A Lemon at McCarthy

Ottawa’s McCarthy Road connects the neighbourhood known as the Hunt Club East-Western Community to Walkley Rd on the north side and to Hunt Club Road on the south side. It runs partly through McCarthy Woods, a wooded area with a rural feel. But it is also a high collision area. City staff narrowed the road, but half a year later, they pulled everything up again. What went wrong?

A long and winding road

It used to be a long straight road (in blue, below), until the area was developed in the mid seventies, when the road received two wide curves (in red, below). I don’t know if this was done to give the road more of a neighbourhood feel, to slow down traffic or for geological or planning reasons or something else.

McCarthy Road is in places a very wide road, up to 11 meters wide; in other places it narrows to around 9 meters. But not narrow enough to slow traffic down. To give you an idea, a lane can be as narrow as 3.25m or even 3m sometimes. As a comparison, cars like a KIA Soul or a BMW are 1.80m, give or take a few cm. McCarthy is also a bus and first responders route, so cities would want lanes perhaps as wide as 3.75m. That is 7.50m total.

Unfortunately, that 9 to 11 meters width makes the road quite a dangerous road at the northern half of the section, with a curve in the area that runs from Plante through the McCarthy Woods (deer and coyote warnings) towards the railway tracks. There have been many collisions and residents expressed worries about speeding.

Adding signs on McCarthy Rd

Therefore the City of Ottawa decided to do something about speeding and the collisions. Since 2014, in came the flashing beacons, the yellow signs, the recommended speed in winter conditions (30 km/h), text on the pavement to slow down. Somewhere after 2017 a speed board was added. But it didn’t help. Why? Because signs don’t help when motorists feel a road is wide enough to go faster, snow and ice be damned.

Adding a higher curb

Half a decade later in 2019, Traffic Services intended to increase the curb height on the east side (the outside of the curve), but that meant a full redesign and reconstruction of the road would be required, which would be beyond the scope and funding for this safety improvement project.

Consultants

That same year the City decided to put consultants on it. JP2G Consultants was hired to evaluate the situation and come up with a plan. The pros and cons of many options were weighed.

In November 2019 the preliminary design was done, the detailed design was done in May 2020. In September 2020 the project was tendered and reissued for tender for a precast curb. By 2022 a road modification application was done.

Then it became quiet.

No guide rail

On December 6, 2023 the Ward councillor submitted a so called Council Member Inquiry Form, asking “why a guide rail is not a recommended option to prevent further chronic instances of motorists losing control of their vehicles resulting in death, injuries, damage to vehicles… and placing vulnerable road users at significant risk”.

On February 4, 2024 staff responded with a solid answer:

Bulbouts

After thoroughly accessing the issue, and looking into alternatives, it was decided to narrow the road. Staff and the consultants convinced the councillor, the Community Association and the residents on McCarthy at an open house in spring 2024 that this was the best way forward (given the cost of better options I should add). Not by rebuilding the road, because that would cost a fortune, but by adding five bulbouts (small concrete islands with a space along the curb to allow water through) in the 5m wide lane on the northbound side of the road. Then adding fresh sharrows on the asphalt to advise drivers that there are cyclists on the road too. On top of that, each island would get a large yellow sign. The idea was that this would narrow the road without rebuilding the road.

The work begins on McCarthy Rd

In the late fall of 2024 crews started to work on the bulb outs. Patches of asphalt were removed, custom molds for the bulbouts were build. Each bulbout had a very specific location and would be slightly different (for example 1.13 m x 3:27 m, 0.91 cm x 3.26m)

It seems like no one thought of the reality that the roughly one meter of pavement along the curb on the east side, in parts too narrow for a bike lane and not being a bike lane, was used by lots of cyclists. When the bulbouts were built within that meter from the curb, cyclists were supposed to ride with traffic (new sign) and drivers would have to wait for a safe moment to pass. Does that sound like a true lemon in the making?

Share the road on McCarthy Rd

Well, as a cyclist, you can understand what happened. I am speculating that cyclists who rode with traffic were a major irritant for drivers now. One moment you drive 65 km/h, the next moment you have to slow down to 25 km/h. Other cyclists probably still choose for riding in that “non bike lane bike lane”, to be away from motor vehicles (including large trucks) but at every bulbout they would have to merge into traffic. The sharrow would guarantee their safety of course. Plus, what do you do as a cyclist if you choose to bike along the curb anyway? You approach a bulbout and you want to move into the ‘car’ lane and there is another vehicle on your left? You’ll have to stop. The multi use pathway is in such bad condition, you don’t even want to bike there generally.

Tsunami of complaints

After the bulbouts had gone in, councillor Brockington started to receive a tsunami of complaints from residents and people passing through. Soon, he requested the city to remove the bulbouts again as you can read in his newsletter clipping below. And so in the summer of 2025 the bulbouts came out again, the pavement was patched with shiny new asphalt.

I asked councillor Brockington what happened. He responded with the following:

After eleven years, we are back to square one. The big question is, why were staff assuring that this would be a successful measure, when sharrows and single file solutions have been widely condemned by pretty much everyone across North America as not being safe.

So what is next for McCarthy Rd?

A new document was sent around, this time to cycling advocates too, with a proposal to install Flexiposts on the centre line of McCarthy Rd. In order to make the driving lanes visually narrower, there might be several Flexiposts on a second line closer to the curb too. This way drivers can drive their 10% over the maximum speed (posted as 50 km/h) and cyclists will likely informally use the “non bike lane bike lane” without the concrete bulb outs in the way. Why not put a bike lane in you ask? I am not sure, but likely in places it won’t meet the minimum width for a bike lane. Or because there is already a multi use pathway on both sides as the staff’s response shows.

For now, the flashing lights, the large yellow signs and the speed board will have to continue doing their work. Frustrating, because that is exactly what Premier Ford believes is the right way to deal with speeding.

I don’t even want to think about the money spent on staff, consultants and construction crews. But I bet it is easily between a quarter and half a million dollars by now.

This lemon at McCarthy is not going to go away anytime soon on this long and winding road, but I am still hopeful that we can work it out. It’ll eventually come together.

Note about how to avoid Walkley:

After the railway tracks crossing McCarthy, you can leave McCarthy, and bike via Southmore Drive West, an underpass underneath the CN tracks, a muddy desire line through some woods and a welcoming United Church church parking lot to Riverside where you can nearly directly connect to the pathways at Mooney’s Bay, the Rideau River and Rideau Canal pathways. Or you could find your way to Mooney’s Bay Place after the CN tracks via Otterson Drive and cross Walkley and Riverside into Mooney’s Bay Park. This way you avoid Riverside and Walkley completely.

Feature image made with AI.

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