Barrhaven gets new interchange, otherwise little new for Ottawa in Ontario budget
Long-awaited Highway 416 interchange at Barnsdale Road gets funding
The province is funding a new Barrhaven interchange along Highway 416 to meet the needs of booming subdivisions in the area — one of Ottawa's few capital projects in the 2024-2025 Ontario budget.
The budget, tabled at Queen's Park on Tuesday, outlines $214 billion in provincial spending and a deficit of $9.8 billion.
"Not a lot of surprises," said Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe.
"It's a budget that is based on the current financial situation … and it's a responsible budget."
Sutcliffe said he was pleased to see investments in infrastructure, with $190.2 billion set aside for major projects such as building highways, hospitals and schools over the next decade.
That includes funding for the long-awaited Highway 416 interchange at Barnsdale Road "to support population growth and development planned by the City for the Barrhaven South area."
Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill said this will be a "huge improvement" for residents in "one of the fastest-growing communities in all of Canada."
Residents buying up up thousands of homes south of the Jock River have long complained about how hard it is to get around.
Barrhaven has added about 3,500 people or 1,500 households a year, according to the city's 2023 annual report on development.
Barrhaven has only one exit off the 416 at Fallowfield Road. A second exit at Bankfield Road further south predominantly serves Manotick.
Barnsdale is in the roughly 10-kilometre gap between the two, offering an easy connection with Greenbank Road.
"This is much more direct for residents," said Hill of the Barnsdale interchange.
It's unclear exactly when construction would begin but "everything that the city has been able to do within its power, it has done," the councillor said.
Also listed in the budget is continued funding for the redevelopment of The Ottawa Hospital's new Civic campus and a number of elementary and secondary schools in the city and eastern Ontario.
No other capital projects for Ottawa
There was little else in the budget earmarked for Ottawa capital projects — including Landsdowne 2.0 and the affordable housing units that are supposed to come with it.
Neil Saravanamuttoo, the Ottawa-based director of non-profit CityShapes, said there had been a request from the city for $20 million in provincial funding for the project.
"That's a disappointment for the people of Ottawa and it just means it'll be another $20 million that the taxpayers have to pick up," he said.
The budget does include $1.8 billion in new spending to help municipalities build housing-enabling infrastructure such as roads and sewers.
Municipalities will also be allowed to lower their property tax rates on new purpose-built rental housing to encourage construction of more of those units.
Most of these measures encourage urban sprawl rather than making use of existing infrastructure in cities like Ottawa, said Saravanamuttoo, adding that method has done little to address the province's housing crisis.
With files from Ryan Patrick Jones