Last night Cllr Mathieu Fleury invited residents from Lowertown & Sandy Hill to come together and discuss outstanding concerns surrounding the opening of Chapel St and Beausoleil to cars. Please see past articles for details.
The evening was animated, at times challenging and very vocal. Almost every attendee contributed forceful yet positive ideas on how to bring proactive changes that benefit the whole community rather than a segment.
The take-away from this meeting is that the communities have asked for the City & Councillor to make the intersection bike-only on to Chapel within the next two weeks to discourage drivers from becoming familiar with a new route that would be closed off (City’s timeline) in the spring. With the advent of RightBike kiosks coming to Sandy Hill what better time than now to take action to promote and provide cycling infrastructure.
Alongside this action many additional ideas were put forth including:
- the beautification of the bike intersection with planters
- using the intersection to create an urban cycle track – for all level of cyclists old & v young – for safe bike passage to Market
- the installation of further traffic calming measure to increase school crossing safety – signs, speed bumps, reduced speed limits
Improvements don’t happen in a vacuum and local residents showcased powerful voices, visionary ideas with a readiness to listen and collaborate to make the adjoining areas the most brilliant urban Ottawa neighbourhoods!
Sandy Hill Seen 