By Shaun Markey –
It has been 16 years since municipal amalgamation when provincial legislation combined the 11 municipalities of the Region of Ottawa-Carleton into one, large, City of Ottawa. Despite the passage of time, at least one bothersome detail from that merger remains – the repetition of street names.
One only has to think about the problem that police, firefighters, or ambulance dispatchers experience when there is confusion over the name of a street. Valuable minutes can be easily lost to first responders when they lack accurate information as to the location of an emergency.
While the most obvious of these problems have been resolved, there are still many names that adorn more than one street in Ottawa. There are also situations where streets have similar sounding names or sections of a street are truncated by a park, a building or some other physical entity.
This year, the City is making an effort to resolve outstanding issues with streets that still have the same or similar sounding name. Most of the streets at issue will simply get a “cardinal point” attached to them. For example, Hinton Avenue North versus Hinton Avenue South.
Residents who live on a street that is up for a name change will hear from the City by mail.
Councillor Jeff Leiper provided a list of the streets that will be impacted by a name change in a recent e-newsletter. They are:
- Athlone (Clare to the dead end)
- Breezehill Avenue North (Wellington Street West to dead end)
- Bayswater Place
- Bayview Road
- Byron Avenue (Roosevelt to the dead end)
- Cole Avenue (Dovercourt to Carling Avenue)
- Crossfield Avenue (Courtenay to Wavell)
- Gainsborough Avenue (Byron to the dead end)
- Hillcrest Avenue (Dovercourt to Tillbury)
- Irving Place
- Laurentian Place (Fairmont to Irving)
- Mansfield Avenue (Skead to Richmond)
- Mayfair Avenue (Byron to Helena)
- Manchester Avenue
- Melrose Avenue (roundabout to Carling)
- Patricia Avenue (Pontiac to Premier)
- Piccadilly Avenue (Byron to Geneva)
- Premier Avenue (Remic to Island Park Drive and from Patricia to Northwestern)
- Ravenhill Avenue (Melbourne to Churchill Avenue North)
- River Street
- Tillbury Avenue (Wavell to Golden)
Residents can send their suggestions for street names to the Councillor’s office until the end of April. He will develop a short list of the proposed street names and create a committee of community leaders to help choose the names and ensure they meet the criteria set by the City before they are submitted.
More information about street name changes is available at ottawa.ca.