Colonel By Drive () is an long scenic

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada.

Route description

The parkway runs along the

Rideau Canal The Rideau Canal is a 202-kilometre long canal that links the Ottawa River at Ottawa with the Cataraqui River and Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Its 46 Lock (water navigation), locks raise boats from the Ottawa River 83 metres (272 ...

from the end of

Sussex Drive Sussex Drive (), also known as Ottawa Regional Road93, is an arterial road in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada. It is one of the city's main ceremonial and institutional routes. Travelling roughly parallel to the Ottawa River, Sussex Drive ...

at Rideau Street. It then continues south and west to Hog's Back Road, winding through several residential areas and going past

Dow's Lake Dow's Lake in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is a small man-made lake on the Rideau Canal, situated two kilometres north of Hog's Back Falls in the middle of Ottawa. It is at the southern end of Preston Street, just south of Carling Avenue, and just ...

and

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

. To the north, the road passes Department of National Defence Headquarters, the Ottawa Congress Centre and the Westin Hotel before ending at Rideau Street. The rear door of the Senate of Canada Building can be accessed from the street as well, after it passes under the Mackenzie King Bridge.

History

It is named for Lieutenant-Colonel

John By Lieutenant-Colonel John By (7 August 1779 – 1 February 1836) was an English military engineer. He is best known for having supervised the construction of the Rideau Canal and for having founded Bytown in the process. It developed and was desi ...

, who supervised the construction of the Rideau Canal. The winding two-lane road had a speed limit of for its entire length, until in 2022 the stretch from Bronson Avenue to Daly Avenue was reduced to 40 km/h (25 mph). For many decades the area east of the canal had held Ottawa's main rail lines connecting to the Ottawa Union Station near the northern end of the canal. In 1966, rail service was controversially relocated to the new Ottawa Station about southeast in an industrial area in the east end of the city as part of an urban renewal plan, leaving the area on the eastern bank of the canal open for development. The Colonel By Drive was built in part on this newly-available rail right-of-way. The Queen Elizabeth Driveway, another scenic Canadian parkway, already served the same purpose on the other side of the canal. Historically, like other National Capital Commission parkways, Colonel By Drive has been periodically closed to motor vehicle traffic and reserved for active transportation use. In 2021, the stretch between Canal Woods Terrace and Daly Avenue was closed from July 2 to September 6 for this reason. However, as of 2024, Colonel By Drive is not included in this active transportation program.

References

{{Ottawa Roads Roads in Ottawa Bike paths in Ontario Parkways in Ontario National Capital Commission