Bayview Station needs better access, say residents

Hintonburg residents are fed up with what they call unsafe access to OC Transpo’s Bayview Station.

Currently, transit users approaching the station from the south—near Tom Brown Arena—are forced to climb a steep slope, and the local community association wants temporary stairs installed to make the trip a little safer for those on the way to the bus and O-Train.

The Hintonburg Community Association’s Linda Hoad says the lack of accessibility from the south side of Scott Street runs contrary to the city’s apparent promotion of public transit.

“It’s ridiculous. The city says that it wants to promote pedestrian and community transit as alternatives to the car, but it really calls into question their principles when you see this path,” she says.

Hoad could not confirm that the incline had caused any serious injuries to transit users, but she said people haven’t waited for an injury before trying to make the hill safer. In 2008, someone tied a rope to the Scott Street guard rail to help users climb over.

One woman on the way to Bayview understood Hoad’s concerns.

“It would be a wonderful idea to have a proper set of stairs,” she says, admitting that she “rarely” uses the path. “I don’t understand why there wouldn’t be better access to the road from the path.”

Hoad suggests that if someone slips on the slope and no one was around to assist, the city could face a lawsuit. She says that some of the difficulty in getting the stairs built lies in a debate about who in fact owns the land: the National Capital Commission or the city.

Hoad says city staff have told her that the NCC owns the land near the railway tracks, but the city owns the tracks themselves.

For its part, the NCC says it owns a sliver of the land behind the Tom Brown arena, measuring eight metres wide and 100 metres long. But it has no plans to build the stairs.

“We understand the need being expressed, but to our knowledge there has been no request on file from the [Hintonburg Community] association or City of Ottawa,” says NCC spokesman Jean Wolff. “All questions on this matter should be addressed to the city and OC Transpo."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the city told OpenFile it has no record of correspondence about the potential safety hazard—or any discussion about building stairs—with any resident, including Hoad.

“There’s no record of it,” says Jocelyn Turner. “Spoke to several different departments, and found no record of any inquiries or reports."

Kitchissippi councillor Katherine Hobbs could not be reached for comment.