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'Lower Town', sometimes spelled 'Lowertown' (French: ''Basse-Ville'') is a district in the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to the east of downtown. It is bounded roughly by Rideau Street to the south, Sussex Drive and Ottawa River to the north, the Rideau Canal to the west, and the Rideau River to the east. It includes the commercial Byward Market area in the western part, and is predominantly residential in the east.
It was historically French Canadian and Irish (as opposed to English and Scottish ''Upper Town'', a term no longer in use) and its total population today is roughly 11,377 people (2006 census). [1]

Contents

Ethnic Diversity

Post-War Urban Upheaval

King Edward Avenue

Rideau Street

See also

External links

Ethnic Diversity

According to the City of Ottawa website, there are roughly 4180 native English-speakers in Lower Town, 3530 Francophones, and 2235 with other mother tongues. Lower Town is home to a wide variety of immigrants and visible minorities, of which there are 2495 of the latter.
Lower Town's diverse population makes it one of the city's more interesting neighbourhoods. Its main stretch along Rideau Street is very bustling and includes many African, Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, and Lebanese businesses, a large grocery store, the Rideau Branch of the Ottawa Public Library, and an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

Post-War Urban Upheaval

As part of the Greber Plan for Ottawa, new parkways, roads and bridges were constructed in the post-war period as a plan for renewal and improvement of Ottawa. This period saw major upheaval in the area as dozens of city blocks and hundreds of homes were systematically demolished to make way for expanded roads and new development. However, while the redevelopment was done in Lower Town, neighbouring areas opposed the plans, leaving the current incomplete solution to traffic through the area, heavy truck traffic, and poor urban streetscape for Lowertown residents to cope with.

King Edward Avenue

Today, King Edward Avenue is a six lane main road running north-south through the centre of the neighbourhood. It is connected on its north to the MacDonald Cartier Bridge, a main connection with Gatineau, Quebec, which leads to heavy traffic travelling to and from Gatineau through the area. The traffic exits Lower Town either to the east along St. Patrick or to the south along Rideau and Nicholas to the 417 highway, as south of Rideau, King Edward is a four-lane (and further south, two-lane) road through the Sandy Hill residential neighbourhood with no heavy truck traffic allowed.
Since the street is so large and so busy, it exists as a major barrier between the east and west halves of Lower Town. Since it is the main truck route between Ottawa and Gatineau, this means that there are large numbers of tractor trailers travelling through the core of Ottawa daily.
The road from the bridge was intended to connect to a new Vanier Parkway to the north of the neighbourhood, across Green Island and Maple Island. This connector was never built because of political opposition, and instead St. Patrick Street east of King Edward was built into a major four-lane thoroughfare cutting through the neighbourhood. The end of the connector from the bridge instead connects to King Edward at a sharp turn where the connector would have continued directly to the east.
King Edward was itself rebuilt into a six-lane major thoroughfare from Sussex Drive to Rideau Street, and the plan was to continue the six-lane through Sandy Hill to connect to the Queensway (417) highway. This also was never built.

Rideau Street

Rideau Street has had its share of poor development and misguided solutions also. Prior to the shopping malls and suburbanization of today, Rideau Street west of King Edward was a primary shopping area of Ottawa. While to the north, the Byward Market area has continued to thrive, Rideau Street is struggling, with vacant areas, and has become the centre of the homeless population of Ottawa. To the south, the Rideau Centre development provided a shopping mall atmosphere, and retailers moved inside. As part of the development, Rideau Street was turned into a major bus interchange, with enclosed bus shelters on the sidewalks at first. However, these were used as a prime overnight shelter for homeless persons, and were removed. Today, the large number of buses remain, the heavy trucks pass through, and the homeless panhandle, creating an unfriendly stretch for pedestrians.

See also

★ List of Ottawa neighbourhoods

★ Rideau Street

External links

★ Bytown.net article 'Evolution of an Ottawa Neighbourhood'