2. Ready To Go Infrastructure Projects Funding Request: Additional New Sidewalk List

Demande de financement des projets d’infrastructures prioritaires prêts pour la mise en chantier : nouvelle liste de trottoirs supplémentaires

Committee Recommendation

That Council approve the priority list of additional sidewalks, as outlined in Document 1, as a base for implementation through the Ready-To-Go Infrastructure Funding.

Recommandation du comité

Que le Conseil d’approuver la liste prioritaire des trottoirs supplémentaires, telle que présentée dans le Document 1, comme fondement aux fins de mise en œuvre par le biais du Financement des projets d’infrastructures prioritaires prêts pour la mise en chantier.

Documentation

1. City Manager’s report, Infrastructure Services and Community Sustainability dated 08 June 2009 (ACS2009-ICS-PGM-0101).

2. Extract of Draft Minute, 17 June 2009.

Report to/Rapport au:

Transportation Committee

Comité des transports

and Council / et au Conseil

08 June 2009 / le 08 juin 2009

Submitted by/Soumis par: Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager/Directrice municipale

adjointe,

Infrastructure Services and Community Sustainability/Services d’infrastructure et

Viabilité des collectivités

Contact/Personne-ressource : Vivi Chi, Manager /Gestionnaire, Transportation Planning/Planification des transports, Planning and Growth Management/ Direction de l'urbanisme et de la gestion de la croissance

613-580-2424, x 28869, Vivi.Chi@ottawa.ca

City-wide

Ref N°: ACS2009-ICS-PGM-0101

SUBJECT:	READY-TO-GO INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS FUNDING REQUEST: ADDITIONAL NEW sIDEWALK LIST

OBJET:	demande de financement des projets d’infrastructures prioritaires prêts pour la mise en chantier : nouvelle liste de trottoirs supplémentaires

REPORT RECOMMENDATION

That Transportation Committee recommend that Council approve the priority list of additional sidewalks, as outlined in Document 1, as a base for implementation through the Ready-To-Go Infrastructure Funding.

RECOMMANDATION DU RAPPORT

Que le Comité des transports recommande au Conseil d’approuver la liste prioritaire des trottoirs supplémentaires, telle que présentée dans le Document 1, comme fondement aux fins de mise en œuvre par le biais du Financement des projets d’infrastructures prioritaires prêts pour la mise en chantier.

BACKGROUND

As part of its 2009 Budget, the federal government announced an economic stimulus package to provide significant infrastructure funding opportunities for municipalities across Canada.

On 3 January 2009, Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee approved a motion directing staff to develop a comprehensive priority list of all City ready-to-go projects for consideration by Committee and Council. Consequently, on 3 February 2009 Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee considered the list of ready-to-go infrastructure projects (ACS2009-CMR-OCM-0002). At that time, Committee further directed staff to refine the list of projects and report back with an updated version that included adjustments to funding requirements, consideration of Councillors’ requests, and additional information regarding eligibility criteria. Subsequently, at its meeting of 8 April 2009, Council approved the list of ready-to-go infrastructure projects (ACS2009-ICS-DCM-0002) to be submitted to the federal government for funding consideration under the Economic Stimulus Fund. The list reflected Council’s priorities, particularly in regard to transit investment, and maintenance and renewal of City-owned assets. Included on the Candidate Project List for Sidewalks was an item for $3,000,000 for additional priority sidewalks, to be determined and brought forward to Committee, prior to the end of Q2 2009. On June 5, 2009 the Province of Ontario and Government of Canada announced their funding commitment to support these projects under the Economic Stimulus Fund.

This report presents for Transportation Committee’s consideration, the proposed list of additional sidewalk locations.

DISCUSSION

Pedestrian facilites are critical to achieveing the City’s vision as articulated in the Official Plan, Transportation Master Plan and draft Ottawa Pedestrian Plan and in supporting the walking mode as an attractive alternate transportation option to automobile driving.

Staff has reviewed the existing database of candidate sidewalk locations awaiting funding for implementation with a focus on addressing gaps and discontinuities in the existing pedestrian network. The database is compiled based on community requests as well as projects identified in the draft Ottawa Pedestrian Plan.

Further assessment was undertaken for site-specific constraints, challenges and opportunities to link communities to transit routes, schools and public facilities, parkland and greenspace, institutions, commercial, retail and employment centres. Using the draft Pedestrian Plan proposed new rating system, a number of key factors related to traffic characteristics (e.g. posted speed, volume), roadway geometry (e.g. linearity, grade, lanes, site-lines) adjacent land-use (e.g. density, use) and mobility (e.g. connectivity, barriers) and accessibility were considered in this evaluation. Each factor is assigned a weighted value to clearly separate the priority ranking of each individual segment relative to the entire list. As well, a concurrent Pleasant Park Area Traffic Management (ATM) Study (ACS2009-ICS-PGM-0077) identified a sidewalk on the north side of Pleasant Park Road between Alta Vista Drive and Rodney Crescent as the most feasible option for facilitating pedestrian movement (in conjunction with and multi-way stop controls on Pleasant Park Road at Cavendish Road addressed in the above referenced ATM report). As such, the proposed new rating system for sidewalks was applied to Pleasant Park resulting in it ranking in the top 20 segments for consideration under the Economic Stimulus Fund.

The first 20 sidewalk segments with a total cost of approximately $3M are provided for Council consideration to be implemented in the order of the recommended priority shown in Document 1. These proposed projects are considered priority relative to other sidewalk candidates based on their role in the pedestrian transportation network and also their alignment with the policies of the Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan and other City policy documents. In the event that these projects are completed for less than the estimated $3M, any residual funding will be allocated to implementation of appropriate priority sidewalk segments identified in the Ottawa Pedestrian Plan, applying the proposed new rating system.

Full details of each proposed project are presented in a series of project summary sheets (Document 2).

Most of these proposed projects represent those larger-scale (higher-cost), high-priority sidewalk projects than have previously been deferred as their individual project cost exceeded the entire annual funding envelope for the Sidewalk Program ($180K in 2009). Applying the stimulus funding to implement the majority of these projects will further Council's vision and contribute to closing the gap in the Sidewalk Program.

CONSULTATION

The proposed sidewalk projects gleaned from the City’s list of potential candidate locations for installation of a sidewalk under the New Sidewalk Program have been either requested specifically by the Ward Councillor or directly by local residents. Projects identified in the draft Ottawa Pedestrian Plan have been subject to broad public consultation during the public consultation process associated with the Ottawa Pedestrian Plan Study. Should these projects be approved, a courtesy notice would be provided to residents on the listed streets, as is standard practise.

LEGAL/RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS

There are no legal or risk management impediments to the implementation of this report’s recommendations.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

$3M for Pedestrian New Sidewalks – City-wide has been approved under the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund. The governments of Canada and Ontario will each contribute $1M; and the City will fund the remaining $1M.

An upcoming report to Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee, and Council, will detail the City’s financing of all approved Infrastructure Stimulus Fund projects.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

Document 1 - Additional New Sidewalk Priority List for Ready-To-Go Infrastructure Projects

Document 2 - Project Summary Sheets

DISPOSITION

Subject to Council approval and to federal funding realization, staff will proceed with sidewalks implementation.

ADDITIONAL NEW SIDEWALK PRIORITY LIST FOR

READY-TO-GO INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS DOCUMENT 1

Priority	Ward	Street	From	To	Length (m)	Cost ($)	Cumulative ($)
1	16	Brookfield	Flannery	Riverside	420	174,300	174,300
2	7	Fairlawn	Lenester	Queensgrove	400	166,000	340,300
3	4	Campeau	Hawkstone	Bus Stop 2421	25	10,375	350,675
4	16	Baseline	Fisher	Prince of Wales	800	332,000	682,675
5	16	Merivale	Caldwell	Baseline	800	332,000	1,014,675
6	8	Moodie	Robertson	Fitzgerald	400	166,000	1,180,675
7	2	Des Epinettes	Winter Rose	Jeanne D'Arc	54	22,410	1,203,085
8	1	Duford	Lacroix	Fraser	450	186,750	1,389,835
9	15	Athlone	Richmond	Scott	295	122,425	1,512,260
10	23	Steeple Chase	Sauble	Stonehaven	435	180,525	1,692,785
11	8	Bel-Air	Garfield	Garfield	480	199,200	1,891,985
12	16	Fisher	Viewmount	Prince of Wales	400	166,000	2,057,985
13	2	Carriere	Orleans	Michaelsem	295	122,425	2,180,410
14	2	Carriere	Belcourt	Michaelsem	135	56,025	2,236,435
15	9	Knoxdale	Gibbard	Skipton	310	128,650	2,365,085
16	16	Edgecliffe	Cavan	Caldwell	435	180,525	2,545,610
17	3	Woodgate	Earl Mulligan	pathway	345	143,175	2,688,785
18	18	Pleasant Park	Alta Vista	Rodney	470	203,000	2,891,785
19	15	Iona	Mayfair	Island Park	209	86,735	2,978,520
20	18	Acton	Knox	Station	145	60,175	3,038,695