Manotick residents take truck route fight to court with Charter challenge

A Manotick residents' group has filed a Charter challenge against the City of Ottawa over the designated truck route through the centre of the village, arguing the route puts children, older people and people with disabilities at risk of death and serious injury.

Manotick Concerned Citizens Against Truck Traffic (MCCATT) filed a notice of application in October at the Ottawa courthouse. The challenge asks that the designation allowing trucks through Manotick village be removed, and MCCATT proposes an alternative route north of the village. The group argues the route infringes Charter rights to equality and to life, liberty and security.

The problem spot is the intersection of Bridge and Manotick Main streets, where MCCATT says westbound right-turning trucks mount the curb with their rear wheels and cut across the sidewalk. MCCATT has given the City photo evidence, and the Ottawa Citizen has published drone images of trucks doing the same. Pedestrians and cyclists often have to dodge passing trucks.

Jim Sproule, MCCATT's chair and a former emergency physician and former deputy chief coroner of Ontario, said the group has spent years trying to persuade the City to remove the designation. He said Mayor Mark Sutcliffe was almost hit by a truck while the two were standing at the site during a visit. The mayor's office declined comment, citing the City solicitor's statement, and did not confirm or deny the account.

City solicitor Stuart Huxley declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts, and the City has hired an outside legal firm to handle the case. Sproule said: "It's as if the City needs a human sacrifice in order to make a decision." Natalia Rodriguez, the lawyer representing MCCATT, said most municipalities hearing complaints like these would simply act on them, and called the court challenge "a last-ditch effort to get the City to wake up and do something for the citizens."

The designation has been a long-running issue. Councillor David Brown said in October 2024 that Manotick Main, between Bridge Street and Century Road, has been removed from the City truck route network for most of the year, with trucks permitted only from March 1 to May 15 and local deliveries allowed at all times. Brown said removing trucks from Bridge Street depends on identifying alternative routes, and City staff say Manotick Main can be fully removed from the truck route once Century Road can carry full truck loads year-round, which requires City investment in Century Road. Residents have also counted heavy traffic, with CBC News reporting in October 2024 that residents counted 89 large trucks per hour, and the Manotick Village and Community Association counting about 800 trucks a day on Manotick Main from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Its president said the problem dates back at least 20 years.