Race Weekend Must Run A Better Route

05/26/2023

The Ottawa Race Weekend is back and the choice of roads is questionable again. Here’s why:

From what I can tell, the Champlain, Portage and Alexandra Bridges will close at various times on the weekend. The Chaudiere Bridge, due to flooding delays, is closed for construction until July.

The race weekend is a wonderful thing for the economy and participants. No question about it. How can you not support it? But somehow, the race planners, city staff and police must be able to choose the best routes so that almost all the bridges to Gatineau are not closed for significant lengths of time. The race weekend wants the best routes for its races. But not only is there a race to run but also a city to run.

In short, the race weekend is being selfish.

The recent CHEO bike extravaganza caused absolutely monstrous traffic jams down King Edward Avenue approaching Highway 5 in Quebec. People should have brought barbecues for tailgating.

And then there’s the inconvenience for people who live inside the giant circle of the race. Your agent has never seen road rage as bad as on residential streets when people who need to be someplace have tried repeatedly and failed to find a way across the route because there isn’t one. Someone will be killed.

You know the race is wonderful but with a small amount of intelligence and the race not occupying all the best routes in Ottawa, maybe this transportation mess would not happen.

Hit A Pothole? City Charm Will Fix It

The race weekend has suggested that if you really need to get out of the race circle that you park on the outside of it. That might work a bit but what if you are elderly or disabled. Those people desperately depend on their cars. Not everyone is fit enough to run 26 miles.

Drivers aren’t being selfish and most certainly don’t mind small delays but the people responsible for these events must think about a working city. And so too should the police and especially the city.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is running in the race. He is ideally expert in this to help design a more efficient route next year:

Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend is returning to Ottawa streets this weekend, from Saturday May 27 to Sunday, May 28.

The running event starts and ends at Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier Avenue West, and involves intermittent lane reductions and closures on Saturday, from as early as 1 pm until 9 pm, and on Sunday, from as early as 5 am until 2 pm, on various roadways along the routes.

Major roads impacted at various times by the event include:

Queen Elizabeth Drive
Laurier Avenue
Elgin Street
Lisgar Street
Cartier Street
Queen Street
Metcalfe Street
O’Connor Street
Wellington Street
Colonel By Drive
Pretoria Bridge
Rideau Street
Preston Street, south of Carling
Carling Avenue
Sussex Drive
Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway
Alexandra Bridge
Sir George Étienne Cartier Parkway

A full listing of the lane reductions, road closures and times are located on the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend website.

Saturday, May 27 also marks another edition of the Great Glebe Garage Sale. The event, which runs from 8 am to 2:30 pm, will bring additional traffic and limit available parking in the Glebe.