Ministry of Transportation, Ontario (MTO)
Highway Maintenance Patrol Yard, City of Ottawa
Site Selection, Preliminary Design, and Class Environmental Assessment Study
Project Reference: GWP 4018-18-00
Location Screening Process
An initial step in the Site Selection Study was to review the Site Selection Study Area to screen for suitable locations that would meet the operational needs of an MTO Maintenance Patrol Yard (MPY), while largely avoiding significant environmental features. The location screening process included coarse screening to identify a long list of 15 alternative locations within the Study Area, and high-level assessment of those locations, which identified a short list of 5 suitable locations to be further evaluated.
The Site Selection Study Area included the main service area for the existing Kanata MPY, along Highway 417 from Carp Road to Innes Road and along Highway 416 from Highway 417 to Fallowfield Road, as shown on the figure below.
The Online PIC 1 materials included a high-level summary of the location screening process; however, during the PIC, requests for further information regarding the process were received. In response, this webpage was added to provide additional details to supplement the PIC 1 materials. References to relevant pages within the PIC materials are included for further information.
Note: Following PIC 1, Location 8 (southeast quadrant of the Highway 417 and Eagleson Road interchange) and Location 9 (Moodie Drive, Crystal Bay) were eliminated from further consideration. Updates on these developments and the detailed evaluation of alternatives were provided at Online PIC 2 in June-July 2021.
Coarse screening of the study area was completed based on the criteria listed on slide 7 of the PIC 1 materials. Some of the criteria, such as built-up areas, were completely avoided as they are incompatible with MPY development. Other criteria were less desirable features that were generally but not completely avoided, such as floodplains and wetlands. While not ideal for development, these features were considered constraints that could potentially be addressed through facility siting and design/mitigation. Hence, key constraints were avoided and others were generally avoided with the intent to then factor them into the more detailed evaluation of alternatives.
The coarse screening process reduced the study area to a long list of 15 alternative locations. A high-level assessment of the long list was then completed to screen out less suitable locations. The criteria used for this assessment are outlined on page 9 of the PIC 1 materials.
The high-level assessment and the rationale for identifying the shortlist is detailed in Table 1. As noted above, following PIC 1 Locations 8 and 9 were eliminated from further consideration as part of this study.
Detailed evaluation of the shortlist of alternatives is currently ongoing. Details of this evaluation, including the technically preferred alternative, will be presented at Online PIC 3.
If you have comments or questions about the project, please do not hesitate to reach out to the project team through the Contact Us page.