Tag: LRT

Update on Connaught Park: Your Feedback and Start of Construction

Your feedback is instrumental

We would like to thank the over 30 individuals who included us on their emails while participating in the Connaught Park landscaping plan consultation. In addition, we’re aware of many more individuals who took the time to provide thoughtful and meaningful input on this important project. We continue to work with the involved parties to ensure your suggestions are both understood and meaningfully considered – we will provide periodic updates as we pursue tangible solutions.

Want updates? Subscribe to the City’s newsletters

While we are engaged on the LRT projects in QTN, for project updates and official communications we encourage you to subscribe to the City’s official Project newsletters – for the west extension as well as all the stations you wish to follow. Public notices, by mail, are only distributed within limited areas so to ensure you receive a copy of these important messages please make sure to subscribe to the appropriate station newsletters.

What’s next? Construction is starting

The City has made us aware of an imminent public notice related to the commencement of construction in Connaught Park (click here to access it). To begin this project, utility relocation will commence in Connaught Park next month followed by similar work on Connaught and Hanlon later this summer (~June). Prior to this commencing you will see signage, fences, and construction equipment being erected in Connaught Park (Note: the baseball diamond will become a staging site for several years).

Following this, construction on the tunnel portion of the LRT will begin – including the cut and cover section on Connaught Ave. Detours and delays are expected but access will remain throughout (e.g., steel plates as covers similar to what you might see with sewer work). Construction this year will focus primarily on the substructure with completion of the superstructure next year.

Additionally, excavation work will be beginning on the south side of the current OC Transpo facility and we have been informed that crews will be using Queensview Drive and exiting towards Pinecrest (i.e., not through the neighbourhood).

We hope that this update provides some clarity on what you might see while walking the neighbourhood during these challenging times. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact ourselves (qtncommunity@gmail.com) or the Stage 2 Project Team (stage2@ottawa.ca).

Update on Berms and LRT in Connaught Park: Deadline extended to April 20

We would like to share that you have a few more days to take a look at plans for berms in Connaught Park and send in your thoughts. The deadline was extended to April 20, after your association asked for more time.

Thanks to those who have already spoken up. More voices will help get the best possible design.

Go to www.connaughtpinecrest.ca  to see photos and respond (higher resolution PDFs are available in our previous post). If you copy qtncommunity@gmail.ca on your response, we will help ensure that residents get answers to their questions and concerns.

Based on your feedback, three points are emerging as priorities for QTN residents:

  1. The fly-over, berms, and tree-plantings need to be designed together in a way that reduces the visual and noise impact of the LRT for residents and users of the public green space.
  2. The berms need to be part of a user-friendly landscape plan that includes convenient paths for biking and walking; recreational uses; a variety of trees, including fruit trees;  quiet spaces and spaces for dog-walkers; with possibilities for other uses such as a community garden.
  3. The landscape plan needs to ensure good drainage, allow for renewal of the Pinecrest Creek, and ensure good connectivity to LRT stations and other destinations.

Act now, April 15 deadline – Public consultation on Berms and LRT through QTN

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We just learned that public input for the proposed berms between the Connaught Park LRT fly-over and QTN community has been opened for feedback. You can participate by visiting www.connaughtpinecrest.ca – note that the consultation closes on April 15, one week from today.

We are asking you to show that QTN residents care about what happens in Connaught Park by going to the website and providing some feedback. Provide your own views, ask questions, ask for more information. Most important at this time is to let the contractor and the National Capital Commission know that QTN residents care and that the impacts for our neighborhood need to be considered in the design of both the LRT structure itself and the berms and landscaping that go along with it.

QTN is more than a corridor to get from Kanata to downtown. How the LRT is designed and built through our area will have long-term impacts. Your voice now will help ensure that we get the best possible design of both the fly-over and what is done to mitigate the visual and sound impacts of a tall and large structure that will be part of our future reality.

We are troubled by the lack of detailed information as well as the limited ways and time provided for consultation. Your community association representatives sit a working group established by Councillor Kavanaugh and we will continue to work hard to make sure that the shared concerns and positive suggestions of QTN residents are considered.

When sending your feedback to info-KEV@kiewit.com, if you copy qtncommunity@gmail.com – or contact us separately – we will follow up as the process moves into the next stages after this one week email consultation has completed. Our ability to be effective depends on working together as a community. Other communities have seen changes to benefit their communities.

We will do our best; we need your help now. Let your neighbors know and encourage them to respond as well.

For additional information, please see our earlier post regarding Updates on LRT Phase 2

Update #1 – Higher-resolution PDF Drawings

It has come to our attention that the consultation website drawings are difficult to read. Here are a pair of PDF documents that the Stage 2 LRT team has shared with us of Connaught Park and Pinecrest (note: the drawing is labelled Pinecrest but the berm is actually in Bel-Air Park off Woodroffe).

Update #2 – Deadline modified to April 20

Originally the contractor’s website listed a deadline of April 15th, this has been modified to April 20th. We have also been made aware of a Public Consultation Notice (PDF, bilingual) detailing aspects of the consultation process.