But a group of residents have opposed the plan<\/a>, saying the sidewalks are unnecessary on safe roads with little traffic. They say sidewalks will harm trees and are more urgently needed elsewhere on busier roads and near a local school.<\/p>\nRideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Rawlson King managed to get the sidewalks repeatedly delayed, but the plan passed at a public works and infrastructure committee last week.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s council meeting was King\u2019s last chance to weigh in on the plan, and he didn\u2019t waste it. He introduced a motion to remove sidewalks from sections of Arundel Avenue and Kilbarry Crescent that he called lower priority.<\/p>\n
“The question for the community has always been around sequencing and prioritization,” he said, arguing that the area’s traffic needs have not been sufficiently studied.<\/p>\n
But council shot down the motion in a 16-7 vote.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775688431_81_default.jpg\")
Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Rawlson King attends a committee meeting on Sept. 24, 2024. (Francis Ferland\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper said the chance to fold sidewalks into larger projects comes rarely, and councillors may regret failing to seize it now. <\/p>\n
“If we don\u2019t take the opportunity to put sidewalks in when we do the street rebuilds, we are not going to have that opportunity again for 70 or 80 or 90 years,” he said.<\/p>\n
Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr spoke of the importance of accessibility.<\/p>\n
“We try to build things for everyone, so if we can build things that make a difference in one or two people\u2019s lives, that is what is important here,” she said. “I do think when there are people representing to us and telling us what their needs are, we need to listen.”<\/p>\n
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe supported King\u2019s motion. He called it a difficult decision and said he understands both sides of the debate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I do understand the points that were made by my other colleagues on council who were saying, ‘Look, we can’t make an exception here, we have rules,'” he said. “We apply them universally and we don’t want a situation where every neighborhood is different.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-591190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n