Ottawa

Ottawa ( , ; ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Ottawa is the political centre of Canada and the headquarters of the federal government. The city houses numerous foreign embassies, key buildings, organizations, and institutions of Canada's government; these include the Parliament of Canada, the Supreme Court, the residence of Canada's viceroy, and the Office of the Prime Minister. Founded in 1826¹ as "Bytown", incorporated in 1850, and renamed "Ottawa" in 1855, its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001. The municipal government of Ottawa is established and governed by the City of Ottawa Act of the Government of Ontario. It has an elected city council across 24 wards and a mayor elected city-wide, each elected using the first-past-the-post voting election system.…

Ottawa ( , ; ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Ottawa is the political centre of Canada and the headquarters of the federal government. The city houses numerous foreign embassies, key buildings, organizations, and institutions of Canada's government; these include the Parliament of Canada, the Supreme Court, the residence of Canada's viceroy, and the Office of the Prime Minister. Founded in 1826 as "Bytown", incorporated in 1850, and renamed "Ottawa" in 1855, its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001. The municipal government of Ottawa is established and governed by the City of Ottawa Act of the Government of Ontario. It has an elected city council across 24 wards and a mayor elected city-wide, each elected using the first-past-the-post voting election system. Ottawa has the highest proportion of university-educated residents among Canadian cities and is home to several colleges, universities, and research and cultural institutions, including the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Algonquin College, Collège La Cité, the National Arts Centre, and the National Gallery of Canada, as well as numerous national museums, monuments, and historic sites. It has a high standard of living and is one of the most visited cities in Canada, with over 11 million visitors annually.

History

European exploration and early development

In 1610, Étienne Brûlé became the first documented European to navigate the Ottawa River, passing what would become Ottawa on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls in the area and about his encounters with the Algonquin people. The first non-Indigenous settlement in the area was created by Philemon Wright, a New Englander. Wright founded a lumber town in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from the present-day city of Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, also created an agricultural community called Wright's Town, which would later become Gatineau. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade (soon to be the area's most significant economic activity) by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City. In the 1820s, news of the British military's impending construction of the Rideau Canal led to land speculation by John Le Breton, a local businessman who bought a land lot on the prediction of the upcoming construction, which led to an alternative canal course being selected. A town was established in 1826 and in 1827 was named after the British military engineer Colonel John By, who was responsible for the Rideau Waterway construction project. The Rideau Canal provided a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario. It bypassed a vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812. , on the south side of the Ottawa River in 1826. The building of the canal attracted many land speculators to the area. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named "Upper Town" west of the canal and "Lower Town" east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically, "Upper Town" was predominantly English-speaking and Protestant, whereas "Lower Town" was mostly French, Irish and Catholic. Bytown's early pioneer period saw Irish labourers cause unrest during the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845, coming into conflict with French settlers. Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was completed in 1832. The settlement was incorporated as a town in 1850. In 1855, Bytown was renamed Ottawa and obtained city status. William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk, serving from 1844 to 1891, guiding Ottawa through 36 years of development, leading the hiring of key municipal roles, founding civic organizations, and proposing a set of by-laws for the city. Starting in the 1850s, entrepreneurs known as lumber barons began to build large sawmills, which produced tens of millions of board feet of timber, such as producing 39 million in 1855 after the USA began accepting imports, against approximately 480 million board feet imported from across Canada in Britain a decade earlier, and eventually rising to 613 million in the early 20th century. Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and, from 1886, to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec. By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown street-lights were powered entirely by electricity.

Post-Confederation and early 20th century

after the 1900 Hull–Ottawa fire. The fire destroyed one-fifth of Ottawa and two-thirds of neighbouring Hull, Quebec. In 1868, the only assassination of a federal Canadian politician happened in downtown Ottawa, on Sparks Street when Thomas D'Arcy McGee was shot, and suspected Fenian Patrick James Whelan was later convicted and publicly hanged. In 1874, Métis political leader Louis Riel attempted to take his seat in parliament in Ottawa despite there being an active warrant for his arrest. In 1889, the government distributed 60 "water leases" to local industrialists, which gave them permission to generate electricity and use hydroelectric generators at Chaudière Falls. Public transportation began in 1870 with a horsecar system, overtaken in the 1890s by an electric streetcar system that operated until 1959 and peaked at trackage of 90.5km, including an extension to Hull. In 1900, a chimney fire spread throughout Hull, destroying two-thirds of the city, including the facilities of major lumber employers and main street buildings. Due to high winds, the fire spread quickly through the wooden buildings that were widespread at the time. It eventually spread to Ottawa, where it destroyed about one-fifth of the buildings from the Lebreton Flats south to Booth Street and down to Dow's Lake. The fire destroyed approximately 3,200 buildings and caused an estimated $300 million in damage (in 2020 Canadian dollars). An estimated 14% of Ottawans and 40% of Hull residents were left homeless. The fire had a disproportionate effect on west-end lower-income neighbourhoods. It had also spread among many lumber yards, a major part of Ottawa's economy. In 1911, the municipality saw over 80 deaths related to a worse-than-average outbreak of typhoid, caused by sewage disposal affecting the city's drinking water intake from Nepean Bay. Immediate measures taken were insufficient to prevent 1,400 further typhoid cases in 1912, leading to 98 deaths and unsuccessful calls for temporary relocation of the capital to Toronto until the issue was resolved. On 1 June 1912, the Grand Trunk Railway opened both the Château Laurier hotel and its neighbouring downtown Union Station. On 3 February 1916, the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings was destroyed by a fire. The House of Commons and Senate were temporarily relocated to the recently constructed Victoria Memorial Museum (now the Canadian Museum of Nature) until the completion of the new Centre Block in 1927¹. The centrepiece of the new Parliament buildings is a dominant Gothic Revival-styled structure known as the Peace Tower. The location of what is now Confederation Square was a former commercial district centrally located in a triangular downtown area surrounded by historically significant heritage buildings, including the Parliament buildings. It was redeveloped as a ceremonial centre in 1938 as part of the City Beautiful Movement. It became the site of the National War Memorial in 1939 and was designated a National Historic Site in 1984. A new Central Post Office (now the Privy Council of Canada) was constructed in 1939 beside the War Memorial because the original post office building on the proposed Confederation Square grounds had to be demolished. During the Second World War, the City of Ottawa increased temporary housing in the city for men in the military and their families, with the pavilion at Lansdowne Park being transformed into a barracks, as it had been during the First World War. The Second World War also coincided with expansion and centralization in federal government operations, with the size of the federal public service roughly tripling from 12,000 to 36,000. This expansion was reflected in the erection of new buildings, both temporary and permanent, to accommodate the new workers. 1938

Post–Second World War

|thumb is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River with neighbouring Gatineau in the background across the river. surrounding the urban core|thumb was Ottawa's fourth city hall, from 1958 until 2001. Ottawa's former industrial appearance was vastly altered by the 1950 Gréber Plan. Prime Minister Mackenzie King hired French architect-planner Jacques Gréber to design an urban plan for managing development in the National Capital Region to make it more aesthetically pleasing and a location more befitting for Canada's political centre. Gréber's plan included the creation of the National Capital Greenbelt, National Arts Centre, the Kichi Zibi Mikan parkway and Queensway highway system. His plan also called for the movement of downtown Union Station (now the Senate of Canada Building) to the suburbs, the removal of the street car system, the decentralization of selected government offices, and the relocation of industries and removal of substandard housing from the downtown. While not every recommendation in the Grébér Plan was acted upon—for example, city hall was not placed on the east side of the canal— the plan's open space recommendations did lead to the creation of spaces such as the Rideau Canal and Ottawa River pathways. A major precondition to the creation of the Rideau Canal pathway was the elimination of direct rail service into downtown, leading to the abandonment of the Ottawa Train Station as the city's main station. The 1958 National Capital Act established the National Capital Commission as a crown corporation. It officially began work in 1959. This marked the creation of a permanent political infrastructure for managing the capital region. These included plans from the 1899 Ottawa Improvement Commission (OIC), the Todd Plan in 1903, the Holt Report in 1915 and the Federal District Commission (FDC). The National Capital Commission's structure supplanted the Federal District Commission, which was established in 1927 with a 16-year funding commitment but was reliant on the voluntary transfer of municipal planning authorities from the district's municipalities. In 1958, a new city hall opened on Green Island near Rideau Falls, where urban renewal had recently transformed this industrial location into a green space. Prior to this, from 1931 to 1958, city hall had been at the Transportation Building adjacent to Union Station (now part of the Rideau Centre). In 2001, Ottawa City Hall returned downtown to a 1990 building on 110 Laurier Avenue West, the home of the now-defunct Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. This new location was close to Ottawa's first (1849–1877) and second (1877–1931) city halls. This new city hall complex also contained an adjacent 19th-century restored heritage building formerly known as the Ottawa Normal School. From the 1960s to the 1980s, there was a large increase in construction in the National Capital Region, which was followed by large growth in the high-tech industry during the 1980s and 1990s. Ottawa became one of Canada's largest high-tech cities and was nicknamed Silicon Valley North. By the 1980s, Bell Northern Research (later Nortel) employed thousands, and large federally assisted research facilities such as the National Research Council contributed to an eventual technology boom. The early companies led to the establishment of newer firms such as Newbridge Networks, Mitel and Corel. In 1981, Ottawa was the site of the Kitchen Accord, federal-provincial negotiations that led to patriation of the Canadian constitution. In 1991, provincial and federal governments responded to a land claim submitted by the Algonquins of Ontario regarding the unceded status of the land on which Ottawa is situated. Negotiations have been ongoing, with an eventual goal to sign a treaty that would release Canada from claims for misuse of land under Algonquin title, affirm rights of the Algonquins, and negotiate conditions of the title transfer, with an agreement in principle arranged in 2016.

Geography

was constructed in a Gothic Revival style.

Religion

According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Ottawa included: Christianity (528,700 persons or 52.8%) Irreligion (316,740 persons or 31.6%) Islam (98,920 persons or 9.9%) Hinduism (20,300 persons or 2.0%) Buddhism (10,800 persons or 1.1%) Judaism (10,600 persons or 1.1%) Sikhism (6,375 persons or 0.6%) Indigenous Spirituality (445 persons or <0.1%) Other (8,055 persons or 0.8%) Of the Christian population, Catholicism was the most widely declared with 303,820 adherents, with the next largest specified group being Anglican with 41,175 adherents.

Language

As of 2021, those who identify their mother tongue as English constitute 58.2 percent¹, while those with French as their mother tongue make up 12.5 percent of the population. Regarding respondents' knowledge of one or both official languages, 60.6 percent¹ and 1.4 percent of the population know English and French only, respectively, while 36.4 percent know both official languages. Bilingualism became official policy for the conduct of municipal business in 2002, making it the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages, as Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto do not have official bilingualism policies. An additional 23.1 percent¹ of the population list languages other than English and French as their mother tongue. These include Arabic (4.3%), Mandarin (2.2%), Spanish (1.4%), Italian (0.8%), and many others. The overall Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) has a larger proportion of French speakers than Ottawa since Gatineau's population's first language is mostly French.

Economy

As of 2016, the region of Ottawa-Gatineau has the sixth-highest total household income of all Canadian metropolitan areas ($82,053), and the Ontario portion more directly overlapping the City of Ottawa has a higher household income ($86,451). The median household income after taxes in the City of Ottawa is $88,000 in 2021 was higher than the national median of $73,000. Prior to the COVID pandemic, Ottawa's unemployment rate has remained below the national and provincial unemployment rates since 2006, with a rate of 5.2% in April 2022, low compared to the decade preceding. Ottawa is ranked the best city in North America for quality of life by Numbeo, but falls short of other Canadian cities in other rankings such as Vancouver and Toronto in Mercer's rankings. Ottawa's primary employer is the Public Service of Canada. The federal government is the city's largest employer, employing over 128,000 individuals from the National Capital Region as of 2016. The national headquarters for many federal departments are in Ottawa and Gatineau, particularly throughout Centretown, Tunneys Pasture, and in the Terrasses de la Chaudière and Place du Portage complexes in Hull. The National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa is the main command centre for the Canadian Armed Forces. It hosts the Department of National Defence. As Canada's national capital, tourism is an important part of Ottawa's economy, particularly after the 150th anniversary of Canada, centred in Ottawa. The lead-up to the festivities saw much investment in civic infrastructure, upgrades to tourist infrastructure and increases in national cultural attractions. Depending on methodology and source, the National Capital Region annually attracts an estimated 9.8 to 11 million tourists, who spend about 2.6 billion dollars and support approximately 23,000 jobs directly. is Canada's largest technology park. In addition to the economic activities that come with being the national capital, Ottawa is an important technology centre; in 2015, its 1800 companies employed approximately 63,400 people. The concentration of companies in this industry earned the city the nickname of "Silicon Valley North." Large technology companies such as Nortel, Corel, Mitel, Cognos, Shopify and JDS Uniphase were founded in the city. As of 2007, Ottawa also had regional offices for Nokia, Adobe Systems, Bell Canada and IBM. Many tech companies, including Mitel, are in the western part of the city (formerly Kanata). The "tech sector" was doing particularly well prior to the dot-com burst, but remains generally strong as of 2016, with more technology jobs than at any time prior to the new millennium. As of 2011, Nordion, Abbott Laboratories and the National Research Council of Canada and OHRI are part of the life science sector in Ottawa. The health sector is another major employer, which employs over 64,000 people in the city as of the 2020 census. The City of Ottawa is the second largest employer as of 2010, with approximately 2,100 people¹ employed by the Ottawa Police service as of 2022, and 13,300 full-time equivalent non-police employees as of 2019. All major clusters tracked by the city saw increases in employment between 2014 and 2019, with the exception of culture and tourism. Major areas of growth in the 2010s included local and federal administration, finance and accommodation. Between 2008 and 2020, there was growth in the number of government employees and a reduction in high-tech jobs, a reversal of previous trends from 2003 to 2008. The city has experienced a weak labour market recovery in the years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ottawa has also seen above average disruption to the economy due to American tariff policy during the second term of President Donald Trump. Ottawa already has the largest rural economy among Canada's major cities. In Ottawa, the rural economy contributes over $1 billion to the GDP. Agriculture alone accounts for $400 million, $136.7 million of which is farm-gate sales. Rural economic activity includes agriculture, retail sales, construction, forestry and mining (specifically of aggregates), tourism, manufacturing, personal and business services, and transportation. Rural employment expanded by 18% from 1996 to 2001.

Culture and contemporary life

is a retail and entertainment district in Downtown Ottawa. Traditionally, the ByWard Market (in Lower Town), Parliament Hill, Chinatown, and the Golden Triangle (in Centretown – Downtown) have been focal points of the cultural scenes in Ottawa. Modern thoroughfares such as Wellington Street, Rideau Street, Sussex Drive, Elgin Street, Bank Street, Somerset Street, Preston Street, Wellington Street West, Richmond Road in Westboro, and Sparks Street are home to many boutiques, museums, theatres, galleries, landmarks and memorials in addition to eating establishments, cafes, bars and nightclubs. As Canada's capital, Ottawa has played host to many significant cultural events in Canadian history, including the first visit of the reigning Canadian sovereign—King George VI, with his consort, Queen Elizabeth—to his parliament, on 19 May 1939. VE Day was marked with a large celebration on 8 May 1945, the first raising of the country's new national flag took place on 15 February 1965, and the centennial of Confederation was celebrated on 1 July 1967. Queen Elizabeth II was in Ottawa on 17 April 1982, to issue a royal proclamation of the enactment of the Constitution Act. In 1983, the then Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales came to Ottawa for a state dinner hosted by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In 2011, Ottawa was selected as the first city to receive Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge during their tour of Canada. During the summer, the city hosts the Ceremonial Guard, which performs functions such as the Changing the Guard. Ottawa was featured in the short story collection For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming. Ottawa's reputation with regard to culture and contemporary life does have a mixed review, with an enduring label for the city being "The Town that Fun Forgot", dating back to the 1970s and sometimes still used in local self-critique.

Landmarks

There is one World Heritage Site in Ottawa, the Rideau Canal, along with 27 National Historic Sites of Canada in Ottawa, including the Château Laurier, the Parliament of Canada, Confederation Square, the former Ottawa Teachers' College and Laurier House. Additionally in 1990, Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica was designated as a National Historic Site. Many other properties of cultural value have been designated as having "heritage elements" by the City of Ottawa under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Arts

is Canada's national museum of natural history and natural science.

Cuisine

Ottawa is home to several regional dishes. As a city with traditional French-Canadian roots, staples such as poutine are served throughout the city. However, many consider shawarma a defining or especially common Ottawa dish; as the city contains more shawarma restaurants than anywhere else in Canada. In 2024, Ottawa City Council declared Ottawa as the "Shawarma Capital of Canada" in a unanimous motion Beaver tails, a fried dough pastry, were first created in the Ottawa Valley in the 1970s, and are popular in the city after the creators opened two permanent storefronts in the city. Le Cordon Bleu has a long-established culinary arts institute in the central Ottawa neighbourhood of Sandy Hill, the only Le Cordon Bleu campus in North America. Ottawa style pizza is characterized by a pair of Ottawa pizza podcasters as being greasy, having sweeter sauce, crispy, thick cheese, thick crust, and toppings under the cheese. Other food writers contend Ottawa-style pizza is inextricably linked with Ottawa's Lebanese pizza tradition. is an annual winter festival held in Ottawa.

Festivals

Ottawa hosts a variety of annual seasonal activities—such as Winterlude, the largest festival in Canada, and Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill and surrounding downtown area, as well as Bluesfest, Canadian Tulip Festival, Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival, Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Fringe Festival, Capital Pride, and CityFolk, that have grown to become some of the largest festivals of their kind in the world. In 2010, Ottawa's Festival industry received the IFEA "World Festival and Event City Award" for the category of North American cities with a population between 500,000 and 1,000,000.

Government and politics

houses the seat of the local government. The City of Ottawa is a single-tier municipality, meaning it is in itself a census division and has no county or regional municipality government above it, and has no subsidiary municipalities to provide municipal services. Ottawa is governed by the 25-member Ottawa City Council consisting of 24 councillors each representing one ward. The 25th member, the mayor, Mark Sutcliffe as of the 2022 Ottawa municipal election, is elected in a citywide vote. Ottawa is subject to Ontario's strong mayor powers. Along with being the capital of Canada, Ottawa is politically diverse in local politics. Most of the city has traditionally supported the Liberal Party in federal elections. The safest areas for the Liberals are the ones dominated by Francophones, especially in Vanier and central Gloucester. Central Ottawa is usually more left-leaning, and the New Democratic Party have won ridings there. Ridings further outside the city centre, such as those including Kanata, Barrhaven and rural areas, tend to be more conservative, fiscally and socially. This is especially true in the former Townships of West Carleton, Goulbourn, Rideau and Osgoode, which are more in line with the conservative areas in the surrounding counties. At present, Ottawa is host to approximately 150 embassies. A further approximately 50 countries accredit their embassies and missions in the United States to Canada.

Transportation

Public transportation

crossing the Rideau River. The O-Train is a light rail public transportation service provided by OC Transpo. Ottawa's public transit system is managed by OC Transpo. OC Transpo operates an integrated, multi-modal rapid transit system which includes: The O-Train light rail system. The four-line public rail system includes three existing lines and one currently under construction. Line 1 is an east–west line which operates medium-capacity light rail vehicles and travels under the city's downtown core. Line 2 is a north–south rail transit corridor which utilizes a mix of Stadler FLIRTs and Alstom Coradia LINTs connecting the south end of Ottawa to Line 1 at Bayview station. Line 3 is an under construction branch of Line 1, splitting at Lincoln Fields station and continuing west. Line 4 is a airport link connecting Line 2 to the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport A bus rapid transit (BRT) system that uses a series of dedicated bus-only roadways named the Transitway and reserved lanes on city streets and highways. The Transitway has long distances between stops and substantial station amenities (including platforms, walkways, fare gates, ticket booths, elevators and convenience stores). It connects Ottawa's suburbs to the inner city. The rapid bus service network operates all day, seven days a week, reaching the suburban communities of Kanata to the West, Barrhaven to the South-West, Orléans to the East, and South Keys to the South. Sections of the transitway have been replaced by O-Train services. Over 190 local bus routes are served by a fleet of ordinary, articulated and double-decker buses. Both OC Transpo and the Quebec-based Société de transport de l'Outaouais (STO) operate bus transit services between Ottawa and Gatineau. OC Transpo also operates a door-to-door bus service for disabled individuals known as ParaTranspo. There is a hypothetical tramway partnership that proposes linking Ottawa with Gatineau and connecting to the O-Train.

Airports

The Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport is the city's principal airport. There are also three other airports providing general aviation services: Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, Ottawa/Carp Airport, and Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport.

Inter-city transportation

Ottawa station is the main inter-city train station operated by Via Rail. It is located to the east of downtown in Eastway Gardens (adjacent to O-Train Tremblay station) and serves Via Rail's Corridor Route. The city is also served by inter-city passenger rail service at Fallowfield station in the southwestern suburban community of Barrhaven. Intercity bus services are currently provided by several carriers at various stops throughout the city, following the closure of the former Ottawa Central Station bus terminal on 1 June 2021. Major carriers include: Megabus, Ontario Northland, Autobus Gatineau, and Orléans Express.

Streets and highways

The City of Ottawa has over lane-kilometres of road and a series of freeways. The primary freeways are the east–west provincial Highway 417 (designated as the Queensway and part of the Trans-Canada Highway), Ottawa-Carleton Highway 174 (formerly Provincial Highway 17), Highway 7, and the north–south provincial Highway 416 (designated as Veterans' Memorial Highway), which connects to other 400-Series highways via the 401. From downtown there are also connections to Autoroute 5 and Autoroute 50, in neighbouring Gatineau. The city also has several scenic parkways and promenades, such as the Kichi Zibi Mikan (formerly the Macdonald Parkway), Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the Sir George-Étienne Cartier Parkway (formerly the Rockcliffe Parkway), and the Aviation Parkway. The National Capital Commission manages ceremonial routes linking key attractions on both sides of the Ottawa River, including Confederation Boulevard.

Cycling and pedestrian network

is a multi-use trail interlinking sites throughout the National Capital Region. Numerous paved multi-use trails, mostly operated by the National Capital Commission and the city, wind their way through much of the capital, including along the Ottawa River, Rideau River, and Rideau Canal. These pathways are used for transportation, tourism, and recreation. Because many streets either have wide curb lanes or bicycle lanes, cycling is a mode of transportation used by up to 3.7% of citizens, including in winter. This is the largest percentage of any major Canadian city. As of 31 December 2015, over of cycling facilities are found in Ottawa, including of multi-use pathways, of cycle tracks, of on-road bicycle lanes, and of paved shoulders. of new cycling facilities were added between 2011 and 2014. The entire length of Sparks Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in 1966. Since 1960, additional avenues, streets, and parkways, are reserved for pedestrian and bicycle use only on Saturdays, Sundays and on selected holidays and events. In 2021 city council unanimously approved the Byward Market Public Realm Plan to make the market area more car-free and pedestrian friendly. From 2009 to 2015 the NCC introduced the Capital Bixi bicycle-sharing system. This continued until the company VeloGo took over the program from 2015 to 2018 when the partnership ceased. Scooter-sharing systems were introduced in the downtown and inner-city areas in 2025.

Sister cities

Beijing, China Catania, Italy Hanoi, Vietnam Huế, Vietnam

See also

Outline of Ottawa List of people from Ottawa

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

Alt URL

External links

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378771160 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.