The Bridge is Coming!
National Capital Region · Impact Assessment
Public Feedback on the Eastern Bridge Project: An Early Read of the IAAC Record
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada is taking comments on the summary of the Initial Project Description for the Eastern Bridge Project — the proposed interprovincial crossing widely known as the Kettle Island bridge, or the sixth crossing. As of 22 September 2026, the registry listed 241 contributions. That is a first-wave snapshot, not the final record. Even so, the pattern is already clear: nearby residents are using the federal process to contest the chosen corridor, while a smaller set of voices argue that an eastern crossing is overdue.
1. Two different publics are speaking
It is a mistake to treat the IAAC registry as a regional poll. People who live next to the proposed truck route have the strongest incentive to write in the first three weeks. A broader NCC survey in 2025 (5,113 responses) produced a more mixed picture: getting trucks out of downtown was the most-cited potential benefit, while traffic dumped onto nearby neighbourhoods was the top concern.5,6
Those two findings are not contradictions. They are the project’s political problem in one sentence. Many people want the downtown truck problem solved. Many of the same people, or their neighbours a few kilometres east, do not want Aviation Parkway turned into the replacement freight corridor.
Chart 1. 2025 NCC Round 1 survey: most important potential benefit
Source: NCC Round 1 public participation reporting, as summarized in Ottawa Sun coverage of the 5,113-response survey.5,6
Chart 2. Same 2025 survey: top-ranked environmental concerns, Ontario vs Quebec
Source: Eastern Bridge Project, Public Participation Round 1 summary report.7
2. What the first 241 IAAC comments actually say
Titles and sampled full texts from the registry are overwhelmingly opposed to the Kettle Island / Aviation Parkway alignment. Support is present — “In favour of Project,” “UNE EXCELLENTE IDÉE,” “A Very Needed Bridge” — but it is a minority of the early file. French-language comments are numerous and mostly critical of the chosen corridor.8
Chart 3. Relative prominence of themes in early IAAC comments
Based on IAAC registry titles and sampled texts, project 90709, as of 22 September 2026.8
The opposition case, compressed
- Location, not always the idea of a crossing. Many writers accept that King Edward and the Macdonald-Cartier approach are a freight mess. They say this corridor only relocates the mess onto Aviation Parkway, Montreal Road, Ogilvie Road and Highway 417, through housing, schools and the Montfort Hospital area. Older study figures cited in local debate — that only a modest share of King Edward trucks would divert — keep getting repeated.9,10
- Kettle Island is not vacant land. The island is a Nature Conservancy of Canada nature reserve (about 98 percent acquired in 2007 as an Ecological Gift), closed to the public, with silver maple swamp, hackberry, endangered butternut, map turtle, northern watersnake and bird habitat. Commenters treat a crossing at or across the island as a loss of one of the last relatively intact river islands in the urban reach.11,12
- A parkway is not a truckway. Aviation Parkway was laid out as a scenic, lower-speed route with a major multi-use path. Residents say truck conversion would split neighbourhoods, degrade the path, raise noise and emissions, and hit property values. Fallback demands if it proceeds anyway: high noise walls and many grade-separated crossings.
- Induced demand and climate. Former Gatineau mayor Emmanuelle Pedneaud-Jobin and others argue that new road capacity generates traffic and that the money would buy more lasting mobility if spent on transit and demand management. Some would accept a crossing reserved for electric buses, tram or active modes — not general traffic and trucks.8
- Process. Several submissions call six weeks too short for a multi-billion-dollar interprovincial file. Rockcliffe Park–linked comments ask for an extension. Recurring charges: the exercise feels predetermined; Indigenous consultation has not been meaningful; GBA+ findings of disproportionate local impact were ignored.8
The support case, compressed
Support comments are shorter and fewer so far. They cluster around four points:
- The five existing bridges sit in a downtown cluster; an eastern crossing is a missing link.
- Leaving thousands of daily trucks on King Edward / Lowertown is also a planning failure.
- East-end Ottawa to east-end Gatineau trips currently require a long dog-leg west.
- If built, the bridge should be a complete corridor: wide multi-use path, lookouts, protected intersections, and a direct active-transportation link to Montfort Hospital and nearby stations.
Antoine Normand’s comment is the strongest “yes, and build another in the west” version: the existing spans sit inside a two-kilometre choke point; eastern and western crossings would serve the whole region. Juan L. supports the link but conditions it on walking, cycling and transit design.8
3. The freight numbers behind the argument
The official case leans on a simple geography of trucks. About 3,500 trucks cross the Ottawa River each day. Seventy-two percent use the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge. Sixty-seven percent of heavy trucks on the King Edward corridor have an origin or destination outside the immediate area. More than 75 percent of trucks use a route that starts or ends east of the Gatineau or Rideau rivers. Morning peak congestion is projected to rise 53 percent from 2011 to 2050. The region is described as growing from about 1.6 million people in 2024 toward nearly 2 million by mid-century.3,4,13
Chart 4. Official truck and growth figures used to justify a new crossing
4. Geography is doing most of the political work
This is the same split the file has had for more than a decade. Downtown groups that live with King Edward trucks have often supported an eastern freight route. Neighbourhoods along Aviation Parkway have opposed it. Gatineau’s federal politics have generally been warmer to an eastern crossing than Ottawa–Vanier–Gloucester’s. Local media and elected statements in 2025–2026 track that map: Gatineau MP Steve MacKinnon has backed the project; Ottawa–Vanier–Gloucester MP Mona Fortier and several local councillors have said the current proposal does not meet Ottawa’s needs.9,10,14,15
| Community or actor | Typical stance on this corridor | Main reason given |
|---|---|---|
| Lowertown / King Edward corridor | More supportive of an eastern truck route | Remove heavy trucks from a downtown main street |
| Manor Park, Rockcliffe Park, Wateridge, Carson Grove, Aviation Parkway | Strongly opposed | Noise, pollution, path loss, 417/Montreal Rd congestion, hospital access |
| East Gatineau / Montée Paiement residents | Mixed to opposed locally | Local traffic, river and shoreline impacts |
| Gatineau federal leadership | Generally supportive | Missing eastern link; regional economy; trucks off the core |
| Ottawa–Vanier–Gloucester MP / some councillors / MPP Ottawa–Vanier | Opposed to current proposal | Weak demonstrated benefit for Ottawa; community impacts; provincial planning gap |
| Environmental groups working the island | Opposed to this alignment | Nature reserve, species at risk, river ecology, induced traffic |
Chart 5. Comparative frame: what each side is optimizing for
| Proponent / support frame | Early public-comment frame |
|---|---|
| Regional capacity for ~2 million people | Local liveability for ~30,000 people within 1 km of the corridor4 |
| Get trucks off KERWN / King Edward | Do not put those trucks on a parkway and a nature reserve |
| Corridor 5 is the technically preferred route from studies since 2006 | Technical preference is not social licence; look farther east or south |
| Multi-modal design, HOV/transit lane, active transportation | A car-and-truck bridge will induce demand whatever the pathway width |
| Impact assessment will manage effects | Six weeks and a settled corridor make the assessment feel after-the-fact |
Left column from the IPD/PSPC purpose statements; right column from recurring IAAC comment language.
5. How much weight this snapshot deserves
Give the 241 registry comments full weight as a measure of intensity among the most affected households. Do not give them full weight as a measure of regional opinion. The 2025 NCC survey is the better (still imperfect) read of broader priorities: truck diversion is popular in principle; putting that traffic through quiet east-end streets is not. The NCC itself noted strong participation from middle- to upper-income households and under-representation of younger and racialized residents in that survey.5
The comment window still has more than two weeks to run as of this writing. Community associations, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ottawa Riverkeeper, municipalities and Indigenous nations often file closer to the deadline. Those briefs will matter more to the Agency than one-paragraph notes. Watch especially for:
- whether the Agency is asked, in volume, to extend the 9 October date;
- whether Indigenous nations describe the consultation to date as adequate;
- whether any municipality files a formal position on Corridor 5 versus alternatives;
- whether supporters from downtown and Gatineau show up in comparable numbers.
6. Bottom line
Public feedback to date on the IAAC registry is a loud, geographically concentrated “not here.” The core public case against the project is that it spends a very large sum to move a downtown truck problem a few kilometres east, onto a nature reserve and through communities that were never designed as a freight corridor, while doing too little on transit and demand. The core public case for it is that the region is growing, the existing crossings are clustered, and leaving on the order of 3,500 daily trucks — most of them on Macdonald-Cartier — is also a failure.
Those two arguments have not been reconciled. That is why this project keeps returning, from the 2006–2013 studies, through the 2012–2013 political collapse, the 2019 refresh, and the 2024–2026 revival.4,14 The planning-phase comments will not settle the engineering. They already show where the fight will be: not “bridge versus no bridge” in the abstract, but whether Corridor 5 is an acceptable place to put one.
References
- Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. Eastern Bridge Project, reference no. 90709. https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/90709
- Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. Public contributions / comments on project 90709. https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/90709/contributions
- Public Services and Procurement Canada. “Eastern Bridge in the National Capital Region.” canada.ca project page
- Public Services and Procurement Canada. Eastern Bridge Project: Summary of the Initial Project Description (August 2026) and Initial Project Description. IAAC documents 167690 and 167689. Summary PDF
- Ottawa Sun. “Trucks out of downtown tops NCC survey on sixth bridge.” Coverage of the 5,113-response Round 1 survey, including the 38.5 percent figure for reducing truck traffic. ottawasun.com
- National Capital Commission. “An Eastern Bridge in the National Capital Region.” Project page and links to Round 1 participation materials. ncc-ccn.gc.ca
- National Capital Commission. Eastern Bridge Project – Public Participation Round 1 summary report (environmental-concern rankings by Ontario and Quebec respondents). Linked from the NCC project page / document repository.
- IAAC registry contributions sampled 22 September 2026, including comments by Val Chevrier, Monika Michalska, Angele Dumont, Stefan Py, Pilar Venegas, Antoine Normand, Juan L., Emmanuelle Pedneaud-Jobin, Hilaire Cholette, Amélie Rousseau, Raymond Ouimet, Daniel Nahon, and John Gaudaur Savage. Registry
- CTV News Ottawa. “Ottawa residents pushback on Kettle Island bridge” / “Testing underway for proposed eastern Ottawa-Gatineau bridge,” 20 August 2026. Includes Manor Park Community Association and former councillor comments. ctvnews.ca
- Manor Park Chronicle. “Local councillor reaffirms opposition to Kettle Island bridge proposal,” citing the 2021 IBI Group work on limited King Edward diversion. manorparkchronicle.com
- Nature Conservancy of Canada. “Kettle Island Nature Reserve.” Ownership, species and access restrictions. natureconservancy.ca
- CompassNews. “Environmental groups hold ‘BioBlitz’ to counter proposed bridge through Kettle Island,” 18 September 2025. compassnews.ca
- PSPC project page, citing NCC Interprovincial Truck Mobility Data Collection: 3,500 daily trucks; 72 percent on Macdonald-Cartier; 67 percent of King Edward heavy trucks with external origin or destination; more than 75 percent of trucks starting or ending east of the Gatineau or Rideau rivers.
- Ottawa Citizen. “Feds select ‘technical adviser’ for new Ottawa-Gatineau bridge,” March 2025; and “Ottawa MP comes out in opposition to Kettle Island bridge,” June 2025 (Mona Fortier). ottawacitizen.com
- MPP Lucille Collard. Statement on the proposed eastern Ottawa bridge and regional transportation planning. Constituency newsletter.
Rideau-Rockcliffe · Eastern Bridge · Ottawa Election 2026
The crossing is funded. Ward 13 still has to decide what it is voting for.
Two clocks are running at once. The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada is taking comments on the Eastern Bridge Project until 9 October 2026. Rideau-Rockcliffe votes for city councillor on 26 October 2026. Those dates are not a coincidence of the calendar. They are the same fight, in two different rooms.1,2
One room still talks as if the corridor can be sent back to a blank map. The other room — the federal one — has already assigned $221 million to pre-construction, named the Montée Paiement–Aviation Parkway corridor, approved planning principles, started field testing, and put an Initial Project Description in front of the Agency. Construction is being scheduled for the early 2030s.3–6
This post does two things. First, it reads the public comments filed so far. Second, it states the electoral calculus as I see it: Ward 13 can keep performing opposition, or it can elect a council office that treats the corridor as a live federal project and extracts what this community needs before the design is frozen.
The project, without the slogans
Public Services and Procurement Canada is the proponent. The National Capital Commission is on the integrated team. The proposal is a new interprovincial crossing about two kilometres long, plus about nine kilometres of road and intersection work from Autoroute 50 at Montée Paiement in Gatineau to Highway 417 at the Aviation Parkway in Ottawa. The official purposes are growth, congestion, truck diversion from the core, economic activity, resiliency and emergency response.1,3,7
That is the regional case. The local case is that Aviation Parkway, Manor Park, Rockcliffe Park, Wateridge’s edge, Overbrook’s east side, Carson Meadows, the Montfort approach and the 417/174 junction are not “the east end” in the abstract. They are this ward.
What the first 241 comments actually say
As of 22 September 2026 the Agency registry listed 241 contributions. The comment period opened 1 September. This is a first-wave file, not the final record. It is already loud, local, and mostly opposed to this alignment.2
That should surprise no one. People who live next to the proposed truck route write first. A broader NCC survey in 2025 — 5,113 responses — was more mixed: reducing truck traffic was the most-cited potential benefit, at 38.5 percent. The top concern was traffic dumped onto nearby neighbourhoods. Those two findings are the whole politics of the file. Many people want trucks off King Edward. The neighbourhoods asked to receive them do not want to become the next King Edward.8,9
Chart 1. 2025 NCC survey: most important potential benefit
Source: NCC Round 1 survey as reported from the 5,113-response file.8,9
Chart 2. Same survey: first-ranked environmental concerns
Source: Eastern Bridge Round 1 public participation report.9
Chart 3. Relative prominence in the early IAAC file
IAAC project 90709 contributions sampled 22 September 2026.2
The opposition case in that file is coherent. This corridor moves a downtown truck problem onto a scenic parkway and a nature reserve. Kettle Island is a Nature Conservancy of Canada reserve, closed to the public, with silver maple swamp, species at risk, and bird habitat.10 Aviation Parkway was not built as a freight route. Montfort access, already-failing intersections, induced demand, and a six-week comment window all land in the same letters.
The support case is thinner in the registry and clearer in the regional politics: the five existing bridges sit in a downtown cluster; east-to-east trips still dog-leg west; leaving thousands of daily trucks on King Edward is also a failure. Some supporters will only accept the crossing if the path, the transit lane and the hospital link are built on day one.
| Who | Typical stance on this corridor | Why it matters on 26 October |
|---|---|---|
| Lowertown / King Edward | Want trucks off a downtown main street | Their win can be our load |
| Manor Park, Rockcliffe, Wateridge, Carson Grove, Aviation Parkway | Strongly opposed to Corridor 5 | This is the Ward 13 core vote on the issue |
| East Gatineau / Montée Paiement | Mixed; local traffic and river impacts | Federal politics on that side have been warmer to a crossing |
| Gatineau federal leadership | Has backed the project and the money | They are the proponent’s political weather |
| Ottawa–Vanier–Gloucester MP / some local officeholders | Have said the current proposal does not meet Ottawa’s needs | Letters of opposition are not the same as design control |
Fifty years of maps. Two hundred and twenty-one million dollars of intent.
An eastern link has been on official paper since the Holt work of 1915 and the Gréber Plan of 1950. It was proposed and shelved in the 1970s, studied again through the 1980s and 1990s, run through a joint assessment from 2006 to 2013, stopped when Ontario walked away, revived in Budget 2019, named as the preferred corridor in 2024, and moved from study to pre-construction in January 2025. The federal government now publishes that history itself, under the heading that the link has been “expected for over 100 years.”11,12
On 30 January 2025 the minister in Gatineau said the file had left the study phase. He also said the number: $221 million already dedicated to design, procurement, land, impact work and the rest of pre-construction. A technical advisor was hired. In June 2026 the NCC board approved planning and design principles. In August 2026 the Initial Project Description went to the Agency. The same month, crews were testing along the Aviation Parkway. Commissioning is being discussed for 2032 to 2035.4–6,12
Chart 4. From plans to a funded build-up
Sources: PSPC historical release; 30 January 2025 announcement; CTV on the $221 million envelope and 2026 testing.4–6,11,12
Be precise about what “the decision has been made” means. It does not mean the Agency is a rubber stamp. It does not mean conditions cannot still be imposed, studies expanded, or — in a narrow legal sense — a project halted. It means the Government of Canada has chosen Corridor 5, put nine figures into making that choice buildable, and is no longer shopping among islands. Anyone telling Ward 13 that the next letter will reopen Lower Duck Island as if 2013 were still the year is not describing the file in front of us.
The election calculus in Ward 13
Rideau-Rockcliffe has about 42,000 residents. The ward includes Manor Park, Rockcliffe Park, New Edinburgh, Overbrook, Lindenlea, Viscount Alexander Park, Carson Meadows and Cardinal Glen. I am on the ballot on 26 October against the incumbent, Rawlson King.13,14 Readers can look up both records. This post is about the choice the ward is being offered on this file, not a recitation of every other issue.
The comfortable local politics of the crossing have been stable for years. Neighbourhood associations oppose Corridor 5. Local officeholders have opposed it. Downtown wants the trucks gone. Gatineau wants the link. The ward’s established move is to say no, cite the old diversion figures, and wait for the file to die again.
That move earned real delays. It is also the move that is now misaligned with the money. A councillor can keep sending letters of opposition to a federal proponent that has already bought the pre-construction work. Those letters will be popular in rooms that want to hear “we stopped it.” They will not design a single crossing, wall, ramp or hospital access rule. The political risk of telling the truth is obvious: some voters will hear “he is for the bridge.” The political risk of not telling it is larger: we arrive in 2031 with the corridor built to the cheapest drawing that survived our absence.
| Strategy | What it buys before election day | What it buys after the design is frozen |
|---|---|---|
| Perform “no” as the whole policy | Applause in the rooms that already oppose Corridor 5 | A federal corridor with weak local conditions |
| Pretend the Agency is still choosing among islands | A soothing story | No bargaining list when PSPC needs municipal cooperation on streets and detours |
| File comments and table non-negotiables | Less purity, more use of the only leverage left | A chance that paths, walls, intersections and Montfort access are in the contract |
That is the calculus. Ward 13 does not award the contract. It does control whether Ottawa shows up as a complaining neighbour or as a government with a written list. Community associations should keep documenting harm. They should also start attaching design conditions and price tags to every harm they document. Comments become clauses only if someone is willing to sit in the room and trade delay-theatre for specifications.
I will keep saying the corridor is the wrong place for a freight solution. I will not tell voters that a city councillor can veto a funded federal crossing. The honest job now is harder than a slogan. It is to make Aviation Parkway, Montfort, the path system and the 417 junctions the price of passage.
What Ward 13 should put on the table before 9 October
Use the Agency window. Then use City Hall. The list is not landscaping.
- A truck rule, not a truck sewer. Through freight stays on the designated corridor. Neighbourhood streets stay off the map. Overnight limits where people sleep. Enforcement funded by the project.
- Grade-separated crossings where people already cross. Ogilvie, Montreal Road, La Cité / student movements, Manor Park–Wateridge desire lines, and a direct safe link to Montfort. If the multi-use path is cut, it is replaced with something better before opening day.
- Noise, air and light as design conditions. Walls, cover, buffers and construction hours written before procurement, so they cannot be value-engineered out.
- 417 / Montreal Road / Ogilvie rebuilt for the load. A new river crossing that dumps into failing junctions is not a regional solution.
- Hospital and emergency primacy. Montfort access during construction and in operation is a hard constraint, not a paragraph in a mitigation table.
- A community-benefit protocol with money attached. The January 2025 announcement already said there would be funds to minimize impacts on both sides of the river. Specify what that buys: path reconstruction, local calming, construction compensation, independent noise and air monitoring.
- Transit and HOV that exist on day one. If this is sold as multimodal, the transit lane and the path open with the bridge.
That is leadership in a ward that has already lived this file once a decade. Fifty years of studies produced a corridor. Two hundred and twenty-one million dollars is how a government tells you it intends to use it. The 9 October comments are still worth filing. The 26 October vote is about whether Rideau-Rockcliffe sends someone to treat those comments as the start of a negotiation, or as the end of a press release.
References
- Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. Eastern Bridge Project, reference 90709. iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/90709
- IAAC. Public contributions on project 90709. iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/90709/contributions
- Public Services and Procurement Canada. Eastern Bridge in the National Capital Region. canada.ca project page
- CTV News Ottawa. Federal pre-construction allocation of $221 million; Aviation Parkway testing and consultation reporting, August–September 2026. Testing; Consultation
- PSPC / Minister Steve MacKinnon. Remarks of 30 January 2025 stating the project had moved from study to pre-construction and that $221 million was dedicated to that phase.
- National Capital Commission. Eastern Bridge project page; June 2026 board approval of planning and design principles; August 2026 IPD submission. ncc-ccn.gc.ca
- PSPC. Summary of the Initial Project Description and Initial Project Description, IAAC documents 167690 and 167689. Summary
- Ottawa Sun. “Trucks out of downtown tops NCC survey on sixth bridge,” on the 5,113-response Round 1 survey and the 38.5 percent truck-diversion figure. ottawasun.com
- NCC. Eastern Bridge Project, Public Participation Round 1 summary report, including Ontario/Quebec environmental-concern rankings.
- Nature Conservancy of Canada. Kettle Island Nature Reserve. natureconservancy.ca
- PSPC. “An Interprovincial Link Expected for Over 100 Years in the National Capital Region,” 30 January 2025. canada.ca
- PSPC. “A first eastern bridge in the National Capital Region,” 30 January 2025. canada.ca
- CBC News. “Rideau-Rockcliffe: Here’s who’s running to be your Ottawa city councillor,” 25 August 2026. cbc.ca
- CTV News Ottawa. “Meet the candidates for councillor in Ward 13 – Rideau-Rockcliffe,” 11 September 2026. ctvnews.ca
- Ottawa Citizen / local record on elected opposition to the current Kettle Island proposal, including reporting on MP Mona Fortier and councillor positions. See e.g. Fortier; Manor Park Chronicle on local council opposition.
