The Nepean Trail – let’s make the connection!
Cycling in Ottawa is all about options.
In Nepean, we should have the option of cycling through our community and to our desired destinations in a safe environment. For many years, the NCC and Ottawa City Council have promised us these sorts of options.
Cycling paths are an excellent way to provide safe transportation options, tie our communities together, increase physical activity for children and adults, and reduce our impact on the environment.
Nepean is fortunate to have many pathways that weave through forests and housing. However, these existing pathways are only part of the cycling vision for our community that has been left unfinished since 1982 - the Nepean Trail.
Completing the Nepean Trail will connect communities and can help revitalize stagnant commercial areas. From one side of Knoxdale-Merivale to the other, it’s time to complete what the City of Nepean envisioned and began more than 25 years ago. Consider it a community building project that will bring residents together in partnership with the City, community associations and local businesses.
Let’s exercise our options and work together to become a stronger community by completing the Nepean Trail.
New cycling projects don’t include Nepean
The City’s August approval of cycling-friendly projects is a step forward for Ottawa, except for one thing - the plan excludes Nepean. There is nothing in the City’s recent decision that advances the completion of our own cycling and pedestrian pathway called the Nepean Trail.
Experts agree that we are on the right track when we complete the Nepean Trail for the use of cyclists and pedestrians as recommended in the 1982 Official Plan of Nepean. Completing our trail will cost $160,000 based on City funding estimates of $80,000/km.
Merivale Rd. traffic is negatively affecting business
Too much of anything can be bad. Traffic on Merivale is very slow. From a business perspective, developing the Nepean Trail can help alleviate some of the traffic woes currently being experienced on Merivale and help ensure residents can reach local destinations in a timely manner.
Right now, residents living on either side must drive to reach their destinations on Merivale, getting in and out of their cars to go short distances. Completing the Nepean Trail will provide a safe alternative to driving, ensuring that customers who can walk or cycle arrive safely while also reducing the amount of local traffic on Merivale. With the addition of Walmart on the corner of Clyde and Baseline, traffic on Merivale is destined to increase significantly in the immediate future. The enhancement of carbon-free transportation options will boost Merivale commercial and retail renewal.
Enhancing communities
Increasing cycling and walkway corridors will provide the opportunity to dramatically improve the commercial-to-residential transition along the trail. That’s how we’ll help community residents take down the walls on Grant Carmen. Grant Carmen should not be a peripheral road to Merivale, but rather the centre of an emerging community of common interest from Borden Farm and West Park through to the backs of the big boxes on Merivale itself.
Most planners seem to agree that Merivale Road, having served as the area’s major arterial road for decades, remains the domain of motor vehicles and the City’s Transportation Master Plan suggests this is not about to change.
Dedicated cylcing lanes on Merivale Road are not viable. Instead, let’s immediately improve mobility and quality of life options for the residents of Borden Farm, Skyline and Fisher Heights specifically, and for all residents in Knoxdale-Merivale from one end of the completed Nepean Trail to the other.
In the future, we should look to further enhancing the trail by considering the restoration of Nepean Creek’s adjacent green spaces. At the moment, the 700 new residents of Fisher Glen have only Colonnade Road as transportation access. We can improve access to recreation at Merivale Arena and education at Merivale High School for those who now live south of Nepean Creek. Cost for this enhancement is an estimated $80,000.
We should also examine the benefits of following the creek’s flow to the Rideau River and the NCC’s Scenic Entry on Prince of Wales Drive. The City’s redevelopment of Prince of Wales Drive is scheduled to begin in the very near future and any plans must call for the inclusion of riverside bicycle and pedestrian pathways along that route.
If we look ahead now, we can make the connection.
Geographic description of proposed completion of the Nepean Trail
- Cycling lanes running east-west along Woodfield Drive from the end of the current path to Merivale Rd. at the intersection of Woodfield Drive and Merivale Rd.
- Dedicated cycling path that runs along the east side of Merivale Rd. heading north under the railway bridge and connecting to the existing path at the edge of Nepean Creek
- Cycling lanes running north-south along Grant Carmen from Viewmount to Meadowlands as outlined in the Official Plan
- Dedicated cycling path running north-south along the Hydro easement from Meadowlands Drive to Beaver Ridge and down to Baseline Rd. in the community of Fisher Heights-Skyline, again, as outlined in the Official Plan
- Completion of the Nepean Trail along the south side of Nepean Creek beginning at the intersection of the southern extension of Grant Carmen and the creek and proceeding eastward on the south side to its mouth at Prince of Wales Drive and the Rideau River
