The NCC has been landscaping the area north of the Claridge condo building on LeBreton Flats since mid-winter. Earlier posts on this blog showed the winter landscaping and very early spring planting of trees and shrubs. Eventually, the Fallen Firefighters Monument will be constructed on the grassy area.

The contractor (same one as is doing Plouffe Park) has now paved the bike path from Wellington Street north along the west side of the tailrace. A side branch cuts off to the west to join Lett Street beside the condo. But the path goes nowhere, as Claridge hasn’t yet landscaped the area between the condo building and the tailrace. The NCC has also seeded the area with grass seed. Light standards are not yet installed. The entire length of the new bike path is shown in the picture above.

This first bit of path bodes well for the future bike and pedestrian pathway that is supposed to eventually continue from here to the end of Pooley’s Bridge (ridiculously still closed after an expensive renovation as a essential pedestrian and cycling link) and then west along the aquaduct to Booth and eventually the Ottawa River Parkway where it begins at Vimy Street.

While the plan is good, it will be even better if the path also continues west to service Bayview Station and then eventually joins the Scott St path going to Westboro. But all the investment in the current path sections will be nearly useless if the NCC and City persist in building the path one building lot at a time, with the complete path being usable only when all the Flats are built out in thirty years time. When will we get those nifty aquaduct-side cafes featured on the NCC website?

Kudos to the NCC for building the path, and the quality of the landscaping. Thumbs down on the glacial build-out timeline.