‘New deal for Ottawa’ includes funding for Road 174, new 416 interchange at Barnsdale Road

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Ontario will spend $9 million to maintain and upgrade Ottawa Road 174 and will eventually assume full responsibility for the busy and expensive east-end artery, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday while announcing a more than $600-million “new deal for Ottawa.”

The funding also includes the design and construction of a new interchange on Highway 416 at Barnsdale Road, a much-needed link in the nine-kilometre stretch of highway between the Fallowfield and Bankfield road interchanges in the city’s south end.

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The deal was announced Thursday morning when Ford attended the mayor’s breakfast with Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe at the Shaw Centre.

A media release accompanying the announcement said the province would do a three-year study of Road 174 before deciding if it should be a provincial road, but Ford was more definitive when questioned later by reporters.

“Yes. We’ll take that responsibility,” he said.

The new deal includes $543 million in operating and capital funding to support Ottawa’s economic recovery and revitalization of the downtown core. It also adds $197 million over three years to fund operating costs and another tranche of up to $346 million over 10 years in capital funding.

There is conditional funding for emergency shelters and homelessness prevention, funding for the proposed Kanata North Transitway — a bus rapid transit route linking Kanata to the Moodie Drive LRT station — and a commitment to help pay for a new Ottawa police sub-station in the ByWard Market area.

Notably absent, however, was money for OC Transpo, which is struggling with a $50 million deficit this year because of declining ridership. Ford’s solution was to urge the federal government to bring public servants back into the office. Four years after the start of the pandemic, most federal workers are still only in the office two days a week.

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“Talking about the federal government, we need the ridership to go up and keep the economy going downtown to be able to pay for the LRT and all that,” Ford told reporters. “But they have to get people back to work. Three days… anything. It sounds crazy to be begging people to go to work for three days. But it really affects the downtown. We need them to go back to work. To go into the restaurants, to go into the shops downtown, to get on transit. That’s what we need.”

Sutcliffe, who has repeatedly called on the need for more federal and provincial money for transit, was more circumspect.

“We need to have the federal government as our partner with the provincial government as part of a discussion about the future of public transit in Ottawa,” Sutcliffe said. “We have a big financial challenge and the three of us have to work together to solve them.”

Ford arrived in Ottawa Wednesday and spent the evening with Nepean MPP Lisa MacLeod, who was celebrating her 18th anniversary in politics. He credited MacLeod for pushing for the Barnsdale Road interchange on Highway 416.

“She does an incredible job,” he said. “That’s going to be a game changer.”

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More than 600 people attended the mayor’s breakfast, double the usual number and forcing organizers to move it to the Shaw Centre from its regular venue at city hall.

In a folksy, off-the-cuff speech — Ford apologized to his teleprompter operator for ignoring his prepared remarks — Ford said how his government was committed to improving the province’s infrastructure, investing $185 billion overall, including $10 billion for the new Ottawa Hospital Civic campus and for CHEO.

“Nothing is more important than infrastructure,” Ford said.

Sutcliffe presented the premier with a #TeamOttawa t-shirt, which Ford joked was his “$600-million shirt,” before the two sat down for an informal “fireside chat” that touched on the Ford family business, how Doug was recruited into politics when his older brother, Rob, made a successful run to be Toronto’s mayor, and his commitment to “customer service excellence.”

“When someone calls, you have to return their call,” Ford said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s little Miss Jones who has a crack in her sidewalk or the great mayor of Ottawa. You return their phone call. It’s critical.”

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He also asserted his love for the nation’s capital.

“Ottawa is one of my favourite places to go. I have a great time. It’s very productive every time I’m here,” Ford said, later joking he might need to keep a room in the mayor’s basement. But he bristled when asked by a reporter why he hadn’t visited the city during the 2022 convoy occupation or after the May 2022 derecho that caused widespread damage and power blackouts.

“I’ve been here countless times,” Ford responded.

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