Blame downtown Ottawa congestion on construction, weather and bad drivers

Traffic in downtown Ottawa has slowed to a standstill in the last couple of days due to construction detours mixing with snowy weather and bad driving habits.

Nana Wandji has seen her share of bad behaviour from drivers from her perch on the doubledecker bus she takes from Orlansto downtown and back.

"Bumper to bumper! Everyone trying to squeeze in at the last second, getting out of the bus lane people take advantage of using the bus lane until they absolutely can't," she said.

She said blocked transit lanes have almost doubled her commute from the east end to downtown, not to mention extended her wait at bus stops.

Other commuters whether they take cars or buses reported delays between a half an hour and two hours during Wednesday's snow storm.

One major factor that has made this winter especially bad for downtown drivers is the construction that has shut down O'Connor Street between Laurier Avenueand Somerset Street.

The city says the roadwork, which is slated for six weeks ending March 2, was absolutely necessary because of aging manhole covers.

'At or near capacity'

Greg Kent, a manager with the city's traffic operations department, said there's very little flexibility left in the core right now.

"We are at or near capacity in the downtown core," he said, adding that makes snowstorms and closures a bigger hit.

He said the city is monitoring the traffic impact and adjusting signal times at intersections to accommodatechanging flows in traffic due to detours.

Blocking and other bad habits

ButKent addeddrivers can make things easier for each other by stopping certain bad habits.

"Parking or stopping where they shouldn't be, blocking intersections and being in transit lanes when they shouldn't be," Kent said.

"Patience is what is required. People know it's bad out there. They know it's going to be congested, it's going to be slow. We don't want people getting into the bad habits of blocking everyone else and causing more grief than what the weather or the situation has already set out."

He said police and bylaw officers have been deployed to direct traffic, resolve disputes and ticket and tow to keep vehicles moving with the priority being transit.

Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenneysaid it's unfortunate the LRT isn't complete yet because it can help get people out of their cars and moving in higher volumes.

She said so far there have been no reports of emergency vehicles being tied up in the traffic trouble.

"There's been no specific incident, but we can't wait for that to happen. We have to make sure that priority vehicles, emergency vehicles and transit are able to move through the downtown."