Gottingen Street transit priority corridor plan is going to council

During it’s busiest times, 68 buses can be seen going up and down Gottingen Street in a single hour. With the heavy transit volume and parked cars on the narrow street, Gottingen was identified as a choke hold for transit in the integrated mobility plan.

The Gottingen Street Transit Priority Corridor plan was created to address the issue. The plan is to transform Gottingen Street into three lanes, one of which will be a bus lane.

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Parking will be removed on the west side of the street and concerns have been raised over how this will impact business.

“Gottingen is a 250-year-old street and most of those businesses along that side of the street have no other way to access their business.”

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According to municipal staff there are 52 parking spaces along Gottingen, and under the new plan there will be 44 spaces along the east side during non-peak hours.

“There was a lot of thought and process went into getting a plan that considers pedestrians, that considers parking that considers transit which is kind of the main goal of this, so I feel most of the main goals were answered,” said District 8 Councillor Lindell Smith.

WATCH: Businesses worried about possible Gottingen Street transit corridor

1:38 Businesses worried about possible Gottingen Street transit corridor

After debate Thursday afternoon, the transportation standing committee voted to move the report forward to council, with Councillor Richard Zurwaski the lone “no” vote.

The committee will continue to monitor the situation and there is also a plan to look at moving some of the buses to Barrington Street.

“I think that study looking at the buses using Barrington and the bus ramp is very critical, because we would like to see buses that do not add any value to Gottingen or are express buses that don’t even stop in the neighbourhood moved off our street.”