Seven Ottawa bike lane projects facing 'major impacts' due to new provincial law

The City of Ottawa has identified seven active road transformation projects that would face “major impacts” under a recent provincial law that limits municipalities’ ability to add bike lanes during road reconstructions.

Under Ontario’s Bill 60, Ottawa cannot reduce the number of lanes available to vehicles for the purpose of installing bicycle lanes, according to a memo by city staff assessing the implications of the legislation on Ottawa cycling projects.

The seven projects that are facing significant impacts are part of the city’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP), a guiding blueprint for the city’s transit and road infrastructure until 2046.

“Staff are continuing to assess the (seven) remaining projects that are more significantly affected by Bill 60, as well as TMP projects that have not yet entered the design phase,” the city’s Active Transportation Planning program manager Kalle Hakala said in an email.

The seven are part of a larger list of 27 active projects that city staff identified as having implications under the provincial law. Hakala said city staff have determined that 20 of the 27 impacted projects will be able to proceed “with only minor design modifications” to ensure compliance with Ontario’s Bill 60.

The seven projects “majorly affected” include:

• Kent Street’s integrated renewal
• Rochester Street’s integrated renewal
• Albert Street and Slater Street streetscaping and integrated renewal
• O’Connor Street cycling, Laurier Avenue to Wellington Street
• Walkley Road cycling (west of Airport Parkway)
• Merivale Road integrated renewal
• Prince of Wales Drive/Hog’s Back Road

Six of the seven projects have their detailed designs in progress, with only the city’s O’Connor Street bikeway project (Laurier Avenue to Wellington Street) having its designs completed. The overall project has been in the works for more than a decade.

The provincial legislation, titled Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025, became law in November last year after receiving royal assent.

The law is meant to pave the way for faster construction and infrastructure projects, improving transit and streamlining municipal regulatory processes, according to the bill.

When it passed, the province’s law amended a wide range of Ontario acts, including the Construction Act, the Municipal Act, the Water Resources Act and Development Changes Act.

The legislation, however, quickly became controversial when transportation advocates said the law would legally prevent municipalities from expanding bike lane networks in the city and increase safety concerns for those who choose the mode of transportation.

Bike Ottawa board member Guillaume Gaillard says the advocacy organization is worried about the law because it would hinder Ottawa’s plans to expand bike infrastructure across the city.

Gaillard said Bike Ottawa is concerned that bike lane projects will be shelved as a result.

“The second worry is that the compliance (to Bill 60) will get a shadow of what the bike lanes could have been,” he said. “The way that the provincial government talks about biking in a city, it kind of gives permission to some people to have an anti-social behaviour, and to be really aggressive, either verbally or even physically with the cars, towards people who are on the bike.”

Gaillard says he believes the province’s move fuels an existing “cultural war” between those in vehicles and those on bikes.

City staff predicted the impact of the law in a memo.

“As a result (of Bill 60), the implementation of any cycling facility — whether a cycle track, multi-use pathway, or bike lane — that reduces the number of traffic lanes would no longer be permitted,” the memo read.

Gaillard says he is most worried about downtown bike projects like Kent Street integrated renewal (between James Street and Florence Street) in Somerset Ward because of high traffic downtown.

“In the suburbs generally, there is enough right of way to have the bike lanes without proving any challenges,” he says.

Most of the seven road projects were set to replace existing watermains and most sewers, while also adding bike lane infrastructure to improve overall cycling connectivity around town.

If the project proceeds, the Kent redesign would add a 1.8 metre- to 2.25 metre-wide eastbound contraflow bike lane on James Street between Bronson Avenue and Bank Street.

The integrated renewal of Rochester Street (between Gladstone Avenue and Orangeville Street) is another downtown example. In addition to replacing existing sewer infrastructure, the project proposed cycling infrastructure including painted-on road bike lanes and separated cycle tracks, a full reconstruction of the road and the addition of new concrete sidewalks.

“That’s our main worry is that the downtown projects are going to suffer most from the (law), especially since the city seems to not challenge the province on that and comply with its demands even though it seems open to interpretation,” he said.

As of Friday Oct. 16, there had been 30 traffic-related deaths in Ottawa in 2026. There were 23 traffic-related deaths in the whole of 2025.

An update on the projects and recommendations on how to proceed will be brought to the Committee and Council in early 2027, according to Hakala.

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