Why is traffic so bad on Highway 417 in Ottawa?

It’s a familiar tale for many Ottawans. What should be a 25-minute drive to work in the morning soon becomes an arduous hour-long affair sitting in gridlock traffic on Highway 417.

And, according to a local transportation expert, congestion on Ottawa highways is only expected to get worse.

Podcasts and The Chronicles of Narnia audiobooks flood through the speakers of Andrew Arcello’s car every day as he makes the drive with his two daughters between Stittsville and Elmwood School in Rockcliffe Park.

“We’re trying to come up with solutions in the car to entertain ourselves and deal with things,” he said. “We start the car ride with, ‘How was your day’ sort of thing, but that’s usually a 10-minute conversation, not an hour-and-a-half conversation.”

It takes anywhere between 45 and 90 minutes for Arcello to get from Stittsville to Elmwood, where he teaches and his daughters are students.

He’s done this drive every day for the past few years and says he’s noticed traffic getting progressively “worse and worse.” It’s getting to a point where he’s considering moving out of Stittsville to cut down on the time his family must spend in the car.

So why is traffic on the 417 so bad, and what can be done to remedy the situation?

According to Adam Weiss, an associate professor of transport engineering at Carleton University, increased congestion on Highway 417 is caused by a “multitude of factors.” He points to construction, unreliable public transit and return-to-office mandates as the main causes.

“You’ve got this uptick in demand with more people trying to drive and get to work, and then (highway) capacity is being reduced because you have construction and lane reductions,” Weiss said.

When is construction expected to end?

Lane reductions and ramp closures have long since been a staple on Highway 417, also known as the Queensway. Things ramped up back in 2021, when Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation broke ground on a major highway-improvement project.

The work was slated to replace deteriorating bridges at five locations crossing the highway and to improve other infrastructure, including medians, noise barriers and retaining walls.

The work is scheduled “to finish in the coming months, when the highway will be reinstated to its original configuration,” the Ministry of Transportation wrote in a statement.

Until then, certain stretches of the highway are still reduced to three lanes, and it has been like this for the more than four years that the construction project has been active.

Commuters say congestion is worst in the three-kilometre stretch of lane closures west of downtown (between Kent and Parkdale in the westbound lanes and between Island Park and Kent in the eastbound lanes).

The transportation ministry did not provide an exact timeline for when the construction would be complete, but its website indicates the eastbound off-ramp at Bronson Avenue is expected to be closed until at least Nov. 28.

OC Transpo woes add to the problem

Until last year, Kanata resident Andres Rodriguez took the bus every day to get to and from his office in Gatineau. The commute involved three different buses and would often take up to two hours each way.

“There were days where I’d come home exhausted,” he said. “Not from the work day, but from the commute.”

About six months ago, Rodriguez had an opportunity to start driving to work instead. Even after sitting in traffic for upwards of an hour, he said, driving to the office cuts his commute time in half.

He’s one of many in Ottawa opting to drive to work and endure the traffic rather than navigate an unreliable bus system. OC Transpo ridership levels continue to fall below pre-pandemic numbers, with some commuters saying the New Ways to Bus route changes make commuting from the suburbs even harder than it was before.

“If you’re not taking transit, then you’re going to drive,” Weiss said. “That’s contributing to more congestion.”

The LRT doesn’t yet reach major suburbs at either end of the city, including Kanata, Barrhaven and Orléans. An O-Train Line 1 east extension is in progress, but OC Transpo still has not yet provided a firm opening date.

O-Train construction is also causing lane reductions and ramp closures in the east end, with councillors at odds with OC Transpo and contractors over what they say is a lack of communication about the timing of road closures that further disrupt traffic.

Return-to-office mandates bring more people into the city

The increasing number of workers being mandated to be in the office is also driving up the number of vehicles on roads in the region.

As of May, 76 per cent of workers in Ottawa-Gatineau worked most of their hours outside their homes, according to Statistics Canada. That was up 9.5 percentage points in the past year, as Ottawa-Gatineau recorded the largest increase in workers commuting to the office in the past year among the 15 largest cities in Canada.

More workers returning to the office also results in longer commute times. The average commute time in Ottawa was 26.4 minutes as of May, up from 26.2 minutes in May 2024 and from 24.8 minutes in 2023, according to StatsCan.

Rodriguez says he’s started to notice the patterns caused by the return-to-office mandates on his daily drive from Kanata to Gatineau: traffic is a bit lighter on Mondays and Fridays, with hybrid workers preferring to stay home on the days bookending their weekends.

But, with more workers starting to be mandated into the office five days a week, Victoria Lalonde, a social worker whose office is based in Vanier, says she’s not seeing this contrast between the different work days as much as she used to.

“Now, Monday to Friday, no matter what time you’re leaving, you’re always hitting traffic to and from the office,” said Lalonde, who commutes daily from Arnprior.

Pointing to a study conducted in Europe, Weiss says the peak traffic period may be “less intense” on days when fewer workers are going into their offices, but working from home might not reduce the overall number of vehicles on the road.

The study says people tend to have a certain amount of time they’re willing to spend travelling in a day. “If you’re not going to be travelling for commuting, there’s research to indicate that you’ll actually be travelling for other things like going shopping or going out for some sort of social event,” Weiss explained.

While hybrid work models may make the peak period “less intense” on days when more workers choose to stay home, this research may explain why we still see heavy congestion on all days of the week.

Will things get any better?

Pending major public transit upgrades or reversals on return-to-office policies, there’s little hope of traffic getting better.

“With the return to work order and the lack of funding for OC Transpo, it’s a perfect storm for things to get significantly worse,” Weiss said.

While return-to-work orders pose a significant challenge for highway congestion, Weiss said flexible work hours were one way to reduce the intense rush-hour period on the highway.

My daughter said to me the other day, ‘Why do we have to leave when it’s dark and come home when it’s dark?

Andrew Arcello

“If you’re working 10-to-6, that means you’re travelling at the tail end of the peak period and you’re spreading out demand over a longer period of time, and that’s generally going to improve congestion,” he said.

For some, though, flexible hours aren’t an option. Arcello and his daughters must be in their classrooms at Elmwood before the bell rings. While they usually leave Stittsville at 7 a.m., Arcello has experimented with leaving earlier if it means cutting down on the amount of time they’re in the car.

“My daughter said to me the other day, ‘Why do we have to leave when it’s dark and come home when it’s dark?’ Our whole day is based around this ridiculous commute we have right now,” he said.

Funding highway infrastructure projects also isn’t the way to solve congestion, according to Weiss. Instead, he says, the solution is to put more money into public transit and active transportation infrastructure to create viable alternatives for commuters coming downtown from all ends of the city.

“Our challenge in Ottawa is that no (government) really wants to pay for transit and funding transit deficits,” Weiss said. “OC Transpo is stuck trying to find ways to save money and that typically means service cuts.”

And, while knowing public transit isn’t a reliable option for many, Weiss encourages commuters to coordinate with friends and neighbours and start carpooling to work.

“You get another person out of their single-occupancy vehicle, and you get another car off the road,” he said.

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