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Red Light Camera at Prince of Wales & Amberwood

We have had several questions from residents of Country Place asking about safety concerns at the intersection of Prince of Wales and Amberwood. One specific suggestion has been to request the installation of a red light camera at this intersection. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this tool, these cameras are used to issue tickets to drivers who drive through a red light.  

We have reached out to traffic safety staff on multiple occasions to ask about assessing various intersections for red light cameras, including Prince of Wales / Amberwood. The city has very clear criteria for determining which kinds of situations are best for the installation of red light cameras. Based on my conversations with city staff, they do not recommend Prince of Wales / Amberwood for such this tool, and they have also suggested that a red light camera could increase sfety risks at this intersection.

To help residents understand staff's position on this, we'd like to share the content from our conversations with staff. To do so, we'll break the information down into three segments. As you will read, due to the nature and history of collision categories at this intersection, and due to the purpose of red light cameras, we will likely need to pursue other solutions to concerns about this intersection. My office remains committed to traffic safety across Ward 9, and we will continue to work with city staff and communities to find the right solutions. 

The first segment below are answers to specific questions that our office raised with a Senior Engineer on the City of Ottawa Road Safety Services team:  

  • Question: Can you confirm that the last assessment was based on data from 2017 – 2021?
    • Response: Yes, the last screening exercise was based on 2017-2021 data set.  Currently data up to 2022 is used for analysis. 
  • Question: What years will the new data be based on?
    • Response:  It is expected that the new data will be current up to 2024.
  • Question: Can you let me know what a new “screening” consists of? Is that an on-site exercise, or is it simply running the more recent data up against screening criteria to make an assessment?
    • Response: We would run the more recent data against the screening criteria.

In the second segment, the Senior Engineer provided more info on the assessment process. Please note that the following text is directly from the Senior Engineer:

Traffic Services conduct annual reviews of all signalized intersections to identify locations that would benefit the most from Red Light Cameras (RLC).  RLCs are implemented to help mitigate angle collisions at intersections.  The site selection process considers several factors including:

  • Measurable safety benefits associated with the installation of an RLC are determined through network screening using safety performance functions (SPFs). These SPFs are utilized to estimate the expected collision frequency if an RLC is installed at an intersection, which is then compared to the safety performance without an RLC. The resulting difference provides the Collision Change (CC).
  • Collision frequency, types (most importantly angle collisions) and severity.

If the location meets the two criteria above, a review of site conditions to determine if it’s physically possible to install camera equipment would be required.  In certain instances, not all high collision locations may be equipped with red light cameras due to physical constraints.   

As to the question of roughly when might this new data / new screening be happening later this year? Traffic Services Staff is currently working on validating 2023, 2024 collisions. Validation is an important step in the Road Safety Management process as we must ensure the data we work with is as accurate as possible.

This is typical practice in many road safety programs as the data is not immediately available to us as collisions occur. Traffic Services receives data on collisions that occur within the City of Ottawa from the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) on a continual basis. The collision data is provided to the MTO by policing agencies including the Ottawa Police Service, the Ontario Provincial Police and The Royal Canadian Mounted Police at varying intervals. The data is validated through the City’s collision management system to ensure there are no errors or missing information. Errors are addressed using MTO collision coding rules and staff may follow up with the reporting policing agency to gather additional information if available.  Note: collision data is publicly released on a monthly basis via OpenData Ottawa once it is validated.

As soon as the full 2023 and 2024 collision data set becomes available, the screenings/ranking for all sites city-wide will be updated. 

In the third segment, the Senior Engineer provided more info on the intersection of Prince of Wales and Amberwood (based on 2017-22 data):

A review of the validated collision data for the intersection of Prince of Wales and Amberwood, between 2017-2022, shows the following:

There were a total of 12 collisions occurring between 2017-2022. Of the 12 incidents:

  • 0 resulted in fatal or major injuries
  • 75.0% (9 of 12) of collisions were property damage only
  • 25.0% (3 of 12) of collisions resulted in minimal or minor injuries

Also:

  • 16.7% (2 of 12) occurred during poor weather conditions (rain, snow, freezing rain)
  • 41.7% (5 of 12) occurred during dark conditions (dawn, dusk, dark)

Also:

  • 91.7% (11 of 12) of collisions were related to rear end collisions (NOTE from Councillor Devine: this part is critical to the question of applicability of red light cameras at this intersection)
  • 8.3% (1 of 12) of collisions were related to “other”

Given that there have not been any angle collisions at this intersection, it is unlikely that this location would be identified for RLCs.  Previous studies have shown that RLCs significantly reduce the number of right-angle collisions but tend to increase the number of rear-end collisions. Research indicates that right-angle collisions are often more severe than rear-end collisions, making RLCs a valuable tool for reducing the overall severity of collisions at signalized intersections. The increase in rear-end collisions is typically due to drivers braking abruptly when approaching an RLC.  A RLC may further increase the occurrence of rear end collisions without reducing the overall severity of collisions at this location.

 

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New Ways to Bus: Ward 9 Information Page

New Ways to Bus: Ward 9 Information Page

Thanks for visiting the Ward 9 information page on OC Transpo's New Ways to Bus (NWTB). This page is designed to provide you with some essential details on how the service changes may impact transit riders in Ward 9, including route adjustments, the rationale behind the changes, and how we have advocated for our residents.

We fully understand that many residents are legitimately frustrated with these changes. Many riders see these adjustments as another cost-cutting measure from OC Transpo, as they continue to face significant financial challenges. 

OC Transpo's New Ways to Bus revised route network will focus on frequency, local service in your neighbourhood, and connections to key destinations. Through these many adjustments, OC Transpo's aim is to increase the reliability of our bus route system. Riders will see a shift in the number of downtown-focused bus routes, to routes that improve connections to community hubs and key destinations. Some customers may have to go further to the bus stop, or require additional transfers to buses or trains, or will have longer overall travel times. In addition to fewer Connexion routes, some routes will be retired due to low ridership and to improve connections to new routes and the O-Train. Retired routes will be replaced with alternative service nearby.

For now, the position that Councillor Devine and his team are taking is that we are very sympathetic to those concerns, but that we need to help residents prepare, because these changes are coming soon. New Ways to Bus comes into effect April 27th. What our office is focused on is trying to ensure that our residents are prepared for the change, and monitoring how the new system performs in its initial weeks and months.

 

New Ways to Bus website

For the most comprehensive information available, OC Transpo has created a dedicated New Ways to Bus website, complete with many useful items, including: 

  • a New Ways to Bus network map
  • information on new signage
  • a detailed list of routes that will not change, and routes that will change

 

New Ways to Bus - Travel Planner

The OC Transpo Travel Planner has now been updated to include the New Ways to Bus routes that take effect April 27th. Try it out! Enter your trip information for a trip that you might take now and then enter the same trip information for a date after April 27th and see what kind of changes there will be. 

 

New Ways to Bus - Ward 9 Bus Routes 

You can find specific information on each route in the entire New Ways to Bus network on their new website. Our office has also compiled a series of PDF route maps for all of the Ward 9 bus routes. 

 

Public Information Sessions 

OC Transpo has organized a series of community events for residents to meet with OC Transpo staff to ask questions about changes in the New Ways to Bus system. The event that was held on April 4th at the Nepean Sportsplex was poorly attended because OC Transpo did no provide clear information about where the event was taking place. Residents are encouraged to attend other sessions.  

 

Councillor Devine's advocacy for Ward 9

Ever since the first draft of the New Ways to Bus network was rolled out well over a year ago, our office has been engaged with OC Transpo in trying to stop some of proposed changes. It wasn't altogether easy to get concessions, since Council has no authority over OC Transpo's operations. But we managed be successful in some of our attempts, though we were less successful in others. For the sake of transparency, we wanted to provide residents with a summary of our efforts over the last year. 

Routes 282/82 

  • What we won: It's shocking to believe, but in the original draft of the New Ways to Bus network, Route 82 would have seen its service frequency cut down to peak hours only. This would've been devasting to the western part of Ward 9, who are already seeing other decreases in service. After strong advocacy from our office, Route 82 will maintain full-day, seven-days-a-week service. During peak hours, it will connect to Tunney’s Pasture, offering a viable replacement for the discontinued 282 express route.
  • What we lost: Unfortunately, Route 282 was removed. While we fought to maintain express service, this decision reflects several lost express routes, due city-wide budget constraints. However, once the LRT Line 1 West extension is complete, riders will be able to take the 82 to Pinecrest Station, for a quicker ride downtown.   

Route 173 

  • What we lost: Route 173 will no longer service Manordale, becoming a local route serving Barrhaven instead. We continue to object to the questionable rational for this decision, as Barrhaven has more than enough routes serving it. We are committed to monitoring the impact of his lost service, in the hopes of restoring something.

Routes 111/112/189

  • What we won: When the first draft of the New Ways to Bus network was rolled out, we quickly noticed that the proposed changes to the 111/112 routes meant that there was no longer any bus service on Chesterton Drive, meaning that two schools, an apartment tower, and a large lower-income housing complex would see no service at all. Even worse, Chesterton Drive is on an incline! We pushed hard against this change, which resulted in Route 189 being re-directed to run along the entire length of Chesterton Drive. While this means riders will need to make an additional transfer, it would have been much worse if there was no route there at all.   

Routes 89/86

  • What we lost: Despite our advocacy, Routes 89 and 86 will see reductions and decreased frequency. We will continue to push for adjustments if transit reliability issues arise. 

There are several other changes to service routes in Ward 9, some of which will result in an increased level of service. We'll try to post more information on these changes shortly. 

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