King Edward Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the eastern part of

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Despite being a municipal road, a portion of the street is designated as part of Canada's National Highway System, as part of an interconnecting route between

Ontario Highway 417 King's Highway 417, commonly referred to as Highway 417 and as the Queensway through Ottawa, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It connects Ottawa with Montreal via A-40, and is the backbone of the highway system in the ...

in Ottawa and

Quebec Autoroute 5 Autoroute 5 (A-5, also known as the Autoroute de la Gatineau) is a short controlled-access Autoroute in the Outaouais region of western Quebec. It connects the central urban area of Gatineau (formerly Hull) with the recreational areas of Gatin ...

Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region and is part of Canada's N ...

. King Edward Avenue runs from the

Macdonald-Cartier Bridge The Macdonald-Cartier Bridge (french: Pont Macdonald-Cartier) is a bridge connecting Ottawa, Ontario, to Gatineau, Quebec. The bridge is a 618 m long continuous steel box girder bridge and carries six lanes of traffic. It links King Edward Avenu ...

southward to the Queensway. The street was originally named "King Street" and was renamed to honour

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

. In the 19th century the street had the "by-wash" running through its centre, an open sewer that ran from the

Rideau Canal The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston. It is 202 kilometres long. The name ''Rideau'', French for "curtain", ...

to the

Rideau River The Rideau River (french: Rivière Rideau) is a river in Eastern Ontario, Canada. The river flows north from Upper Rideau Lake and empties into the Ottawa River at the Rideau Falls in Ottawa, Ontario. Its length is . As explained in a writin ...

. The by-wash was removed and replaced with a tree lined boulevard, making King Edward one of Ottawa's prettiest streets in the early 20th century. With the construction of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge and the Queensway, however, the street became congested with large commercial vehicles and quickly became dirty and dangerous. In 2013, the

National Capital Commission The National Capital Commission (NCC; french: Commission de la capitale nationale, CCN) is the Crown corporation responsible for development, urban planning, and conservation in Canada's Capital Region (Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec), i ...

recommended that a new bridge be built serving as a new

truck route A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...

for access to

. A month later, the government of Ontario cancelled its participation on the proposal. The current proposal from the city of Ottawa is to build a tunnel linking Highway 417 to Macdonald-Cartier Bridge. King Edward cuts directly down the centre of two of downtown Ottawa's oldest neighbourhoods,

Lower Town Lower Town (also spelled "Lowertown" (french: la Basse-Ville) is a neighbourhood in Rideau-Vanier Ward in central Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to the east of downtown. It is the oldest part of the city. It is bounded by Rideau Street to the south, ...

and Sandy Hill. It marks the primary eastern boundary of the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

campus, although a smaller number of university buildings are still located east of the street.

Rideau Street Rideau Street (french: Rue Rideau) is a major street in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and one of Ottawa's oldest and most famous streets running from Wellington Street in the west to Montreal Road in the east where it connects to the Vanier ...

divides both Sandy Hill and Lower Town, while the

, and the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (french: Rivière des Outaouais, Algonquin: ''Kichi-Sìbì/Kitchissippi'') is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word 'to trade', as it was the major trade route of Eastern ...

serve as natural boundaries to the rest of these two communities. The Byward Market is a sub-component of Lower Town.

References

External links

King Edward Reconstruction Project

King Edward Avenue Task Force

Lowertown Community Association
{{Ottawa Roads Roads in Ottawa

See also

References

External links