good points, Councelor Brockington. I appreciate that. Um, Councelor Leaper, uh, we're still on this item. Did you have a question in regards to the bridge closures or anything? Okay, good. Great. So, on that, I want to thank, uh, thank you folks for coming out today. I just have a a quick question. Obviously, it's too bad too bad we don't have a ring road. I won't get on to that again, don't worry. Um but uh but we know that this does create a lot of problems in that corridor, the bleed out to the communities. So, keeping people informed, our staff will do a terrific job on that. Uh like uh councelor Gower says, we're really fingers crossed about LRT. I think that'd be very helpful. Um when it comes to uh we saw an accident on the highway where it closed for even a few hours and the pandemonium it created in the city complete gridlock. Um we're hoping to avoid that at all costs. So whether it's communications our colleagues I just retweeted and things for councelor Johnson. I I encourage my colleagues to get out there and make that known to people and we'll try to keep our transportation networks open as best we can. it is a necessary evil. Uh otherwise, uh people will be looking for new cars and we don't want that either. So, thank you very much for coming out today. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members for letting us do this presentation. Thanks, Frank. Good to see you. Okay, so uh I'm going to uh have a real quick look at the agenda. I did say we go to rate turns on red, but I'm just looking. Councelor D. Ro, uh, if you're online, um, do you do you have a brief questions or is this something that could be kind of a much longer process for your questions about that? Just out of curiosity, just to see who should go first, just knowing that it could be a longer section for the right turns on red. Yeah, chair. Sorry, this is for the private approaches bylaw. I guess I was of the view that there'd be a presentation and there'd be other colleagues that might be interested in that. Perhaps not. Um if you wish the presentation counselor, it's totally up to you. Yeah, I would like that. Okay, great. So, you know what? We will go. Sure. Okay. So, we'll uh we'll go if it's okay with committee. I'm just looking. We have staff here and uh you know, if we could do the private approach thing first, I will be brief. There is a presentation and then we'll go directly to the right turns on red. No issues. Thank you. Okay, great. So, we'll get that presentation pulled up and if I can get staff to come up and give that presentation All right. Thank you. My name is Jacqueline Quinn. I'm the bylaw review specialist leading the project, the review of the private approach bylaw. I'm joined today by Rob McLaclin, program manager of the right of way branch and Kevin Lemur, program manager of right-of-way inspe inspections branch. Next slide, please. So to begin, I just want to take a moment to situate the report and the recommendations in the context of the city's right of way. The right of way in essence is the roadway and the land beside it up to the property lines on either side of the road. The size of the right of way and the configuration of the infrastructure within it can change in context depending on the location. However, despite where we're talking about in the city, it does serve core functions that are integral to achieving the city's priorities and to the services delivered to residents. So, to highlight a few of those functions that are most related to the recommendations presented in the report and highlighted today, the right of way includes space for planting trees. It is a space where we store snow in the winter. There are opportunities for on street parking. It serves to manage our storm water through permeable surfaces and roadside ditches. There are sidewalks and active transportation infrastructure. And the right of way includes both above ground and below ground utilities and other infrastructure. Next slide, please. So the private approach bylaw for its part regulates the construction, use and maintenance of private approaches which are the portion of the driveway that are in the city's right of way. So the image on the screen here, the yellow line shows that boundary between the private property and the right of way. The parking spaces and the portion of the driveway on private property are the realm of the zoning bylaw. And that portion of the driveway again that's in the right of way that's governed by the private approach bylaw. The image here shows private approaches in a residential context, but the bylaw itself does regulate vehicular access to parking lots, farm fields, and other land uses. The bylaw was enacted in 2003 as part of an exercise to harmonize the pre-amalgamation bylaws that govern the right of way. It was identified through the corporate bylaw review work plan that the private approach bylaw undergo a comprehensive review during this term of council to align with ongoing city initiatives primarily the enactment of a new zoning bylaw. One of the foremost objectives of this review was to continue to preserve the functions of the right of way and we worked with city staff across departments to ensure that the final recommendations considered these functions. There was continuous coordination to ensure that the private approach bylaw could be aligned with the new zoning bylaw as passed by council as the language and the rules in the zoning bylaw have a direct impact on the uh functionality and the interpretation of the rules in the private approach bylaw. We did aim to modernize this bylaw and to provide a more responsive regulatory environment and we looked to streamline business processes, find efficiencies and improve the client experience. Next slide, please. So, as detailed in the report, staff are recommending that the regulatory gap around walkways in the right of way be addressed by including pedestrian access within this bylaw. Under the proposed framework and to align with the approved provisions in the new zoning bylaw, staff are also recommending that there be a set of permissions for residential properties to install a walkway, such as on the image on the left there, or limited driveway expansion, as shown on the right, in the right of way. Staff do recognize that these installations can provide more flexibility for property owners to improve access to their home to get in and out of vehicles or to move around vehicles parked in a driveway. They are permitted on private property and when allowed to continue past the property line to connect to the sidewalk or to the roadway, that can improve their functionality for residents. There is proposed criteria within the draft bylaw for these types of installations which includes maximum widths, setbacks from trees and other infrastructure in the right ofway such as fire hydrants and maintaining minimum amounts of green space within the right of way. For those installations that can meet this criteria, the impact to the functions of the right of way is considered to be low and it's proposed that there be no requirement to apply to the city for a permit. Should the nature of the request fall outside the permissions provided for in the bylaw, a permit application would be required to initiate a technical review to evaluate if approval can be granted based on the site context and input from city services. Next slide, please. The recommendations presented today and those detailed within the report are timely for improving overall compliance. On March 1st, the new hardscape contractor license comes into effect for any contractor engaged in installing driveways and other hard landscaping features, including walkways. Just as the private approach bylaw aligned the regulations in the right-of-way with the parking and driveway rules in zoning bylaw 2008-250, these recommendations look to facilitate access to those configurations provided for in zoning bylaw 2026-50. The provisions for front yard parking in the new zoning bylaw and the framework for allowing walkways in the right ofway will bring many properties into compliance and it also clarifies expectations for property owners regarding their access. Ensuring that there is continued alignment with the new zoning bylaw will also provide for straightforward determination of compliance on both sides of the property line. The city will continue to respond to service requests and will require reinstatement of the right of way when installations are beyond the allowable limits. Next slide, please. To affect the changes presented and to provide clarity regarding walkways, the inclusion of walkways. The recommendations propose a full replacement of the private approach bylaw with the proposed access bylaw. Minor amendments to the other bylaws that govern the right of way will tie together this overall regulatory framework. Communication of the rules for driveways and walkways is tied in with the city's new landscaping education guide that will be published online next month. The guide is a component of the heartscape contractor license and will provide comprehensive information in plain language for residents and for contractors alike. We are also wanting to target education to the landscaping, real estate, and legal communities. As we've heard that there is a need to provide better information to those groups that are informing residents either before a new project or a new home purchase. This concludes the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Good news, Councelor Dro. Yeah, chair. I I do think it's a good news story. I think this builds on the work we did with um the regulation of uh landscapers and as I said during that exercise um I spoken to many many homeowners who uh were unaware um of sort of the limitations in terms of what they could do with their driveway uh or frankly were misinformed by by uh I'll say unscrupulous contractors and that so that I think is a big part uh I'm pleased to hear that there's going to be a major education effort um that there will be uh some plain language um materials so that we can communicate and I'm wondering if you could just expand on this. This will be very very important in certainly in my community in the new suburban community. If you go into the frontier of the city, I know some of you maybe haven't been out to the frontier. I invite you to come out and check it out. But you'll see tons of advertising, right? because people purchase their dream home, their dream u stack town home or what have you or their um town home and they immediately start to put in the pieces to um improve their home whether that be fencing or a walkway such as this. So what will be your approach to really drilling into these communities and these um residents who are going to be making some important decisions and important investments and we want to make sure that they do it right so that they don't uh uh have a visit from bylaw services. Thank you for the question Mr. Chair. Certainly the the most uh timely piece of communication is that landscaping education guide as I mentioned which is going to be published online uh midmon next month. There is a public information campaign around that. Driveway rules, walkways, hard landscaping, that's a very heavy component of that. Um, we may also look to um expand on collaboration with the home builders and those packages that they're providing to new homeowners in terms of once they take over the keys and now there are in place what are those rules and directing them to the appropriate information. There will there will of course be uh very comprehensive web updates along with this. This is a new component adding in the walkways. So making sure that there's um very clear uh parameters around that and people are directed to the appropriate information. Okay, good. I was going to suggest that because as my former colleague counselor Harter would say, when someone goes into a sales office and they're purchasing a home, um they're focused on hardwood floors and paint and light fixtures and tiles and all these wonderful things that are going to make their home. Um, and when they move in, you know, they're dealing with, uh, you know, whatever some, um, you know, some fixes, and then they start to get into, all right, I'm going to work on my backyard and what what have you, a fence. I'm going to work on, um, you know, the access to my to my home in that. So, I think it's important that, especially for new home buyers that you get in there. And I do recommend that you talk to the the development community and see how you can get those materials as part of those packages so that again, people go into this with uh, with eyes wide open. Um I have very little sympathy for people who take down their tree um for for parking. Um can you just emphasize the importance of um the maintaining the tree and I guess how this bylaw is going to um make sure that they're not touching the trees that have been planted. I can go into parts of my ward where um over the span of 10 to 12 years they're beautiful streets. The trees have started to come in and and that's exactly what we want to see. It takes some time for all those trees to uh mature, but uh if three, four people start um you know bricking over their property and taking the tree out, that's that's that is not what is um that's not what we want to see in our community. So, can you just speak to the emphasis that you'll put on ensuring that the trees are protected and again they're there for a reason, an important reason. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the as of right permissions that are being uh established for the installation of walkways, there are setbacks from existing trees and that does take into account um in working with forestry services maintaining protections around the critical root zone um and really also tying into those provisions that are already established within the tree protection bylaw. So that is in there and it is also um as we were talking about the the communication plan that is a heavy component within that landscaping education guide as well. And these heartscape contractors through the new licensing that's coming into effect next week must abide by the city's bylaws. The tree protection bylaw being one of many. Um and that that education component is part of that. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to leave it there and just conclude by saying um this is a big step forward. It's really surprising that this bylaw hasn't been updated since 2003 and uh I think we're certainly behind the times when we see kind of the development that's going on in the suburban communities and um what people are looking for uh to again beautify their home and and improve the access to their home and do so in a compliant way dovetales very nicely with the work we're doing with uh regulating landscapers and again I think it's a big step forward today. I think uh we need to see how this rolls out. Um and potentially there may need to be some adjustments going forward. Um but uh again it's very surprising that we haven't really looked at this in a very very long time and I don't think we've really kept up with kind of what's happening in our uh communities across the city. I'll leave it there Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Great. Uh thank you very much councelor George. Good points councelor Low. Thanks uh thanks chair. Um quick question. So, uh, la last year, well, throughout throughout this whole re review period, there were a number of, uh, homes that received, uh, notices of violation for for non what are currently technically currently non-compliant, um, walkways and extensions, and a lot of them had artificially extended, um, uh, had artificially long correction timelines, I guess. Um h how so now that uh you know if if this it's likely this will be approved and and if that goes forward how will that process look like um to make sure that the people whose walkways are going to be compliant um uh they get their um notices of violation I don't know I don't know what's the word nullified let's Thank you for the question councelor through you Mr. Chair. Um for these situations councelor where we've applied discretion as we knew there would be changes coming to the zoning bylaw and the access bylaw. We will now revisit this should this be approved and if these properties are now in compliant those notices violations would be rescended. Okay. Thank you. And just for clarity though, the properties that remain non-compliant will have to still correct it by the date that's on the notice of violation. That is correct. Or contact. Yep. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much, councelor Law. Most appreciated. Uh thank you very much for coming out today. Is that the report received? And it's carried. I'm told I got to carry this one. Thank you very much, guys. All right. On to uh the item that we've added to the agenda. Uh it's uh right turns on red. So at this point uh we're going to go directly to delegations. Uh and the first on deck is William Van Geese. Uh he's online and William's no stranger to this place. I'll just make sure he's there. Oh, IRL Williams here. And we have slides on file, William. So, we'll get this set up for you. Thank you. Great. You have 5 minutes. The floor is yours. Okay. Thank you. Um, so Ecology Auto launched a petition last August after a shocking number of people were hit by drivers. We called for a ban on all vehicular turns uh on Red Downtown, right, and left as a pilot project with data collected for an eventual more expansive ban. To date, over 800 people have signed this petition. We were looking for a simple, obvious, and effective measure. And we were grateful that councelor Trustster um we're thankful for her for bringing this important issue forward even though we and I expect I suspect she would have preferred implementation uh rather than another study. Of course, anyone who's walked or rolled downtown knows the dangers of cars turning on red. I've provided an illustration uh of this on my first slide. So the image on the left um shows how when turning on red is allowed, drivers ignore the stop bar routinely and roll into the intersection endangering people crossing and you can see the person there um being you know barely missed. So the best case scenario there is uh that the driver blocks the crosswalk or the crosswide uh cross, but just as easily they may hit someone in the crosswalk. Drivers here aren't looking for pedestrians obviously because of the threat of oncoming cars. This is particularly true if the pedestrian comes from the right as here since the threatening oncoming cars are coming from the left. Uh and you can see this in the next slide. Um so if the driver here had arrived a moment later they could have hit the pedestrian. Uh could I get the next slide? Thanks. Um so um but blocking the crosswalk or crosswalk ride is also a problem as it forces people into the very same oncoming cars that the driver seeks to avoid. And you can see this on the next slide where a truck driver has forced someone using a wheelchair um out of the crosswalk. I could show more photos but of course time is short. In light of the very real and obvious danger that turning on right poses, it was surprising to read staff's report with its claim that uh right turn on right is somehow safer for people walking and rolling. And some of the reasoning there relied on two noteworthy factors. First, that drivers may not comply and indeed might get frustrated. Uh new slide, please. And that there's uh second one being that there's too much car traffic. So on driver non-compliance, the report states that delays often lead to aggressive driver behavior. It also warns next slide that quote drivers may choose to ignore right turn on red restrictions and there may be more quote collisions especially if drivers are distracted or behave aggressively. But it seems wrongheaded, I think you'll agree, to reward drivers non-compliance. Parents know if you indulge a child's tantrum, you're just inviting more tantrums. This is not sound transportation policy on too much traffic. This is an outcome of council's decisions made with staff's recommendation. For example, we reintroduced cars to Wellington Street when all the research said that this would increase car traffic downtown. Before that, we reduced bus service downtown with the LRT opening. So, we are laying in the bed that we've made. But why should vulnerable road users pay the price of council's poor decisions? We also noted that staff's report didn't cite any of the research literature on this issue. If they had, they would have reached the opposite conclusion. So, we thought we would share some of this literature uh just covering several aspects of the issue. Uh next slide. One literature review found that where turns on red were permitted, quote, all right turning crashes increased by 23%, pedestrian crashes by about 60% and bicyclist crashes by 100%. Uh, next slide. Another paper observed quote significant increases in pedestrian and bicyclist collisions, specifically 40% for pedestrians and 82% uh for bicycles in New York State. And then there's several other states there that I'll um leave you to read. Next slide. A large CIA study of near misses showed that quote 55% of pedestrians and 50% of cyclists had had a close call with a vehicle and quote near misses most often involved vehicles making a right turn. Now, SAP's report also questioned compliance. A study of banning uh right turns on red in San Francisco revealed a 92% driver compliance and a 5 to1 reduction in close calls. and based on the pilot project uh they recommended that not only uh maintaining a ban on turning on red but expanding it and so on. All these sources have been on ecology autos website since last August. So why did the report ignore it? In closing, this report must be rejected. It ignores the research literature. It recommends yielding to driver petulence and prioritizes the momentary convenience of drivers over the very safety and well-being of everybody else. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. I'm just looking on the board. Uh, sorry, can you take the timer down? I can't see. There we go. Thank you. Uh, councelor Troster, thank you so much for being here, William. I really appreciate it. And I will have questions to stop after about the discrepancy between the statistics cited in this report and the statistics in the CIA report. Um, namely the lack of inclusion of near misses, which can be really frightening. Um, some of the original arguments made for allowing right turn on red site reduced emissions. And because you work for Ecology Ottawa, I was wondering if you could just comment on that. Yeah, thanks. Um, I didn't have a chance to get to that and of course as an ecology organization, the emissions are um very important to us and of course we've seen in the last um GHG inventory um that transportation emissions are increasing and have um become the highest source of emissions. So um of course that's very important. Um this was actually a rationale um uh advanced when right turn red um permissions uh were uh suggested back in the day um in the 70s and ' 80s. Um so we've had decades to debunk this and debunk them we have um as you can imagine an idling car um doesn't release a ton of emissions. Um so yes there are more emissions if a driver has to wait at a light. There's no question about that but it's minimal. Um and the research shows this quite amply. Um but then there's a um contrary effect um of increased emissions in the net as you can imagine because of induced demand right the principle that if you make it easier to drive more people will drive more cars on the road more emissions. So um again in the aggregate uh allowing return on uh allowing turning on red um increases emissions uh across the transportation network. Thank you. And you referred to the CIA study which which speaks about near misses whereas the staff report doesn't. Can you just say more about why we should be talking about near misses and not just fatal incidents or serious injuries? Yeah. Um so that's right. The um staff report uh has some statistics about the situation in Ottawa. Um but only major uh you know major injuries and death. Um I think we'd all agree that um a minor injury would also um be somewhat traumatizing and undesirable. Um but another factor I think that's really significant with um with right turn on reds is when uh a pedestrian or someone walking or rolling um is narrowly missed by a car which happens all the time for the reason that I mentioned earlier in that diagram that drivers are looking for other cars rather than for pedestrians. Um and so the net effect is a hostile environment for um people walking and rolling downtown as again anyone who's walked downtown um knows and that data is not registered um in the city data and understandably this is just a statistics gathering a data gathering problem that near misses don't usually make it on the radar. They are nevertheless significant. Um similarly people who forego trips because again it's too dangerous it's too hostile environment. So um this data I should say is depressing. We can't have people with major injuries and death um at all, but it also doesn't capture the total effect of per permitting right turn and red. Right. So you're suggesting if you have a number of near misses that's going to that's going to maybe convince you not to ride your bike or to walk. It might convince you to drive instead because, you know, or if your kid is constantly scared they're going to get hit by a car, they you might not let them walk to school. Yeah. 100%. And then if that increases the reliance on cars, we are going the exact opposite of the very goals that we committed to in the official plan and the transportation master plan, right, of converting to sustainable modes of transportation. All of a sudden, it makes sense to hop in in a car and and participate in what amounts to a little bit a little bit of an arms race, right? if everyone needs to be in a car, um, that's just increasing congestion. So, that's right. It's a bad environment that's created. And just the last question, I mean, I I I don't think there's really demand for a ban on right turn on red citywide or in some of the less populated areas. Um, the reason I submitted this inquiry is because we have such a hodgepodge in in downtown Ottawa. Some intersections let you do it and some don't. So, it's very inconsistent. I'm just wondering if there's any data on whether right turn on red could be safely um prohibited in just one part of the city like just in the urban core if ecology Ottawa has done any thought about that or if you think it would create confusion citywide. Yeah, it's a great question. Um because uh you know occasionally people will say well if we just ban right turn on red in this area is that going to be confusing? Um and there was a pilot study done in San Francisco for example where they um banned right turn on red on 100 um intersections. Um they found compliance rates excellent. I think it was 92% um in pedestrian situations. Um so um we know this can be done. The result of that pilot um project was a recommendation of maintaining um those prohibitions on right turn red and then extending to other parts of the city. Um and you can understand why this works because you know once you are in a particular zone um say in this case north of the 417 west of the canal um south obviously of the Ottawa River um you know that all intersections are uh you know right turn right is is prohibited. So it just becomes a simple um a simple measure rather than as you say the the kind of p patchwork uh approach currently. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councelor Brockington, thank you for your delegation. Why not just ban uh right turns on red where intersections actually have conflict? Um I'm thinking western downtown is not as populated, doesn't have the same number of workers, tourists as closer to here, for example. Um you've mentioned uh the problem of perhaps motorists not from a particular neighborhood confused. Am I in the right geographic area where the the ban is in place? If there's no signage, do I just assume I can't do that? Um and I asked that just because in in River, I think of um McCarthy and Panka where the community center is, Walkley and Springland, which is beside Holy Cross School. every lit intersection by Mooney's Bay Park. What we've done is we haven't banned reds, we give a pedestrian advanced light. I think this is the best um innovation at a uh traffic light intersection because the pedestrian is the first person that gets to go. they are already midway through the intersection when that light turns green for the motorists and that pedestrian is now very visible. If a pedestrian and motorist start at the same time peripherally I think for some motorists they can't see uh the pedestrian. So I'm not opposed to right turn on reds. I just think they need to be warranted at intersections where the conflict to the vulnerable user is real. Um otherwise I think in Ottawa we're not going to have a 92% compliance rate. That's what I'm worried about. So why not just advocate for and proposed where we know there are true conflicts. City of Ottawa implement those changes. Is that possible? Yeah, thanks for the question. Um so um so staff do have criteria of course for evaluating whether a right turn red ban uh makes sense for an intersection. It's not working. Um you know downtown you have the highest concentrations of these and it is a regular feature of being downtown um that you almost get you know run over by a a driver. um taking red turn on red. So um that is the current approach and it's not it's not um effective although um absolutely would um you know support the the intersections that you mentioned obviously um hotspots like schools and community centers and libraries and that sort of thing um really should be high on that list. Um now the reason that uh LPI uh leading pedestrian interval leading cyclist interval 2 is is um related. Why those aren't sufficient is um because it still doesn't pres prevent people uh drivers from uh from heading into the intersection. In fact, because an LPI takes place um at the beginning of a cycle, right before um a green light for drivers occurs, um it's that transition period where I'm sure you've seen this, a driver will see the red happening and will try to sneak in in that in that gap, that what second and a half, two second gap um before, uh you know, before full green in the other direction. um making it all the more difficult. So that's the very moment that a pedestrian is stepping out there into the intersection um and as dictated by the walk signal. So if anything um that this combination is is particularly dangerous um there's something else with that too. Yeah, I you know I think um that kind of configuration um as you say it it puts the pedestrian out uh even more visible to a driver. There's something for me that's really uncomfortable about that. It feels like we are essentially using pedestrians bodies um as signals to drivers or or even you know something a physical um you know a physical kind of plea for drivers to stop. I get very uncomfortable with that. Um, we shouldn't be using pedestrians bodies to to stop, you know, these, let's admit it, two, in some cases three ton metal cages against the the vulnerable flesh of of humans. So, um, LPIs, we should do them all over the place, but we should also do them in conjunction with banning right turn red. I appreciate that and um, appreciate what you bring to the table. I'll just say that the intersections where we've had problems where we uh installed a pedestrian advance, I'm not aware of any problems that have happened since that point. So, I understand what you're saying. I do think there's some some merit in getting the pedestrian out there first. Um but I think that there are more options to be considered as well. So, thank you. Thank you. If I may just quickly add to that, um, this also could fall in the bucket of near misses, right? Um, certainly we should ask staff to investigate the question of whether there have been problems since the installation of LPIs, but it I would say is likely that there have been near miss situations um that that occur nevertheless. Great. Thank you very Mr. Manis. Obviously, there will be questions to staff for clarification on many of the points you've made here today. So, thank you for coming out and for your very professional delegation. Thank you. Uh, next up we have uh Chris Herk and you're online. Hey, Chris. Uh, hi council attorney. Do you hear me? Good to see you. And, uh, you're no stranger to this, please. So, you have five minutes. The floor is yours. Okay. Good day, Council Journey and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to speak today. Uh my name is Chris Herok and I'm here on behalf of Vision Zero Ottawa, an organization committed to advancing a transportation system where no loss of life or serious injury is considered acceptable. Uh Vision Zero is built on simple principles. No tragedies on our roads are tragedies on our roads are preventable. Human life and health must be prioritized over all other objectives. And safe systems and design, not individual behavior, must guide decision-making. I'm here today in support of councelor Trusters's inquiry and advocacy on uh on on regarding red turns on red in the urban core. Let me speak to alignment uh with this and the city's transportation master plan. Ottawa city's uh transportation master plan already commits the city to reducing pedestrian exposure to motor vehicles including additional opportunities to implement no right turn on red. And the staff response you have before you today does not align with this direction. that seeks to preserve the risk of the status quo instead of reducing exposure and prioritizes driver convenience and it ignores the city's own adopted TMP. This is not a small contradiction. It is a direct conflict between the city's stated goals and the operational choices being recommended. Why does Vision Zero Ottawa recommend or support no right turn on red in the core? some key reasons why we believe that uh PWIC and council should move forward with stronger vulnerable transportation network downtown that is uh 20% of cyclists and 5% of pedestrian FMIs involving right turns uh right turning drivers is not an acceptable cost of doing business staff uh presented these collisions as being a small proportion but vision zero rejects the idea that preventable tragedies are acceptable especially those involving predictable turning conflicts Many residents in Somerset Ward don't own cars. In council's ward, almost 30% of residents don't own a vehicle and that number is likely to in rides with densification. Choosing driver convenience over the safety of residents who walk, bike or roll is not equitable. Uh vehicle size and blind spots have grown dramatically. Uh modern SUVs and uh pickup trucks are becoming increasingly large with large forward blind zones that elevate the risk of right turn collisions. and staff did not account for this uh rapidly growing hazard. Uh compliance concerns are overstated and unsupported. Uh staff suggested that might ignore no right turn on red signs. Yeah. The real world evidence and William spoke to this is that compliance at newly restricted intersections at uh 90% road 90% in San Francisco and Ottawa drivers should believe to be no different. So that is rules set expectations not to be avoided because a minority might break them and near misses matter. Uh even if they are hard to measure uh I would not be surprised if councelor Trto or any of uh the council here from uh their residents on near misses on right turning vehicles. Uh this as William spoke to does not appear in collision data but shape experiences especially for pedestrians uh families with children and seniors. Uh staff did not account for this enormous safety signal. Um on congestion and driver workload, uh staff acknowledged that right turn on red restrictions may initially increase congestion or frustration and we agree. Uh but we strongly disagree that the solution is to ease restrictions to reduce driver workload. Uh for decades, transportation research has shown that making driving easier induces more driving. Making walking safer induces more walking. Providing safe, reliable transit induces more transit use. Our goal is a more livable, walkable, affordable downtown. Then prioritizing driveway throughput is the wrong lever. Safety, comfort, and predictability for vulnerable vulnerable road users must uh be come first. In conclusion, uh public works infrastructure committee has a clear choice. Uh council typically relies on staff expertise and in thata in most cases that trust is well placaced but this is the exception. Uh staff recommendations today are at odds with the transportation management plan at odds with the road safety action plan and at odds with creating safe livable communities. Uh this is a moment where council or PWIC uh must choose between continuing decades old convenience-driven practice or supporting safer, healthier, more modern, affordable city. On behalf of Vision Zero Ottawa, uh I urge you to support councelor Trusters's call for no rights on reds in the downtown core. I understand that choice will be difficult. Uh but it is the choice that protects people. It is a choice that aligns with your own policy direction and it is the choice that makes a city safer for everyone who walks, bikes or rolls through the court. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Uh questions from Councelor Truster. Hi Chris. Thank you for your advocacy. And I think maybe the last time I saw you in person was at the vigil for the woman named Salon who was killed crossing the road in front of city hall uh just this summer. Um I my my purpose in in submitting this inquiry and having it lifted on the agenda, thank you very much chair, was to have this conversation about the danger at intersections. Um and whether this is the right tool and if it isn't the right tool, if there are other tools. Um now Salony uh was not killed by uh a ride- on red, but she was killed by a driver of a truck um who was turning right. um I believe on green uh again right in front of city hall. Are there other measures that you would like us to consider? Because my goal in submitting this inquiry is to be able to have this conversation to take it back to the community and to come forward with a suite of recommendations um to reduce road tragedies and preventable deaths in downtown Ottawa. So um you know you're yeah councelor Brochington mentioned the pedestrian advance. Are there other things that you would like to see and that you think we should be exploring as part of a stepped up plan to protect people from being hurt at intersections? Yeah, thank you for the count question, Councelor Truster. The answer is of course always yes. And I would I would say that those other measures it comes to um we consider the ease of of transportation, engineering, education, enforcement, uh engineering is the hard one. and uh and and um the city does have a list of dangerous intersections which can be uh uh uh converted to protected intersections. Uh so um that's the hard question because it involves uh it involves funding but it is the right thing to do. So, uh, protected intersections, uh, accelerating, uh, those that list that, uh, Ottawa has had on the books for I can't remember how many years is a highly effective way of of, uh, of of, um, adding to the vulnerable user transportation network. Thank you very much. And yes, I'll admit that my own frustration in how long it's taking to fix what we know are the most dangerous intersections in the city is certainly what had me reaching for a solution like a like a a ban on right turns, which I uh as is being shown by all of you who have come to committee to talk to about it. It's it's it's certainly not a dead issue. It it is it is one option and I appreciate you coming uh today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Great. Seeing no further questions, thank you very much. our next delegation, Amanda Brown. Amanda, you welcome. Okay, so my name is Amanda Brown and I'm here to speak in favor of banning right turns on red in the downtown area. Um, as counselors, the city staff response does not give you anything of substance to be able to make a decision off of. So, I'm going to go through that. Uh, starting with the response to question one for points one to three. Why are we putting the onus of road safety on pedestrians? There are a million things that can be done to reduce traffic and irresponsible drivers, like having a working transit system and bike lanes that keep bikes off the road. Uh, for point four, just this week on the 24th, a truck decided it could not wait for me to cross the road, revved its engine, and drove at me, completely neglecting the stop sign right in front of them. He clearly wasn't concerned with non-compliance. So, this means we should just get rid of all crosswalks and stop signs since they don't work 100% of the time. And for the last point, how many millions did we just put into the OP budget? This is just an irrelevant point for me. Um, regarding question two, why waste time repeatedly assessing all intersections individually when we can just implement the ban and do an assessment in a year and see how things are going? Um, for question three, this just doesn't give a full picture of what's happening on the streets of Ottawa right now. So, these are incidents I've witnessed just this week. Um, February 23rd at Bank in Elgen, someone ran through a red light while people were already approaching the crosswalk to go through. On my way back home on the bus later, a car rushed into a right turn on Red on Reto Street, pulling in front of a bus that was already in the middle of the intersection. On the 24th, I already mentioned the incident where a driver drove at me with malicious intent. But later, as I crossed the crosswalk to my building, someone began performing a right turn on green, slowly inching closer and closer to me, trying to get me to move faster across the road. At that same intersection on the 25th, at 9:00 a.m., an SUV would go driving full force into the Capitol City Mission dropin at Rito and Cobberg, killing one pedestrian and injuring four others. Four out of five of these incidents were not reported. All saw pedestrians being placed at risk. How many incidents involving Ray turns on red just aren't represented in this report? However, the sentence that enraged me the most in this section was this. As a result, right turn on red restrictions would not address the majority, approximately 90% of fatal and major injury collisions involving vulnerable road users. So, they are saying that 10% just aren't worth doing anything about. Not enough people are dying for them to care. So, I would like to tell a story about a single accident. When I was 12, my sister was hit by a transport truck and died. It was 5:00 a.m. and she was on her way to work. At a red light, the transport truck behind her didn't stop. Instead, it hit her head-on. Her seat belt failed and she was ejected through her windshield. She died in seconds, confused, alone on cold back, black pavement, slowly pooling with her blood. When the police came to notify us, they didn't know her name. They called her Jaime Lynn Brown. Her name is Jaime Lee. Just a few months prior, I had visited Jaime in Subbury with my dad and little sister. Now, we all sat in a hotel room holding her ashes. She was bright and full of life and love. Sorry. And now she's merely fertilizer, like a treehouse she used to climb when she was a little girl. yet she was just one person. And to the staff at city hall, that just isn't worth doing anything about to make a difference. I can only pray that if some counselors could prevent the death of my sister with a simple bylaw that takes them 5 seconds to pass that they would do it. One person may mean nothing to the staff at city hall, but they mean everything to someone else. Banning right turns on red is a simple step to protect the pedestrians of the city. I hope all of you can recognize the importance of safety over driver convenience and vote to ban right turns on red in the downtown area. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that, Councelor Divine. Thank you, Chair. Um, hey, Amanda. Um, please don't ever apologize for being emotional there. You have every right to be. I'm very sorry what happened uh to that person. Um and the only reason I want to talk to you about this is you have illustrated what I think for many is is the big conversation and the big debate here is evaluating the trade-offs. You know whether we we prioritize safety at all expense or whether we prioritize or concern ourselves over let's say traffic flow at all expense. And I completely understand being frustrated by that. And I'll just illustrate a situation that happened in my ward where about a year or two ago, I got an automatic uh ASSE camera at one of the most dangerous locations in my ward on Maravail. It was so hard to get that done and and I did get it. Staff did eventually get it there, but they had to follow their they had to follow their rules, their procedures. And there are criteria. The first criteria, how much speeding happens at this location? It ranked number one. The second criteria, what is the severity of that speeding at that location? In other words, how much faster than the speed limit are they going? It ranked near the top. The third criteria, what is the exposure of risk? In other words, how many kids are there there that can be hit? It was near a school with a small population. In other words, compared to other locations in the city where more people could be hit, it ranked lower there. And so at that time, I did not get the camera because it didn't meet that criteria. All around that area, parents were saying, "Can we please get something here?" Because what we're doing now is we're driving our kids to school when we only live freaking two blocks from here. And the answer I told him is, "You're damn right. It's dangerous. More people speed here than anywhere. People speed here like crazy, but there's just not enough kids to hit eventually. And the staff was sympathetic for sure, but they had to go by their process. Eventually, we got it. Now, we've lost it because of Premier Ford, but I just want to mention that what you are identifying there is that we have policies in place that perhaps do not prioritize what we as the guardians of the public good should be prioritized. So, thank you for your delegation. Thank you for addressing that issue and we'll continue talking about that. Thank you, Chair. Great. I see no questions. I just want to say thank you Amanda for coming out and I think councelor Divine's illustrated it. We might we might have discussions at this table and there will be questions to staff specifically on pedestrian safety. That's our number one goal and uh before you leave uh we might not agree on everything but we certainly agreed with keeping automated speed enforcement in this community. A real tool that we had in our tool box that was stripped from us. So, as we work, our traffic staff, they're bobbing and weaving all the time how to be able to slow traffic down, how to change things. So, our deepest sympathies on behalf of the committee, and we'll keep that in mind during the rest of the delegations today. Thank you. Uh, so we have uh Marco Oh, Marco's online. Okay, great, Marco. Great. I don't think you're a stranger here, Marco. So, uh, if you wanted, you have, uh, Strong Towns Auto. Okay, perfect. You have five minutes. The floor is yours. Sweet. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Hello. My name is Marco and I'm here to delegate on behalf of Strongtowns Ottawa. Uh, we're a group that cares deeply about ensuring safe streets for the people who move around the city. We were surprised to see the reasonings for why the city recommends against uh, piloting a right turn on redband in the downtown core. We also think the city misses many glaring points as to the benefits of a right turn on redban and we urge the city to take a broader look at pedestrian and cyclist safety when it comes to right turns on reds. One of the rationale the city gives for refusing to ban right turns on red stood out to us. The city suggests that drivers might become impatient and thus lead to aggressive driving if they have to wait too long at a red light. How can the city claim that we don't need to ban right turns on red because they wouldn't improve safety, yet in the same breath claims that banning right turns on reds would leave drivers to be so reckless due to being inconvenience by just a couple seconds that they would kill or injure others on the road. These two claims can't reasonably coexist. Either the maneuver itself introduces risk or we're acknowledging that current road users are unable to safely manage even minor delays. In either case, the appropriate response is not to design our streets to allow for driver convenience, but to reduce conflict points and protect the most vulnerable, not to preserve a movement that places them at risk. The city also mentions right hook collisions with cyclists being an issue. But the obvious solution to this is having lead signals for pedestrians and cyclists, which are already done on many intersections. Another interesting point the city makes is that drivers must might just quote unquote choose to ignore right turn on red restrictions leading them to kill or injure pedestrians and cyclists. This seems like quite a weak defense of the status quo. Should we also remove our laws against murdering others because it might lead people to falsely assume that no one's going to kill them. While we understand it wasn't in the scope of the inquiry, we would strongly urge the city to take another look at the other data that must be considered. A major missed point is the fact that many collisions that happen from right turns on reds would fall under minor collisions which make no appearance in this report. During the same time period as the data in the report, 960 total collisions with pedestrians and cyclists occurred at traffic signals and 1842 occurred or 47 occurred total. This means that the data represented in the report shows less than 10% of overall accidents on our roads involving vulnerable road users and it doesn't even touch on near misses. Many many right turn on red incidences won't end up in a death or major injury where just as important to the safety and overall well-being of those walking in our streets. An obvious benefit to having a blanket right turn on red ban is that compliance would go up drastically. The current situation makes every single intersection a completely new experience for a driver. As someone who drives, it is absolutely ludicrous the amount of signs that you have to pay attention to. Having only particular intersections at particular times of day and particular days of the week ban right turns on reds means it's much harder to follow the rules even if I want to. You're asking people to essentially stare at their watch and calendar while they drive to make sure they're complying with the confusing laws. Making this more straightforward would improve compliance and it would drastically increase road safety. The report also doesn't bring up many of the other issues that come with right turn on reds which might not lead to a direct injury or death. At almost every s sing single intersection, you see cars inching forward while attempting to make a right turn on red. This type of maneuver leads to completely blocking a pedestrian's path on the crosswalk. This creates very dangerous circumstances where either pedestrian has to walk in front of the car who might not be looking at them or it might lead them to walking behind them, which also has a host of other dangers. Given that almost a quarter of all signalized intersections in the downtown core have already some sort of ban on right turn on reds, at what point do we get to where we just say it's easier for everyone to put a blanket blanket ban? Does it need to be 50% of intersections, 75, 99%. We already know that these inter actions are unsafe and thus we have banned them at many of our intersections often unfortunately because someone was injured or killed at them. How many more residents must give their lives for us to make a sensible common sense decision that has been proven from studies all over the world? Pedestrians should not have to have their heads on a swivel to be able to move around their safe safely in their neighborhoods. Everyone deserves to be able to travel safely where they need to go. Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Great. Thank you for that. Uh looking around the board, seeing no questions. Thank you for coming out today. Our next delegation is uh uh Michelle. Oh, forgive me. We don't have Michael here. Michelle? No. Okay. So, we had someone leave us. So, Sandra Stack. Oh, you're in person in real life. Welcome. Hello. Uh, you have five minutes. The floor is yours, Sandra. Okay. My name is Sandra Stack and I'm here representing the Centertown Community Association. I am also a member of the Ottawa Council on Aging and co-chair of the Council on Aging's Pedestrian Safety and Walkability Committee. I have conducted snowmo audits in the city for the past few years. I have lived in Centertown for the past 15 years and I walk a lot. I am here to express Centertown's association support for eliminating right turns on red lights through the center town. And like another speaker, I've had many near misses myself. When drivers approach an intersection intending to turn right on a red light, their attention is often directed to the left, searching for an opening in traffic to accelerate into or rather the carefully scanning for people crossing in front of them. This action this action encourages drivers to make rolling stops or to stop as close as possible to the cross street instead of stopping before the defined crosswalk. If you are a frequent pedestrian, you likely know the experience of strand trying to cross the street, finding a vehicle in the curb lane, blocking the crosswalk in front of you, and as the driver looks for space in traffic to make the right turn into. There was a study divine done by the city of Ottawa and it was done during the COVID years and then there was 121 serious collisions. 23 involving left turning vehicles, n 93 involved vehicles that were not turning, and five involved right turning vehicles. However, Ottawa City Police reported collision stats for 2024 showing an significant increase. 218 collisions involving pedestrians and 123 collisions involving cyclists. We as pedestrians are not feeling safe. I don't want to repeat things that everyone else has said, but I do because it makes everyone keep it in your head. Ottawa Police Services in the Coalition Reporting Center published their annual 2024 report on vehicle collisions with a total of 19,777 collisions. 6 thou 16,788 were reported through the the collision reporting center. 2,989 required peripheral response. And the other important data from this was 18 were total fatal collisions, 218 collisions involved pedestrians, 123 collisions involved cyclists, 218 collisions involved impaired drivers. The most collisions occurred in December and January. This ash this data also shows that 16,787 collisions involve clear days while environmental events making collision road conditions less variable such as road fog, mist, freezing rain, and snow were noted for less than 5,000 collisions. Improving road safety and enforcing the rules of the road are significant priorities for the Ottawa Police Service and is dedicated to improving safety. The 2025 study that others have mentioned by the Canadian Auto Automobile Association went beyond collision data to examine near miss. And as many of us have said, this happens. Intersections at 20 intersections in across Canada using 360 degree cameras and AI analytics found that 9% of pedestrians, that's basically one in 10, at busy intersections experienced conflicts with vehicles, more than half involving right turning cars while the pedestrian had the right away. Although most incidents were low to medium risk, they play critical play a critical role in shaping the the pedestrian experience. The single most important thing you can do to prioritize safety for speed in cities and there's a whole lot of policies that do that, including banning right turn on red. Maintaining right turn on rate is promoting speed. The lack of awareness of pedestrians and banning it promoting and prioritizing people moving safely. Thank you for your time and consideration. I just want to make one comment. Maybe the most important thing is I have a 15-year-old grandchild who will be biking from Centertown to Delisal High School in Vanet and I want him to be safe. Thank you for your intention. Thanks for your delegation and actually I'm going to be a grandfather in March. So, uh I appreciate I'm looking at everything in a new lens all the time. So, I appreciate that. We do have a question from councelor Truster. Thank you so much, Sandra. And I do remember a snowmo walk together with So, thank you for all the work you do for pedestrian safety. Um and my daughter is almost 14 and she walks and cycles in the neighborhood. So, I so I I feel for you. I have my my you know heart on my sleeve or my heart in my throat all the time worrying. Um and it's not because of her abilities, it's it's because of the environment. Um I just I I know that you're involved with a whole range of things including the Council on Aging and I'm just wondering because you cited the CIA study which many people have have commented uh f mentions near misses which the staff report doesn't and I'm just wondering if you could speak to how a series of near misses could impact mobility for seniors in Centertown particularly. Well, as you know we're an aging population or I'm an aging group. Um, I think what I see, and I live just down the street at 10 the driveway, I see my fellow residents not going out. I when I walk, I'm walking to places I want to walk to. That's why I live here. I for a background, I lived in Winnipeg 32 years, so I understand snow. And I guess no, I know that when someone walks out with a walker, a cane, they are at more risk because all of those people about to step out sometimes don't have the quick ability to step back. And I have to admit from for the time the toddler was being pushed around, my nearest miss was someone going through a red light. But if you're pushing someone else's wheelchair or a stroller and you have to pull it back to save them, that is more difficult. And there are many people in our building who are using wheelchairs independently, but those who have a caregiver doing it. And that makes it even more dangerous. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'll tell you that my first series of terrifying incidents involving cars turning right into me, you know, almost being right hooked was when I was literally pushing my baby into the intersection. It is a new form of vulnerability. And then when my child was on the back of my bike and I, you know, it it it when you're literally protecting them life and limb and having to push them into traffic, it gives you a very new perspective on the vulnerability of road users. So it is um um well my son lives obviously if I have a grandchild and he has uh always used the back uh to bite with his child on the back and I know a number of times he was very frightened by what was a near miss because it's one thing to put yourself at risk it's another thing to someone you're really responsible for. Yeah absolutely and there were times when I've taken a cycling route with a baby on the back of my bike and then I was like nope not doing that again. and then I ended up driving, right? Like it changed my behavior because of a near miss. So, thank you very much. And he doesn't own a car. So, the other just if you want to know how you really do it, you have one car and four drivers and uh that's the other scary thing. The fifth one would be coming along. Yeah. Oh, don't leave us yet. Councelor Kavanagh, thank you, Chair, and thank you for your delegation. Really appreciate your work with Council on Aging on on the transportation side particularly. I think this is something that should be looked at in terms of uh um when we're talking about uh what we can do for for seniors and um and uh in our overall older adult plan. So just want to thank you for for raising the topic. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. And before you leave, uh Council on Aging, it's great. We actually have a great relationship and Teresa's uh really cultivated that along with Alan Hubli and myself. I meet with them on a regular basis. Uh I'm not sure if you're here as a representative of the group or individual, but I we lies with them on a regular basis and I just want to know is this their position is to ban rate turns on red. Yes. I for both I'd say yes. So so coalition of uh aging wishes for that. Okay, great. Thank you. Great. We have Jacob Critch. Critch. Can you hear me? Perfect. Do you have five minutes? The floor is I'm just trying to look. Oh, there you are. There you are, Jacob. Great. Go right ahead. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. Okay. Thank you. So, I'm I'm Jacob Kish. Uh I live in Centertown right at uh Bank in Somerset. I've lived there uh for oh, I don't know, 13 years now. And I have raised two children uh in this area. And I want to say about um some of the personal experience there about why it is that a right turn on red ban would be very helpful in center town in particular. Um we do not own a car. I I am we are a household among that 30% who do not have a car and so we go around by walking and biking and uh when it functioned better by OC transpo um but increasingly we do more walking and biking and the conflicts that we have as part of life walking around in center town are real and many things that council has done have helped to reduce those conflicts. the leading pedestrian interval that councelor Brochington was talking about has been wonderful. That that that change at Bank and Somerset and at Somerset and Elgen in particular have really helped to reduce the conflict between cars that are turning with green and the pedestrians who are trying to cross the street. Right turn on red is a different conflict. It is a conflict that still comes every day as I walk around in the neighborhood where cars, as has been said before, come because they are allowed to make this turn, they encroach, they come onto the crosswalks. Uh and this is a thing where it has been described amply that they are looking to the left to see whether it is safe for them to move and they are not looking to the right where pedestrians who are crossing with a walk signal or cyclists who are moving with their walk signal are coming from and that conflict is unnecessary. It it's uh it's a very small change in the time for a single car to go through. You cannot have very many cars that turn right on red inside of a cycle time. Once you actually get the green light for that intersection, you're going to be able to move them through it. It it is I I would be shocked to find that right turn on red significantly increases the t the speed with which cars get through as busy an area as center town. That that's not mentioned in the staff report about how much of a time savings does this actually occur. The light cycles are just not very long. It is well less than a minute until that car at the front is going to get a green light. And what happens is that we have this conflict. Now, it's very different in a uh in the urban area of center town where I live uh than it is in a suburban area like where I grew up. In a suburban area, you have many fewer vulnerable road users walking around. And in general, you have much better sight lines. So the cars can see before they go to take a right turn on red whether or not it is safe for them to do so. The packedin on street parking, the buildings that obstruct it force cars to encroach to determine whether or not they can take a right turn on red in the downtown core. And as we have more people without cars going into the new housing developments that are wonderfully being built in the area, this problem is only going to increase. Now, I don't own a car, but I do drive a car. I rent a car when I need them. I'm not anti-car. I have chosen to live in a place where I don't need them. And as a driver who drives around in the area, I personally find right turn on red to be stressful because cars behind me want me to take it even when I cannot evaluate whether it is safe. And so, I do the exact behavior that I am describing here. If I if I am at an intersection that allows right turn on red, I will encroach onto that crosswalk and I will hope that I am not blocking pedestrians, I'm looking for them, but I would love to have that taken away from me. Driving around Montreal is so much less stressful for exactly this reason. I just wait for the green light and then I can turn. It's really simple. Doing this in a blanket way is a simpler way and it makes sense in an area that has very high density of pedestrians as we are talking about in center town. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. Uh councelor Trustster. Hi Jacob. Thank you for being here. Um I feel the same way as a driver that I the rule of the road is that I have to take that right on red and somebody's always nudging me to do it even if I don't feel that it's safe. So the debate we seem to be having at this table is whether kind of a pilot within downtown Ottawa is a better option than just focusing on specific dangerous intersections. And what I've always maintained is as a driver and I also drive and I also walk and I cycle that the inconsistency from intersection to intersection impacts my behavior as a driver. Um, and what I'm hearing a lot of people say is just having one rule for a specific area, a very dense area where we have a ton of of pedestrians would ultimately be safer. Um, but I am hearing across this table some other people are like, well, why don't we just look at the danger zones? What What would your preference be as someone who lives in the neighborhood? Oh, I would love to have it be blanket. I think that would be simpler as a driver. I I I think it would be easier for drivers to just understand that in this area um, they're all there. you would of course need to put up signs at all of the intersections just just like you would have it, but I think it would just be simpler in order to uh make that um uh just a blanket rule. And I also think that we don't have traffic lights at every intersection. Many intersections that are lower trafficked, have fewer people at them, have only stop signs, and those always function in in this way. Tra traffic lights go into intersections that by their nature have a lot of people that are around them. Um it has a lot of cars and they have a lot of uh people because they're in Centertown. And I think that if you were to go look I I mean I'm interested in trying to find what is this so-called intersection that is in center town that has a traffic light and yet does not have a large population of people who are walking by it all the time. Um certainly I walk by intersections. Those are the ones that I walk by. I'm not sure which they are um that are there. We could go and talk through them, but I I I think that once you get to the point where uh a large fraction of the intersections in the community are the ones that have people where we should be banning right turn on red, then it makes more sense to make it a blanket ban. Thank you. And I know that you have children that are similar to the age of my children because I know you're from the community. Um, we've been discussing the issue of near misses and how that impacts pedestrian behavior. Um, as someone with growing kids who want to be more independent, um, h how have those near messes affected their behavior or or um where you're willing to let them go on their own in the neighborhood? Yeah, it it's a real issue. I I mean, my um I I have a sixth grader um who I I walk with her to school every day. It's about 2 kilometers. We cross the canal. She goes to Funko Janes, which is right near where you are all right now. And the um she does not want to walk by herself. And and this is because of her fear of the traffic that she has been dealing with since she was born. Um and the uh this is not only about right turn on red. It's not. There are other issues, but it is a significant part of her fear of being around. I think that by the time that she is in sixth grade, she should be able to do this by herself. Like I I I do I think that that's a reasonable expectation for a child. But I respect the concern that she has that she expresses with us. And so I walk with her um through these intersections and help to navigate them. She's very good at them. I think she should be able to do this herself. But I also think that we should work to make policies and systems that make this safer so that our kids, she's not even really that young, are able to walk around this community. Thank you. Yeah, we often hear, "Oh, kids these days, they can't they can't roam the way they want to." Well, back in the day, we didn't have trucks that were like higher than children that with bad sight lines and, you know, we didn't have this kind of densification necessarily in certain parts of the city. Um, so thank you so much. I I really appreciate you being here. And I think the issue of near misses and how that limits the behavior and sets lifelong patterns for children of how they move around the city as they get older um is an issue that's hard to quantify, but I think it's a really important one to discuss. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Great. Uh Councelor Divine. Uh hey, Jacob. Uh thank you for your delegation. Um and I hadn't planned on asking you a question, but you kind of uh flagged for me another uh important issue here. And uh that issue is how concerns that you know uh staff may have at the operational level over right turn on red sometimes those concerns conflict with our larger policy goals. Um and when you're talking about you know living in the downtown experience and I'm not saying that I'm taking a position on what we should do about right turn on red but one thing I know about all of our safety mechanisms is that when a safety mechanism is consistent and predictable it augments the effectiveness of that safety mechanism. Um, one reason that right turn on red ban in Montreal is so easy to understand because it's an island. You cross a bridge, you're in that territory. Um, Ottawa is different than that. But if the highest preponderance of pedestrians and cyclists is in the downtown area, let's say downtown and inner wards, and if our larger policy goal is to increase active transportation and density in those areas, one way to attract people to live, work, and play in an area is to make them feel safe. Um, we're going to be talking more later about the importance of putting a concern over near miss conflicts. Uh, if there is currently a patchwork approach to right turn on red in the downtown area, one could easily argue that we could enhance predictability and effectiveness by applying a targeted geographic ban. I'm not saying uh that that's a conversation here for today, but it's a conversation to be had at some point. Thank you. That was wonderful. I completely agree. I'm glad you do. There you go. Thank you very much. Thanks, Jacob. Uh, next up we have Alex Gil. Oh, yeah. There's Alex. And we see you there, Alex. And you have five minutes. We can hear you loud and clear. The floor is yours. Hi. Thank you very much. Um, I'm Dr. Alex Gil. I'm a resident of central Ottawa since uh 2008. And um I'm I'm here to speak about the the personal experience uh around road safety and why this is uh why I support um councelor Trusters's proposal to explore prohibit prohibiting right turns on red in downtown Ottawa. Um so um stimulus for me to want to speak to the committee is very personal incident. Uh my youngest child, who was 10 years old at the time, was struck by a car on October 11th, 2024 by a right turning car on their way home from public street, Elgen Street Public School. Um very fortunately, uh they returned home bruised, frightened, but not seriously hurt. Uh this was the second incident at the same intersection in that year uh involving a student from the same school that I'm aware of and I'm uh aware of other parents in the at the school uh deeply concerned about road safety in the area. Um there's a lot of focus on the potential gains in in safety from this measure. You know, will this be a thing? Um I think one of the things to look at in this issue is about what sort of culture of driving are we establishing in the city? Uh do we prioritize the safety of all our citizens or are we privileging a very minor convenience to drivers? Um, I walk, cycle, and drive in downtown Ottawa. And what I've noticed in recent years is what seems to be a real deterioration in road safety. That increasingly more reckless behavior by drivers, perhaps in some respects responding to congestion um, in bigger vehicles, traveling faster. It is getting really unnerving and when I talk about this issue um of prohibiting the right turn on red right turn on red not just my safety as a pedestrian as a cyclist but also as a driver because one thing I found really disturbing is that when I am stopped at a red light in downtown Ottawa to permit traffic other traffic road users to pass safely to permit um pedestrians to pass. It is now my expectation that I will get aggressive responses from drivers who are behind me who seem to expect that I am just going to roll on through whatever the road conditions are. That is now seems to be our expectation in this city. This this really can't be seen as working. A right turn on red allowance presumes that the driver is going to stop, observe, and take responsibility for their decision. That isn't what is happening. Okay. Um, fundamentally, I'd like to finish. As a parent in downtown, central Ottawa, statistically, the greatest risk to my children is road traffic. This is a preventable issue. So, why aren't we working to prevent it? This may not be the whole solution, but I think it's a good step. We should be taking this step and looking at taking more. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much, Alex. Our final delegation on this. Oh, I'm my apologies, Councelor Truster. Thank you, Alex, for being here. And I just want to send a shout out to your child who when I saw them at Pride this summer hammered me on why that intersection has not been fixed where they got hit by a car. Um when the children are telling us that they don't feel safe walking around their neighborhood and they don't understand why a year later the problem hasn't been fixed. I think we need to listen to them. So I'm I'm glad your child is okay. May I ask what the nature of their injuries were? uh they were um they had bruising to their shoulder where they they'd been impacted by um uh the uh probably the wing mirror. Right. So this is of a of a turning vehicle, an SUV. They end up in hospital or no? Fortunately, no. Okay. So I'm going to ask staff about this. That incident would not be captured in the statistics that they quoted in this report, right? It wouldn't be considered a major injury, but it obviously had a huge impact on your child. Has it changed? Has it changed changed like how they were felt their route to school, right? And in fact, you know, wanted, you know, they had been walking independently to and from school at that point and now wanted to be accompanied. Like this is fundamentally impacting perception of safety and the reality of safety. of people in downtown Ottawa. Thank you. Yeah. And we often hear when it comes to, you know, security and policing issues that feeling safe is as important as objectively being safe. And I would argue the same thing when it comes to road safety because all it takes is in your miss and then you don't feel safe and then you just change your route or you change your mode of transportation. And if that starts when you're a child, I can only imagine has an impact for the rest of your life. So, thank you so much, Alex. I really appreciate you being here. and say hello to your kiddo for me and uh let them know we're working on it. Thank you very much, Ariel. I appreciate your efforts. Great. Thank you for that. And last but not least, my good friend Florence, I think we were waving signs uh at a asse camera one day too, trying to keep those in place back in the day. Indeed. Um good morning. Um thank you for the opportunity to speak. I represent by Cardawa and I live in Vanet where many residents don't have a car. While I was getting ready to delegate, I was wondering why the banning of right on red even warrants a discussion. Why we have to defend the right to be safe outside of a car. I read the staff report and I was struck by the picture it's painting. It's not about be moving people safely. It's about moving cars and getting drivers to their destination faster. and it does not reflect the reality and complexity of getting around outside of a car. I'll give you two example of close calls I've had recently. Not long ago, I was riding in a painted bike lane, then through an unprotected intersection on a green light with no right on red restriction. If I were to believe the report, I'd be more at risk with right on red restrictions as more drivers would turn right and into my space after the light turns green. Let me tell you the reality of things. If the light is green in the first place and I'm traveling with traffic towards the intersection, the danger is already there. In my case, the danger came from a driver turning right on red onto my street. Another part of the risk puzzle that's not reflected in the report. The driver, for the record, stopped at the last second. Another time, I was walking. Yes, I do walk. And I had started crossing a street on a pedestrian green. A driver coming from my left was going to touch right, turn right on red, and saw me at the last second. I jumped back. What would have happened if I assume I could cross as I had the right of way? I don't know. And I did not want to find out. The the report says right on red restrictions can reduce risk at one crosswalk but then create more risk at the next crosswalk within the same intersection. There are solutions that can be used in conjunctions with right on red prohibition. It's called dedicated dedicated signal phases. Next time I'll delegate in French. When I go back to my hometown of Bzono in France, that's how it works. No right on red. And whatever your mode of travel, either you have the green or you don't. Uh I'm lo I'm lost in my notes. I must say it's nice not to have to worry about being hit by a driver looking for for an opening in traffic. Now, why would we cater to drivers pos based on possible non-compliance of right on red restrictions and possible aggressive behavior? Why should we decide not to protect people walking, biking or rolling? This is backward thinking. The data presented in the report is partial at best. It only includes collisions involving death or serious injuries. If you're not seriously injured, you don't count. What we need is a f a forward-looking holistic approach to road safety that includes no right on red speed mitigation, better transportation options, better transit and a connected cycling network. In conclusion, is right on red band the way to go? Absolutely. It's part of what the city should have in its toolbox. In the downtown core alone, over half of trips taken are done by other means than cars. That's huge. A right on red ban would align with the city's official plan that states that, and I quote, the convenience and safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users shall take priority over private motor vehicle access in the downtown core. I'd go even further. Eventually we should write ban on red write on red across the city. I ask you to ask yourself this question. Why is there such a disconnect between the staff report and users experiences? Why can Ottawa not be a city where there are zero deaths when it is the case and stated goal in other cities including Hoboken, New Jersey, where no one has been killed on their roads in nine years or Helsinki, a metropolis the size of Ottawa that has had just that has just had no death on its roads in one year. Thank you. civil mercy. Mercy uncle council me. I stumble in English occasionally. Um, so thank you for coming out today. Uh, at this point I'm looking I don't see any motions on the table at this point. So I'm going to ask Vice Chair Kits to read a motion in uh so we can go to questions to staff next. And this is presented to us first. Uh, Vice Chair Kits. Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'm reading this uh on your behalf. Whereas qualified traffic engineering professionals have advised that permitting right turns on red may in certain circumstances pose risk to pedestrian safety. And whereas available data supports maintaining the city's current targeted location specific approach to restricting right turns on red where warranted. And whereas with the exception of one m municipality, no jurisdictions across the country have implemented a comprehensive citywide prohibition on right turns on red. And whereas a blanket prohibition on right turns could contribute right turns on red could contribute to increased vehicle queuing delays to public transit operations and higher greenhouse gas emissions due to additional idling. Therefore, be it resolved that staff continue to use the current hybrid approach to right turns on red lights and be it further resolved that city staff continue to review all intersections permitting right turns on red with the primary objective of prioritizing and safeguarding pedestrian safety. Great. So that is in front of us so we can solidify where we want to go since this was added to the agenda. Uh that being said count we have questions to staff at this point and you can include your uh your conclusion and roll up as well at the same time if you wish. Uh first up councelor Troster. Hi chair. Before we have questions to staff, why was this motion not included before now? It seems to run contrary to everything that the de delegates are telling us today. And also, why is it necessary to have a motion suggesting we're going to keep doing what we're already doing if we're doing it already? Well, I I've asked the vice chair to move this uh on on our behalf and at the request uh we were asked to go into this further certainly in regards to doing extra studies which we presented back here today. by adding it to the agenda. I've asked with the clerk's office and the city committee chair, we are certainly allowed to add this in to again now that it's presented as an agenda item and we had delegations out to speak to it wholesomely uh that we're able to take a position and vote if we're supporting staff or not because we have heard uh a lot of concerns around support of the staff decisions that have been made. So we'd like to solidify if this committee is supporting staff in their report. So correct. But this is not saying whether the committee agrees with a report. This motion it actually is is forstalling the possibility of any further action on this. This is simply an inquiry that was lifted and people have come here to share their opinion. this motion was not on the table for them to debate when this item was put on the agenda. They did not speak to this motion. They spoke to their concerns with the report. Uh certainly, but again, when we lift things without and we'll ask the clerk's office to confirm this, when things are added to the agenda and it's not as part of the standard agenda practice, which it was added without giving two weeks notice to the public to come in and allow for that to take place. Certainly, we're allowed to make this a voting item and that's what we're doing today. Clerks, sorry. Yeah, Mr. Chair, just to confirm with the uh response to inquiry being added for consideration to hear delegations, a motion on the that's related to the matter is in order. Thank you. I think point of order. So, I'm going to make a point of order. I might not be doing the right procedure, but I would like to get clarity on the motion that is presented. I I am comfortable with the prospect that if an item is lifted to the agenda, a motion related to that agenda item can certainly be in order. And I wouldn't mind seeing the motion that we just saw, but if I understand correctly from what I just read, the motion does not seek to validate staff's response to the the inquiry. If I interpret the motion correctly, it basically says, "Let's continue to proceed as normal as we already do." In other words, the motion seems to be seeking to just maintain the status quo, which A, I don't see any other motion attempting to alter the status quo. And B, if the motion only seeks to maintain the status quo, I would like to assume that it's not necessary at all. It would seem to be some kind of motion to attempt validation of the status quo, which I don't necessarily think is a matter that should be brought before council here. I'm not worried about how the motion is contrary to what the delegate said. That's not my my concern, but I'd like to ask staff. Can I ask staff a question for a point of order? You can absolutely ask the uh clerk's office. Can I ask and they can determine if it's a point of order or not? So, uh, clerk's office, during a point of order, may I ask a question for clarification to staff? Uh, just Mr. Chair, first thing, um, chair's rule on points of order. Um, but staff can advise. My understanding from what the member the member has questions on whether or not to proceed with this motion that uh might be um for the chair to to rule on the point of order and then my understanding is the chair was calling for uh questions to staff for debate and maybe as part of that process and the and the speakers list any member can ask questions of staff for necessarily to get ask staff about whether to proceed with the motion if I'm allowed to ask a question to staff. My question is to get their understanding of the nature of the motion before I might vote on it. Certainly. And I believe uh as chair I will take this opportunity to say certainly you can ask staff is this what we're essentially doing which is probably the case and why you would have and again I've made a ruling on this. Uh I I think we spent a long time it's created a dramatic amount of confusion in the city. I've had nothing but emails along with people and I want to make sure we have clarity through the questions to staff about what the responses are within the report that are very clear and if we wish to support that uh to avoid the confusion in the public. So I've ruled on this. If you don't wish to see this on the floor, feel free to challenge the chair and we can take a vote and we'll allow the clerk's office to take that. And I'm not sure if I'm looking to challenge the chair. I'm just looking to see if I can use a point of order to ask a question to staff. I can't. No. Okay, great. You can ask staff questions. Gotcha. Thank you. Yeah, certainly you can ask staff questions. That's the whole point. Absolutely. So, I'm looking at the board here. Uh we'll go to questions to staff. We can take the motion down so we can see all the faces as lovely as they are. Uh so, uh committee members, uh I'll go to councelor. You're on committee, mate. Yeah, councelor Devon. Well, I'm not up yet. You are. All right. Uh, hey, thank you, Chair. Um, so, uh, thank you, Councelor Troster, for for submitting this inquiry because I do think it produced a staff response that I I believe warrants some scrutiny. Um, so no one here, as I can understand it, is claiming that right turn on red restrictions are a silver bullet. What I do believe they are, however, is a proven and effective response to specific, well doumented safety problems at intersections where the vast majority of conflicts occur. In our transportation master plan, policy 64 explicitly directs the city to reduce pedestrian exposure at intersections. The relevant section reads, and I'm going to quote it, "As part of making it safer and easier to cross the road, the city will continue to pursue intersection designs that reduce pedestrian exposure, including seeking additional opportunities to implement no right turn on red restrictions as set out in the road safety action plan. So, as I understand that, road uh right turn on red restrictions are not an untested idea. They are an evidence-based safety tool explicitly named in council approved policy. What concerns me based on what we can interpret from the staff response and based on the evaluation criteria described in the response is that we seem to be prioritizing and how my concern is how those policies are applied. So I have some comments and questions to that effect. As cited in councelor Troster's inquiry, the June 2025 CA study found that 55% of pedestrian conflicts and 50% of cyclist conflicts involved right turning vehicles making right turns the single largest source of near miss risk at intersections. And I'm glad that several delegates raised the issue of near miss conflicts because so many of our active transportation policy goals on mode shift or achieving residential density require increased perceived safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Ironically, in Ottawa, the intersection that was part of the study, Maravel and Viewmount in my ward, where right turn on red restrictions were installed one year after the study, earlier denials from my office were denied, earlier requests from my office were denied because of the impact on traffic flow. My first question, having reviewed the criteria used for the casebyase evaluation of intersections for right turn on red restrictions, what consideration is given to avoiding near miss conflicts with pedestrians and cyclists as compared to relying on history of collisions alone? Thank you for the question through you chair. Uh so we do use near miss collision uh near miss data when we're doing an in-depth review of uh an intersection that has been identified for safety improvement. So the first step in the process is to do a network screening. Take a look at all of the intersections in the city. We rely on collision data, volume data, things like that to do that network screening because that data is available for all the intersections in the city. However, the near miss data requires special equipment, typically a consulting assignment. So, we don't have citywide data on that. So, it's not part of our network screening to help identify locations, but we do use that as a tool to help identify what's happening at the intersection when it's being identified for um study uh so that we can uh select the appropriate counter measures to address what's happening. So that doesn't mean that we negate the importance of considering near- risk conflicts in terms of addressing safety. Correct. We do we do use it when we're studying an intersection that's being identified through our network screening. So if it prioritizes high from a collision perspective, volume perspective, then we would use that as a tool to help identify the best measures and get a better understanding of what's actually happening at the intersection and not just rely on the collision data. Thank you. Now over to another issue in the uh in the response. So a central rationale in the staff response is concern about increased risk due to low compliance from drivers with RTR restrictions. To me that implies an expectation that pedestrians and cyclists must modify their safe and legal behavior because we have implicitly accepted that drivers will behave illegally. Now, we're about to go through a process to lower speed limits all across the city, knowing full well that compliance with existing speed limits is low to begin with, and achieving any respectable level of compliance with lower speed limits will take considerable time. Why are we willing to rationalize low compliance on some safety measures, but we don't apply the same logic to right turn on red restrictions? Chair, can I can I just take a step back here and and we will get to definitely part of your question. I think when we look at the response first, we were responding basically to the questions that were raised in the inquiry. Um when we look at basically our mandate, our mandate is to move people. It's not just to move cars, it's to move people. The direction that we also have from council is through the road safety action plan and that's basically a clear mandate to reduce and eliminate fatal and major injuries uh on our roadways and there is a key focus a key emphasis area is on vulnerable users cyclist and pedestrian. So that is the lens that we apply when we look at every decision. It's a lens of safety. It's not just a lens of how do we move cars quicker through intersections. It's with a safety lens. That's why when you look at our network as a whole, we're not we're not saying that we're not implementing uh uh red turn uh on red prohibitions, we are we have 115 or 114 intersections where we have implemented because it was deemed from a safety perspective to be warranted. I think the issue right now is a decision between making a blanket decision around applying it throughout versus how do we applied it in areas where it's deemed warranted. And I want to go back to the CIA study that keeps getting uh qualified because there is a lot of great information in there. I think when you peel the onion in terms of that report, that report does not recommend basically that municipalities implement uh prohibitions either as a blanket. What it does do is basically the approach that we've taken right now is is use a safe citizens approach. Look at red turn on red restrictions where appropriate, apply le uh leap pedestrian uh times also where appropriate and then look at the intersection designs themselves. when it comes to the driver behavior that we're pointing to, that's the that's the piece that we're all struggling with in terms of how do we increase compliance with all of the rules uh of the law. What we're suggesting here is that just implementing more broadly uh turn restrictions doesn't mean that basically it's going to increase compliance or that it's even going to increase the safety at those intersections. So, we're trying to use the data also to be mindful around are we really increasing the safety at those intersections putting a focus on our vulnerable road users. Thank you. I know that um just by putting a measure in place, it's not going to automatically increase compliance, but what I'm trying to say is it seems that concern over low compliance is being used as a rationale for not having these kinds of restrictions when in fact there's already low compliance with the existing rule. Very few people actually stop at the stop sign before they go through the red. So what I'm trying to ask is if staff is centralizing low compliance as a rationale for not advancing right turn on red restrictions, why do we not use that same concern about low compliance if we're about to lower speed limits? We can expect low compliance there too. Why do we apply the policy one pair the concern in one way but not in the other way? the low compliance through you chair is not the main factor that we use to okay it's one we're not implementing a no right turn on red so no right turn on red there's two crosswalks a motorist goes through when they make a right turn so there's the one in front of them and the one on their right hand side so the no right turn on red will help reduce conflicts on the crosswalk right in front of you if you implement a no right turn on red. You're increasing the number of right turns that occur when the crosswalk on your right hand side has the green has the walk. So you're concentrating all of the turns at the same time that you're concentrating all of the walking, all of the cycling that is heading in that same direction. So you're increasing the exposure on this crosswalk, but potentially decreasing the exposure on the one right in front of you. So, we balance all of that and we look at all of it and we see who's using which crosswalks, how who's at the intersection when we make these decisions. The compliance, it's a factor, but it's not the main driver for us deciding whether or not we put in a uh no right turn on red. We look at the mix of traffic, the mix of users at the intersection, and we implement uh the restrictions where we think there will be a true safety benefit. Okay. Um thank you. So, you were mentioning um the same TMP policy that I was talking about before, policy uh 64, which explicitly incorporates the road safety action plan. In the staff response, it refers to that safety policy. It it it it changes the language a little bit. It says each intersection is evaluated for factors such as pedestrian and cyers volumes, sight lines, intersection designs, collision history, and operational impacts. I understand, I've heard that term before. I understand operational impacts to meet concerns about traffic flow. Can staff clarify whether operational impacts as a criteria are part of the road safety action plan as adopted by council or whether staff are applying an expanded decision framework beyond what council approved. the the criteria for evaluating intersections for no right turn on red was a deliverable of the road safety action plan. So in the year in which we brought forward the proactive review of all of the signalized intersections in the city under the road safety action plan we also developed that criteria through the road safety action plan. Right. I know I'm at time. I have a few other questions related to that but I'll get to them after other speakers. But thank you very much. Great. Thank you very much, councelor. Councelor Bradley. Thank you, Chair. Um, first I just wanted to say thank you to all the public delegations that came out today. I didn't come into this conversation today thinking I was going to say much on the issue. I, to be honest, don't support a full ban on on no right on red citywide, but I was moved by many of the delegations and their stories today, and it sort of has given me a pregnant pause on on how I might want to approach this in the future. But what I didn't expect today was to limit the discussion completely. And I think that the the motion that was put on the floor sort of sets a tone that says, you know, we don't want to make any changes here. We want to stick to the status quo. And I don't think that's fair to the members of public that came out to cut off that conversation uh in such short order. So I guess I'm looking for some clarification on the motion because I think that that's what it does. I think it limits our ability to move forward um on any type of potential localized pilot project in the downtown core where we might see and be able to um analyze the data and the effectiveness of such uh um uh what's the term I'm looking for uh how how effective sorry no rights on reds could be. Um, so does this motion limit our ability or the any counselor's ability to bring forward perhaps a motion that would look at a localized pilot on no right off? They'll answer, but no, this is literally basically just saying, "Yeah, we we have a great presentation. It's come for us. We'll continue on the path that we've always continued on and pedestrian safety will be priority." I'd like to hear that directly. Yeah. Yeah. I chair to the point that's being raised counselor I and and certainly Christa and I do not interpret basically the motion to say we do not no longer look for other opportunities in terms of how we make our intersections safer. Our current I think what it does is support basically the efforts that we've been doing through the road safety action plan around how do we continue to make uh all of our intersections safer? How do we ensure that we use data to be able to inform our decisions? So, to me, it's not a it's not a status quo in terms of taking our our foot off the gas in terms of looking at safety and safety opportunities. Pilots are always going to be part of how we look at implementing things, looking at different technology. Uh, a lot of references to AI. We will continue to look at opportunities to leverage AI and cameras and all that to be able to do some of the analysis that we need to do. So I do not view this motion as basically just put your focus elsewhere that safety will always be the primary focus. Okay. Fair. So maybe this is more of a procedural question because to me when I read continue to use the current hybrid approach to write turns on red if someone was to bring forward a motion to initiate a pilot then it might be some sort of reconsideration of our approach to no rights on red. So, I'm just trying maybe from the clerk's office could respond to this, how how would they interpret this motion if someone was to bring forward a different approach to no rights on red in the near future. Uh, Mr. Chair, I just want to note the city clerk is on the call and is uh ready to uh respond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I think it would depend on the nature of the motion. So, I've heard from staff uh since I joined this meeting that um this motion would not in their opinion and their interpretation preclude proceeding with specific localized measures. Um whether if there was to be a substantive revisiting of the decision of committee and council, then that motion would need to be looked at in the uh with consideration to the rules for reconsideration in the opinion of uh the chair at the time. So, I just I don't want to limit anything today. I I think we're just at the beginning of a conversation and I think road safety has been top of mind for everybody in this room and on this committee. And so like for example uh clerk, if if we were to bring forward if someone was to bring forward a motion that said let's look at a pilot project within the boundaries of center town to ban all no rights on red, would that be considered substantive or would that not? Not sure I'm in an opinion and a position to answer that absent a motion to look at. Um, uh, the mover might be able to speak to we have a pilot project in center town to ban no rights on red. Like I'm not sure that like I I think this motion is intended to limit any any um action by a ward counselor or any counselor to explore this further. Um, as as the chair had said, this is to confirm that we support staff's position. I think that by receiving an inquiry that that's sufficient. And I don't think we need a motion. If there is nothing that this motion limits, which it sounds like it does, then why do we need a motion? Well, again, just to be clear, again, you can introduce the pilot. This is just reaffirming that this report that's come forward, we're acknowledging, we're accepting it, and we would like to have a vote on it because there is great confusion. All the headlines in the media right now are city council voting right on red. Uh, and we're receiving those emails. So this will add clarity and if people wish to move for a pilot they can and this could be confirmed they could certainly go ahead and do that. Nothing changes any of that whatsoever. So if you want to strip wording out and just say we receive this and call a vote on it. I'm quite content with that as well. I for my knowledge of procedure I don't think we need to vote on an inquiry. I think we would just receive it. So I don't think the motion is necessary. If you if you'd like revised language that says let's receive the inquiry I'm happy to put that forward as a place. We'll ask the clerk's office, but if we can just have a recorded vote on receiving the inquiry, I I don't even care about the wording. But I think we do have to acknowledge to the public to clarify the confusion uh because this narrative has occupied quite a bit of time and there's been a lot of people uh that have come forward and again I want to get to the substantive questions to the staff and go through some of what's in the report. I haven't heard any of that yet by the way about what they provided with detail. Uh, I'll get to those questions later on, but I think it behooves us if we don't at least acknowledge pedestrian safety is that the core principle and that's directly in the motion. Uh, but again, maybe the clerk's office or or committee coordinator can confirm. Uh, is there a way that we can just simply have a vote on this just so we acknowledge receiving the inquiry? Is that to clarify? Well, it's not a it's an agenda item now. So, it's a little different. uh when the inquiry came back as the IPD, as soon as we added it in, we had delegations, debate, and discussion. We didn't even promote it. This is the problem uh with not doing notice of motion for two weeks. So, I I'll I'll look to the clerk to see what what the feedback is, and I'm at at your mercy. Um I know um Mr. Trumbllay is there in the room and is I think uh you're obby over there, but uh but happy to provide that. Um there is currently a motion on the floor. It would be in order to just receive that motion and not take any further action or vote on um one or the other of the substantive clauses, one of which speaks to staff conducting a comprehensive review. So those those would be options available to the committee in this case or if the motion is withdrawn to just receive the uh the response to inquiry and take no further action. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. Um I I didn't intend to ask questions today. it was because of the motion uh that that's why that's what we're discussing. I would request that the mover consider to withdraw it and then we can just receive the inquiry as it was intended. Thank you. Yeah. And again, I'll look to the will of the committee. I have uh no problem with uh removing it. Uh as long as we can be very clear and we can get to questions to staff. Uh I think that's the important part. We're forgetting the pedestrians here, everybody. Uh we can have bun fights all day, but the reality is uh there's been a lot of confusion on this file. People think you look at the headlines, it all says council voting to ban rate turns on red. That's a problem for us. So we want to make sure that this doesn't come back. I guess the question would be by us receiving this if we ever did want to ban right turns on red, would a motion have to come forward here? And this will that that would satisfy me to end this complete discussion because if that's confirmed then we can just receive the motion rece that's that is now part of the agenda. Yes, Mr. Mr. Chair, if you're seeking um just a response to that, um receiving the inquiry doesn't change anything and if there is a motion down the road at a later date with specific direction to staff, that would be considered at that time either through notice of motion or at a later date. But um should you just wish to receive the inquiry would be the response inquiry would be received. But as the clerk has pointed out, you do have a motion currently on the floor. Okay, great. So we we would require something substantive if we were looking to ban right turns on red at this point to come to this committee. It's not by us saying this suddenly pilots aren't going to pop up here and there. Something actually has to be in place for this. Correct. I I'm actually looking at staff like you guys would know if we were looking at blanket bans on right turns on red would this uh would this have to come back to this committee if we just simply received this report? Yes, it would come back to this committee and I and I would suggest that the context that it comes back to the city or to committee is through the road safety action plan. Yeah. And that's for everything done in the uh in the past. Absolutely. Well, I think we have a clear understanding of that now. So, if you're good with that, I'll gladly remove the wording. We'll have it and we can certainly receive the report. We'll see where the hands go. But I do have questions for staff that I'll ask a little later on. And again, if you wish to continue and have your wrap-up, no problem, Jessica. I appreciate that. Uh, and nobody wants to be caught in this jam. Uh, but uh certainly at least it highlights that this is the end of the right turn on red discussion and that was the objective. Uh, questions of staff. Councelor Gower. Um, thank you, Chair. When is the road safety action plan coming back to this committee or when when do you intend to bring it back to the committee? Uh, thank you through you, chair. Um, we are uh currently working on it in 2026 and plan to bring it back uh to Pewick in 2027. Okay. And part of the delay is related to the changes in the automatic automated speed enforcement and budgetary issues. Is that part of the part of the challenge? The plan was always to uh do a comprehensive update of the plan starting in 2026 with a report back in the new term of council. Part of the delay in our 2025 report is due to the ASC and the budgetary changes related to the loss in revenue from the cameras. Okay? Because I see part of this is prioritizing. It's probably not reasonable to ask staff to do everything we want to do around road safety at once. And I think road safety action plan is probably a good place to decide which things do we really want to dig into and and focus our budget and our staff resources on first. Um there's um the fatal collision review committee and they do I think it's called an annual report but it covers multiple years so it's not every year. Does that report include data on on collisions fatal or very serious collisions related to right turn on red issues? Is that like explicitly tracked in that report? Sorry for you, chair. All of the um uh contributing factors to all of the fatal collisions that are reviewed by the committee are included in the report. So if it's a right turn collision, if it happened on right turn on red, all of that information is included in the report. It doesn't um include information about serious injury collisions because that is not part of the mandate of the uh committee. Okay. Um, Europe, Australia, banning rate turns on red is kind of the norm. North America is different, although a lot of cities do have bans. New York City is probably the biggest one or is the biggest one. Washington DC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Seattle are all more recent. Does how does staff track what other jurisdictions are doing? uh how other jurisdictions might be collecting before and after data. Do you track that? How do you track it? How do you use that to inform our approach here? You chair. Typically uh staff use um the Federal Highway Administration's uh collision modification factor um clearing house. Mhm. Uh that's a compilation of all of the studies um done from a safety perspective and it it categorizes them for pedestrians, cyclists, intersections, um rural roads, various things. But it um it uh evaluates um the published research on um different types of interventions that have been implemented and studies of their effectiveness. So it gives you a rating for each of the different types of collision modification factors to address different things so we can determine which ones are the most effective to use for certain types of collisions when we do an evaluation and implement. Okay. So that's a ongoing ongoing project to monitor and and Yes. Yes. Um because I think some of those jurisdictions will give us some should I hope some of them are I hope all of them are doing before and afters where they've done recent implementations. uh because there is still I think a lot of uncertainty around around the data. Um there's some compelling cases that rate turn on red is a very effective intervention in intervention. There are others that are are not as clear. So um I hope Ottawa is not the last to implement something like this, but at least there's some other jurisdictions who are taking the lead going forward. Um I I had a a near miss on a right turn on red just last Wednesday at Elgen and Nepian and there's no restriction there. Uh I had one in Stitzville last fall. Uh and then a soon after not because of my incident but a advanced green or leading pedestrian signal whatever that's called was was implemented. Uh we have another intersection that was recently upgraded to a protected intersection. and it's very very effective at prioritizing pedestrian safety. Um, so I just wanted to there are multiple ways to achieve better pedestrian safety. There were a few delegations and even councilors who who've brought up prioritizing downtown over the suburbs. And I would not agree that the suburbs are any safer for pedestrians than downtown. Um, in fact, there having fewer pedestrians around is maybe less of a habit for drivers to look out for pedestrians, as awful as that is. So, um, I hope that any approach we're taking applies to the suburbs as much as it does to downtown. And, um, I hope as as like what I want to see, we have this policy in our transportation master plan. Uh, councelor Divine referenced it. some of the delegations did about um continually improving pedestrian crossings and I hope that we see some tracking. So, we've got these numbers in the staff report about the number of um right turn on red restrictions. I'd love to see on a year-to-year basis a tracking of how we're doing. How many protected intersections have we installed? How many right turn on red restrictions? how many leading pedestrial pedestrian signals alongside any of the collision. Um, and ideally we've got a plan so that in the next 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, every intersection is is covered and that we're seeing constant progress towards that. And then as far as the um as far as a blanket ban or pilot or whatever, I think, you know, we should be uh paying heed to the ward counselors. Um and and you know, they know their communities best. They know their situations. Um there's no motion though today on the table. So because we need some more discussion, we need some more socialization of the idea. What would the boundaries be? How would signage work? have like nobody came today ready to move a motion or anything. So, I think we spent um a lot of time on the procedure stuff without any reason whatsoever. So, I'm glad that motion was withdrawn. Thanks, chair. Yeah, on that uh I don't know where it is. We're officially going to withdraw it, but yes, it's it's withdrawn. And again, this will help end all this time that we spent on this. Uh, councelor Truster, thank you so much, Chair, and I'm glad that you have withdrawn the motion simply because I heard you say the words, "This issue is over." As you can hear from the people who came from the community, it's not over for people. Um, I think it's worthwhile to have a conversation about what measures could be implemented uh, citywide and also hyperlocally. And the conditions in downtown Ottawa are fundamentally different than other parts of the city. It doesn't mean that pedestrians are necessarily safe in the suburbs, but the number of people, the level of density, the number of buses, you heard from all the people who came to committee today and it is my entire goal in putting an inquiry together was to get data and to open up this conversation. And what we heard, this is a question to staff from a lot of people who came today, is that they found the discrepancy between the CAA data and what the the statistics that the city staff cited in the report to be problematic. specifically the lack of inclusion of near misses and also potentially the definition of um what is considered um a serious accident. So, first I was wondering if you could just let me know in this 20% you say of um uh um uh um accidents that are related to right turn on red is that only serious accidents that involved hospitalization. What's the definition there? Uh thank you through you chair. Um this only includes fatal and major injury collisions. So a fatality is defined as uh um someone who passes away within 30 days of the collision due to uh injuries sustained in that collision. A major injury would be an individual who's transported to the hospital after a collision. Okay. So that could be something like a broken arm if they were Yes. Okay. Would that include a concussion that somebody's not necessarily hospitalized for if they're transported and Yeah. only if they're transported. Okay? Because they'll say a concussion, somebody might not go to hospital and it could affect them cognitively for months or years of their life, right? Um and you heard uh about the child who ended up bruised up. The injury was not considered fatal or to be a major injury, but that's impacted the way that child travels through their community for the rest of their lives. Um I understand some of the conclusions you came to in in the response, but I think there's a lot missing there. I think uh we're not seeing data and it is certainly hard to quantify about the short and long-term impact on commuter patterns and on mobility specifically urban mobility when there are a series of near misses when children and seniors are frightened to walk in their neighborhood. And as I mentioned before this became very real to me when I had a baby that I was suddenly pushing into traffic. Um, another question I have for you is, if I'm not mistaken, the goal of the road safety action plan was to reduce serious accidents and and deaths by road violence by was it 20% per year? 20% over the five years. 20% with a goal of zero fatalities by 2035. Okay. Now, if I'm reading your response correctly, you said that only 20% of cyclists reported in collisions have been injured in right turn on red incident. So, I'm having trouble squaring those two numbers away. If the goal is a 20% reduction and we're saying that 20% of collisions with cyclists are happening at with right turn on red, why does that not elevate this issue in your eyes as a potential solution? Uh, thank you through you uh chair. Um the there have none of the cyclists collisions involved right turn on red. They involved right turning vehicle. Right turning vehicle. So the right turn if they're going through right turn on a green getting hit. Okay. That's the right turn. Right. There's the two different conflict points in a right turn. This and here. Right. The right turn on red addresses this one. It does not address this one. So if you've got a heavy cyclist moving going movement going through down a corridor Mhm. The right turn on red's not going to mitigate that collision. Okay. Now, you do said in the report, this is something that's that delegates were critical of this idea that if someone driving can't turn right, they then may become more aggressive. Do we use that rationale for any other rule on the road that somebody might not follow the rule, so therefore we shouldn't have the rule. I'm I'm just trying I'm having difficulty understanding that rationale for you, chair. It's it's not a a big decision factor. It is a consequence of it and and just noted as as as a consequence of right turn on reds. Um you know I've sitted a the right turn on red at uh Brewer Way and Bronson and no right turn on red. I'm getting honked at a lot by people behind me wanting me to go um because of the right turn on red restriction. So that's a bit of an aggressive behavior. Those things happen. It's noted, but it's not a huge decision factor when we determine whether or not we're implementing right turn on red. We really tried to look at the how the intersections being used, the different road users there, and what's in the best interest of everybody. So, if you have a heavy cyclistic pedestrian movement in this direction and a low pedestrian movement in this direction, by concentrating all the right turns when these folks are going reduces their safety, right? but increases the safety on this crosswalk. But if the pedestrian volume is low here, then we've increased the risk for these folks. So what if it balance? What if an advanced green is implemented or a pedestrian advance is is implemented at the same time as the right on red? Yeah, that helps. Does that eliminate the conflict? It doesn't eliminate the conflict. It helps reduce the conflict. Um the only way to fully eliminate the conflict is to have everybody do what they're supposed to do at all times and uh separate everybody in either time or space. So giving everybody a dedicated movement and separating and then everybody following the rules, right? Although I would argue that the frustration of the person who's honking behind you is because it's a surprise to them that there's no redon at that intersection. If it was consistent in a particular zone, driver patterns could adapt. Potentially, potentially. Okay. Um, how many if the goal is to reduce major fatalities by 20% per year, how many people does that represent? Do we know based on the data? It's uh reducing fatal and major injury collisions. I don't have the the number off the top of my head, but I think the average Oh, what was it? We had 749 in the original uh road safety action plans. So, 20% of 749 uh 140 something over a 5year period. Yeah, it's unfortunately that's the data that's contained in a road safety action plan. So yeah, and I think just to expand on a couple of points, the point that you raised, I think is a very valid point that these types of discussions right now we're responding to the inquiry. I think the fullness of the discussions very much is as part of the road safety action plan because as councelor Gower indicated, there's a lot of things that we're also trying to balance. So basically how do we make sure that we're allocating the resources that we have towards the greatest priorities of council. So I I think that is the fullness of the discussion where it should be taking place. I think what we've tried to do is in in trying to keep the responses succinct to the questions that were raised is also provide additional context to some of the data that was provided. And and I my only concern is that basically I think we're taking the numbers and we're just running with the numbers without necessarily reading the paragraphs below. that's giving context around the numbers because when we when you peel it when you peel the onion in terms of reading through all of the details what it shows basically is basically I think there's one collision that was due to a red turn on red restriction so even though we're talking about basically 12 cyclists and five pedestrians those are involve a right turn movement does not mean that that right turn movement would was at a restricted intersection that's why we provide added the additional context below. So in fact when you look at the data the more significant concern is actually the left turns movement that is a far greater concern right now in terms of collision. So I think what we're trying to do is basically use the data that we have provide the proper context to that data and then how do we make sure that we put strategies in place that will make our intersections a lot safer. And I want to come back again to the CAA uh report. The CA report is very much aligned to the approach that the city is taking. The CA report, yes, I think the big value of that report is basically it provides more data in terms of near misses. Uh again, it's at a limited number intersection. It provides a good source of data and information. But even the conclusions from that report doesn't draw the conclusion to say well we should be banning red turns on rate everywhere where it focuses basically is is the approach that the city is taking. Where is it appropriate to have those turns restrictions? How do we implement uh uh lead times for pedestrians that you were mentioning to be able to to increase the visibility? And when we're designing our intersections, how do we try to make them as from an engineering perspective as safe as we can that and that's that very much is aligned also with the city's approach. Okay. So, you mentioned a case by case basis. Um, but as one of the delegates mentioned, coming here, there's very few intersections that are not extremely busy with a high volume of pedestrians in Centertown. Why is a pilot Why wouldn't a pilot area be contemplatable from your perspective? it seems to be in the report a specific zone where there's one rule that everybody can follow because we're I'm hearing a lot and I experience it that the problem with the intersection to intersection approach specifically in the busiest part of the city is that inconsistency is leading to aggression and to people not knowing what they're supposed to be doing. I guess the only way I can answer that question is to go back to the data. If the data told us basically different stats, we would be taking different actions. So to to say could we do a pilot? Yeah, we we can do whatever council directs us to look at. We're just not we're not we're not recommending it at this point to say like the data really doesn't support that in terms of how would it make those areas safer. And and again it's it's not just the streets, it's basically how do you define those zones. It's we're not the island of Montreal where you can say okay once you're in this area everything is treated similarly. The city's not configured the same way. So but our it does not shift the focus around trying to make sure that we use as much as the data that we have to try to apply the right decisions. And again we're not saying that we're not applying red turn on. we are they just we want to make sure that basically we're applying in areas where we're able to demonstrate that yes there's a safety benefit and when you look at the data that we've provided with the additional context I think it points to there's there's other areas that we need to be focusing on to increase the safety of vulnerable users and that's why this is a broader discussion for for the road safety action plan thank you answer to Thank you, chair. Um, thank you again, staff, uh, for answering all of our questions. Um, and to echo, uh, what some of my colleagues have already said, I also am looking forward to our opportunity for the road safety action plan review. I think there's a lot of, uh, issues and questions that we want to explore there, and that is the best opportunity for it. I completely get that. Um, one thing that I I I keep on wanting to come back to and I think staff will agree that when it comes to effective road safety measures, effective safety mechanisms to address conflict between vehicles and vulnerable road users, would staff agree that predictability and consistency are good tools to have in place for effective safety measures? through you. Yes, consistency is very important for road safety and to that degree I do look forward to any kind of conversation that looks at a strategic lens of how to get predictability from let's say right turn on red and I'm not advocating for any one thing but we know why it's easy to implement in Montreal because it's so predictable cross the bridge vial no right turn on red it's easy to get um and I understand your concern that a downtown ban could be hard to demarcate. And I'm not proposing anything here, but I know that school safety zones are predictable because we all understand you're in a school zone, change your behavior. And so theoretically, a pilot that explores right, turn on red exclusively in school zones could achieve predictability and consistency. And the irony here is that going back to what I I heard from the delegate earlier, same thing in my ward. I can't tell you how many parents I hear who live within three blocks of a school, but they will not let their kid walk to that school because they don't feel safe. And what happens then is because they don't feel safe because we don't have any kind of consistency around schools, they drive, which increases congestion. And so it increases the problem that to a certain degree you're trying to address. How do we solve congestion? And in one way, we address congestion not necessarily by freeing up road capacity. We address congestion by making people less reliant on cars. And one way to do that is to make them feel confident that little Billy can walk to school for three blocks and the parents not going to worry and freak out. So I look forward to those conversations. Getting back to policy 64 because what I want to understand here is I think when I ran out of time before you were saying that like in the staff report where it says that something about operational impacts that you address each intersection on a case-byase basis factoring in many issues including operational impacts and I think I understood you say that one action of the road safety action plan was to direct you to come up with criteria. Is that kind of what you said before? That's correct. It was a deliverable of one of the action plans. Did it provide direction on what might be the criteria and was operational impacts explicitly referred to in any instruction that the road safety action plan provided you with? Uh there wasn't any specific instruction on how to develop it. We used our professional judgment. Okay, thank you. Um, and I I have no problem with the issue that departments will have different needs to address competing priorities, traffic safety versus traffic flow versus safety. In the road safety in the policy document, the strategic road safety action plan calls for implementing an overright turn on red restrictions to address various safety concerns, including and it lists them all. Nowhere is operational impacts mentioned at all. And so I have a question for transportation planning staff if I may. Were transportation planning involved in writing the response to the inquiry? I I suspect not. So no, we were not involved in uh responding. And can I just get and I again different competing priorities department. Can I get transportation planning staff's uh input or take on if the road safety action plan if policy 64 which ironically is called make it easier to cross the street and I presume it meant make it easier to cross the street for pedestrians and cyclists. I presume. But if the goal of that policy is to include many measures including right turn on red restrictions and if staff went off and directed developed criteria that include operational impacts i.e. traffic flow. Is that consideration of a is that criteria for consideration consideration over traffic flow? Is that aligned with what transportation planning intended with that policy? Uh so the transportation master plan is a supporting document of the official plan and the road safety action plan is a supporting document of the transportation master plan. So the the TMP sort of sets the the policy framework in terms of uh you know uh improving pedestrian safety, encouraging modal shift uh towards active modes and transit. Uh and it includes some some language around the the situations where we would want to consider right turn on red from a safety perspective. Uh but the details on how to implement that would really be uh worked out through the uh the road safety action plan. And so uh you know certainly it's one of the the measures in the toolbox and the the transportation master plan sort of spoke to the importance of that but we've already heard discussion around some of the other uh measures in the tool box such as the the leading pedestrian intervals and and so on that would also be uh uh uh important for addressing this policy to make it safer to cross the street for pedestrians and cyclists. Thank you. Just just to wrap that up then if if they're meant to be uh directed by the road safety action plan is considerations over operational impacts i.e. traffic is that a lens through which the road safety action plan in terms of its safety initiatives is meant to be um observed through. Thank you. Uh I mean in terms of developing the the policies and the road safety act or the the the criteria in the road safety action plan I mean I think that's that's more sort of on the the road safety action plan team but certainly uh from a a transportation planning perspective uh you know we certainly look at all of the different uh considerations at an intersection for example. So, so safety is certainly part of that. Uh, but you know, you're also considering uh unintended consequences that you may have from from uh impacting traffic flow, for example. So, it is, you know, you want to make sure that what you're implementing uh from a traffic safety perspective and a traffic flow perspective are aligned so that you're not creating problems uh that you're not expecting or intending to create. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair. And just I can also add to to Jennifer's point is I would not want committee to be left with the impression that there's a disconnect between what we do from a traffic perspective to what our colleagues do from a transportation planning perspective. So they will look at we work together they look at it from a macrolevel perspective we look at it from a microlevel perspective. So there is very much alignment between the work that we do and yes some of the policy decisions that are identified through our policy documents we will take it one step deeper around okay how do we implement that uh in the field so that that's why there's very much an alignment between the work that we're doing and that connection that you see also through our policy documents between the road safety action plan the transportation master plan and ultimately the OP councelor trust her. Thank you so much. So, I made this inquiry in response to a series of collisions uh one of which I uh observed this summer that was incredibly upsetting. And after attending the memorial ceremony for a woman named Salony who was killed by a truck driver in front of city hall this summer. And I don't need to tell you what it's like to look in the eyes of the loved one of someone who's been killed in in a in an act of road violence. It's horrific. This woman was a newcomer to Ottawa. Her mother was a single mom in India that uh Salony was supporting. The mother was repeated reportedly hospitalized from shock when she found out her daughter had been killed. And all of her co-workers who work in the building right beside city hall came to this memorial completely shell shocked and devastated. Uh whether this is the solution that we're looking for or not, we are not meeting our obligations when it comes to road safety. And I am seriously concerned if it's changing lifetime mobility patterns for people in our neighborhood. My daughter is almost 14. She should be able to get around herself, but she doesn't feel safe doing so now and she probably isn't safe doing so right now. So, I just really want to question some comments that the chair of this committee made earlier and also suggesting that this is wasting people's time with this noise. This is not noise. This is people's lives. You heard from a young woman who lost her her sister to road violence. And so asking for information, proposing solutions, thinking outside the box, and challenging the city to live up to its obligations. These are not numbers. These are human beings. And so I don't think it's ever a waste of time to have this conversation. So I want to thank staff for the response. There are some elements in your response I fundamentally believe is based on flawed premises. I think not accounting for near misses and the potential for near misses in changing people's behavior. And as I said before, you have the right to be safe and you also have the right to feel safe on our roads. So that was my entire goal with submitting this inquiry was to have the conversation that we had today. I want to thank all of the residents who came to participate. This is about people. This is about people moving around safely in our communities and I would hope you would all agree with me that it's certainly not a waste of time. Thank you very much. Great. Uh thank you for that. Um seeing no further, I did want to take the opportunity to thank staff. Uh before I do that though, um vice chair, uh I've asked you're fine to withdraw the vote. The motion is withdrawn. Great. Thank you. And sorry to force this on people as a procedure. I guess they weren't aware of the procedures. It's really good to know. Uh it actually forces the opportunity to get on the table what we've learned here today. Of course, if we had the opportunity, we would say if we this was a panacea, we'd say absolutely. Let's get rid of rate turns on red. No problem. We also learned today the the ARSAB uh when we get into that that's the venue for these discussions. We're going to continue these discussions and people if they wish to look at you know banning right turns on red and to the counselor that makes mention it's not just a downtown issue. It's everywhere every intersection. But do we want to go ahead and put the clamps on every right turn? I I I I see you nodding yes. Uh but unfortunately it also in the report is very detailed that it actually creates a greater risk for pedestrians that are queuing creating GHGs by idling. That was confirmed by Ecology Ottawa by the Council on Aging. I just actually got a response. Uh, no. They want to proactively work with the city on targeted intersections. They they actually don't h they haven't had a vote. They haven't discussed a targeted ban on right turns on red. We've also heard some other misinformation that is out there and I think it's worth clarifying. Some people thought that Montreal uh it's there still. Quebec got rid of it because it was a gas crisis. Well, I'm a 7374 kid and it that's when the gas crisis happened. The reason why they made changes to the act and the group out of Quebec is called SIAQ. They made the determination that they wanted to harmonize with the rest of the entire country. Had nothing to do with gas savings. It had everything to do with wanting to normalize with the rest of the country. For those that say, "Well, that made a big difference." Well, the stats are that they actually do, the SAQ does stats. They did three year prior to 2003 when they implemented the ban on rate turns when it was in place in Quebec. There was sadly between 20 and 2020 uh 2002 91 uh pedestrian deaths. The following year between 20 uh 2002 and 2004 there was 90. They there is no definitive proof that there's a correlation. What they do and what Vision Zero National says they're about protecting pedestrian signalized phases. We do that in the city. We do it exceptionally well. We give lead time to pedestrians. That's where our focus should be. We've also gone through the fact that you look at right turns, it's the left turns that are the greater issue. We've seen today many people come forward where people are simply breaking the law and not stopping. And I think with the police coming to the table and we're going to see more community policing. We're cracking down on that. That's where our focus should be because you could have as many signs as you want. You can't force people to do anything unless you lay some kind of infraction or charge. Now, we'll continue to work ahead and I appreciate this is a very sensitive subject for people. Some people have gotten very personal about it. I wish to take that out of this. I think we've had a great discussion today. The discussion will continue. It will not end. When it comes to this is flashbacks to when we also had a great debate about the Idaho stop last term. Does anyone remember that? where a lot of people wanted to be able to bicycle through red lights. The public had outcry. They were very frustrated where you create two separate very confusing set of rules for people. And unfortunately, we had to go through the same procedure as this where we put the stop to it. And we said, "No, we're not discussing this." We've done the same here today. It's been confirmed by staff. If we want to ban right turns on red, live and die by the sword. Put a motion forward. I have no problem with that, but it will be up to the public to be able to give us the feedback in an appropriate venue and an appropriate time. I know this is not the results that some people wanted to hear and they wanted to twist the narrative that our professional city staff have provided us. They really have. They've done a tremendous job. Do you think any staff member who wants to put people in danger? Clearly not. So on that we do have a report and it's in front of us today. I've checked if you I'm going to ask to receive it but if you don't believe in it you can also say you don't wish to receive it and you can vote on it. So I leave it up to you. I'm looking definitively. Is this received descent? So in that case, I'm looking at you, Robbie. Does that require recorded vote at this point? No, chair. Uh, but the one descent will be noted. Thank you very much. Most appreciated. Okay, so on that uh I will proceed ahead. Oh. Oh, yes. On to more fun stuff. We're on to the paint it up program results and it's just simply in the agenda. So we'll move along to the next item in the agenda. Uh we have uh councelor Low with the water shield parking. Thank you chair. Um I do want to note that uh the there is a replacement version of the motion. It just uh changes one of the points in the operative clause. Uh if it's on the screen there, I'll read it in. Uh therefore, be resolved. The public works and infrastructure committee recommends council direct staff to implement a year-round full-time parking prohibition on the same side as the existing winter parking prohibition replacing the winter parking prohibition on the following streets before the 1st of April 2026. Uh Sicily, Corout Routt, Jensen, Spring Beauty, Sweet Flag, Twylade, and Water Shield. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. All right. So, we have this on the floor. Is there any questions of the council? Councelor Trustster. Thanks again. So, I know we looked at this at previous committee. So, the only time this parking ban is happening though is when the mosque is has its busy ceremonies on Fridays. The current version of the motion, no, the current version of the motion would take away parking on the same side as the existing winter parking ban at all times. At all times. At all times. Okay. So, thank you for the clarification. Yeah. You know, it's it's a it's appreciated because he did work with it. He did hear the concerns of this committee. Uh is there any further questions on this item? Seeing none, is this item carried? Thank you. Desented as well. Yeah. Okay. And uh so did the two descents are noted? Thank you. Uh so I believe do we have anything more on the agenda? Oh, maybe I'll get to Vice Chair Kits to take this for a second because I have the bladder of a squirrel. uh if you could uh take over this component for two seconds. Sure. We have a notice of motion from councelor Truster on behalf of councelor Kavanagh. Thank you very much. This is on behalf of councelor Kavanagh. Whereas road murals provide significant community benefits by capturing drivers attention. They can help calm traffic and improve pedestrian safety creating streets that feel more welcoming and secure. And whereas beyond safety, these murals celebrate local culture and history, featuring a sense of fostering a sense of identity and pride among residents. And whereas road murals also make neighborhoods more visually appealing and distinctive, attracting visitors and supporting tourism, reflect local culture and history, strengthening community connections and make neighborhoods more inviting and distinctive. And whereas there are currently no clear directives from the city of Ottawa to communities on how to safely implement road murals, and that residents have been requesting clear guidance to begin projects for some time. Therefore, be it resolved that staff develop regulations regarding murals on city roads, including which streets are permitted to have on street murals, um, for example, residential versus arterial, local considerations such as minimum distance from curbs and intersections, aesthetic safety issues to ensure that they do not obstruct or mimic traffic signs or devices, accepted paint types, which are skid resistant, non-reflected, and durable regulations around the maintenance and removal of degrading murals. Funding for accepted projects be integrated under the Ward temporary traffic calming budget, rightway and road closure considerations during the painting process, and be it further resolved that staff work toward developing clear information for residents interested in creating a road mural such as a how-to guide, a permit application method for residents that is clear, accessible, and online and be it further resolved that these regulations be completed by the end of Q2 2026. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Truster. So, we'll deal with that uh at the next meeting. Um the next one is moved by myself um and we're asking that the rules of procedure be waved uh because it is of a time-sensitive nature. So is that carried? Thank you. So whereas on April 12th, 2023, city council approved the recommendations from the report right ofway patio bylaw update and new urban design guidelines for commercial patios. And whereas council granted the manager rightway heritage and urban design in consultation with the director of traffic services together with the director of roads and parking services the delegated authority for seasonal road closures for an additional period of 3 years through March 2026. And whereas an extension to the delegated authority is required to allow for the approval of seasonal road closure requests for the purposes of placemaking and economic activity on our city's local streets particularly in the downtown and byward market. And whereas staff intend to recommend this change permanently as part of the delegation of authority bylaw review in the next term of council. Therefore, be it resolved that public works and infrastructure committee recommend council approve the extension of delegated authority to the director rightaway heritage and urban design in consultation with the director of traffic services together with the director of roads and parking services for seasonal road closures to December 2027. Madame Chair, um because you're in the chair, point of order. because you're in the chair. Uh, I'll suggest that I'll I'll move that motion on your behalf. Sure. Are there any questions? Okay, great. Carried. Great. Are there any inquiries? Seeing a none, uh, there's no other business, so we are adjourned. The next meeting is Monday, March 30th. Thank you.

Full Transcript