Location
Overview map of Sussex and Foreign Affairs
Cyclists frequently need to bike around the Foreign Affairs building to get from the pathway along the Rideau River and the MacDonald Cartier Bridge onto Sussex. The bike lane on Sussex is shared with buses, and this route is very busy with STO traffic.
The problem
Cyclists need to merge from the pathway, across a sidewalk and onto the road.
This was the site of the fatal accident that killed Melanie Harris on September 18, 2009. She was hit by an STO bus when she attempted this merge.
There are three specific problems:
- cyclists are distracted away from the bus lane merge as they negotiate the curb
- the angle at which the lane merges is makes it impossible to use a mirror to monitor for traffic.
- cyclists need to negotiate the heavy pedestrian traffic
View OBP – Sussex at Foreign Affairs in a larger map
Suggestions
The NCC should formalize the intersection. This means having proper signage for cyclists, perhaps with a stop sign, and at a right angle. Signage for buses should be added to warn of the merge of bicycle traffic.
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Bad news for cyclists at DFAIT. The path that is indicated on this map (into the parking lot) has been closed by DFAIT in order to landscape. They say it is for safety reasons, but it is defintely not for cyclist’s safety. I will not cycle along Sussex drive in a busy bus lane that is used by 100′s of STO buses every morning and where a cyclist was killed. It is outrageous that this was closed with no replacement in place. The parking lot was safe to cycle through, very wide and not much traffic. For me this leaves the sidewalk or the grass as an option.
This problem has just been made worse. DFAIT has seen fit to remove the path that went behind their building. It was used by many cyclists coming from the MacDonald Cartier Bridge to bypass the mess that is Sussex during the afternoon rush hour.
There is actually a huge opportunity here for NCC to connect their excellent Rideau River pathway system to the great paths on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. The current connection requires on street travel on Sussex. NCC recently improved the bridge crossing on the MacDonald-Cartier by adding concrete dividesto protect pedestrians and cylcists on the bridge sidewalks. The next logical step would be to work with Public Works and Foreign Affairs to widen the sidewalk off of the bridge, under Sussex, and behind Foreign Affairs to multi-use pathway standard and use the Minto Bridges. The west end of the bridge needs this treatment as well to connect the bridge sidewalk to the multiuse pathway.
This is a significant gap between NCC’s recreational pathway infrastructure on the Quebec side and the Ontario side and really is relatively easy low hanging fruit.
Jonah
This is a busy part for the bicycle traffic. Suggest to widen the sidewalk and make it shared pathway as far as appropriate to separate bikes and cars.
I do not recommend using this recreational path to get to Sussex Drive eastbound from the parking lot of the Lester B. Pearson Building (Foreign Affairs).
Looking at that situation, I recommend riding northeast through the parking lot behind the building (there is only one row of parked cars, so the perils should be minimal). Turn left onto Regional Road 99. The intersection is protected by a 4-way stop. Then right onto Sussex Drive.