School Street project update: Committee approves pilot project at 3 Ottawa schools

One of the issues I heard about over and over again during my first term was traffic safety, especially around our schools. Ward 12 has about 8 schools and 1 high school, so we have a lot of kids walking, cycling, or scootering during the week. Getting to school shouldn’t be one of the most dangerous parts of a child’s day, so I started researching solutions that had already proven successful elsewhere.  Three years ago, I visited École du Lac-des-Fées in Gatineau with the Hull councillor to see one of Québec’s first successful School Streets in action. I came back convinced Ottawa could do the same. 

From there, the real work started. 

We partnered with the Ottawa Police Service to launch Ottawa’s first School Street pilot at École élémentaire publique Trille-des-Bois on Alice Street in Vanier. Before a single barricade went up, we spent months meeting with residents, knocking on doors, presenting to the Vanier Community Association, working with the school administration, and earning the trust of parents.  

The first few weeks weren’t perfect. We adjusted schedules, recruited volunteers, solved unexpected problems, and kept listening. By the third and fourth week, something incredible happened. What started as a road closure became a neighbourhood event. Parents stayed to chat over coffee, kids played with chalk and soccer balls before class, neighbours came out with their dogs, and children who normally dreaded school couldn’t wait for School Street days. 

 Most importantly, it made getting to school safer. 

That pilot is the reason this item made it to Committee.  

Last week, the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee approved a citywide School Streets pilot at three Ottawa schools, including Trille-des-Bois. This is a huge milestone, and one that simply would not have happened without the proof of concept our community built together in Vanier.

Thank you to Councillor Jessica Bradley for bringing forward my motion (I am not a committee member of PWIC) and thank you to EnviroCentre for stepping up to help make this second phase possible. Their partnership solves one of the biggest barriers the City identified: the resources needed to operate School Streets safely.

I was there every School Street morning in 2024 from 8:00 to 8:50 a.m. Some mornings were freezing cold, but watching kids safely walk, bike, scoot, throw snowballs and play on their way to school made every early start worth it. 

I’m incredibly proud that Ward 12 helped lead the way. 

Families deserve to know their kids can walk to school safely. They deserve cleaner air, calmer streets, and communities that are built around them instead of around traffic. 

Sometimes good policy starts with a few orange cones on a quiet street in Vanier. ❤️ 

The “school streets” pilot project started in 2023 when I went with the City Councillor for Hull to École Lac-des-Fées in Gatineau to see their school street. Un projet de rue-école voit le jour à Gatineau | Radio-Canada (in French only) 

Lac-des-Fées partnered with a non-profit called Mobi-O whose website ‘Je suis capable’ is still one of my favourites to highlight the benefits of walking to school: Accueil – À pied à vélo je suis capable  

In order to get our pilot off the ground, we partnered with Ottawa Police Service to close the streets in front of Trille-des-Bois in Vanier on Alice Street, after doing extensive community consultation, door-to-door, presentations at the Vanier Community Association and getting buy-in from the school administration and the parents committee at Trille-des-Bois: Street in front of Vanier school closes to traffic as pilot project begins | CBC News 

The pilot went extremely well. The feedback we got from parents and kids confirmed that they liked to have a safe space to walk to school, and there was ample room on the side streets for kids that needed to be dropped off by car.  

There is still one more vote at City Council, but this is a major step forward. 

Getting new initiatives off the ground in Ottawa rarely happens because someone snaps their fingers. It happens because people are willing to do the unglamorous work: the meetings, the consultations, the logistics, the pilot projects, the data collection, the volunteer recruitment, and the persistence when it’s easier to say no.

For those who want to read the media coverage of this week’s decision, you can find the full CTV News story here: Committee approves ‘school streets’ pilot project at 3 Ottawa schools.  

Other related stories:

Street in front of Vanier school closest to traffic as pilot project begins

What would you do with no cars on a road for 30 minutes?