Community group takes over Mayfair Theatre marquee to promote Bank Street bus lane pitch

The marquee at the Mayfair Theatre included a message about supporting bus lanes on Bank Street by the community group Strong Towns Ottawa. May 29, 2025. (Dave Charbonneau/CTV News Ottawa)

The marquee at the Mayfair Theatre on Bank Street was not showing a movie Thursday morning, but instead a message about bus lanes.

A local community group is raising awareness about their demand for dedicated bus lanes on the busy street through a campaign that includes the sign on the marquee and ads that play before movies at the local cinema.

Strong Towns Ottawa says none of the options the City of Ottawa is considering for the future of Bank Street are adequate.

The city is exploring ways to improve transit and active transportation on a busy corridor of Bank between the Rideau Canal and Highway 417 but says full time bus-only lanes and removing all on-street vehicle parking have been eliminated as options.

Instead, the city is proposing having dedicated bus lanes only during peak traffic periods in the morning and afternoon.

“A simple change could make for a much better Bank Street: instead of only having bus lanes for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening, let’s have them 24/7! The on-street parking should be moved to the plethora of options available surrounding Bank Street,” a statement on Strong Towns Ottawa’s website says.

Derrick Simpson, a volunteer with Strong Towns Ottawa, who also serves as the transportation board chair at the Centretown Community Association, says it’s been one year since the City of Ottawa spoke to the community about the Bank Street plan.

“We were really excited by that, and we haven’t heard anything since,” Simpson told CTV News Ottawa. “We figured this was a good way to get some attention and make sure that people are still thinking about this.”

The city held a public open house on its plans for Bank Street in June 2024. A second public open house is planned for June 2025, according to the city’s website, but the exact date and details have not yet been announced. The plan is slated to go before the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee and Council in September.

Simpson said he was disappointed by the city’s rejection of 24/7 bus lanes.

“We especially think that for event days, it’s very important. There’s only about 1,000 parking spaces in Lansdowne and the Redblacks’ stadium seats around 20,000. We need other ways for people to get there and we believe the bus is the best option,” he said.

“We know OC Transpo has been struggling a lot with reliability and we think this would help get people to work faster, get people home faster, help them get to school on time, so we really think this is about reliability. It’s making sure the bus shows up on time and gets you where you need to be on time.”

Two routes serve Bank Street, the 6 and the 7. The 6 has frequently dealt with cancelled trips, according to statistics provided to the transit committee.

On-street parking issue

Strong Towns Ottawa says on-street parking is one of the main things contributing to delays on Bank Street.

“It takes up 2 full lanes, 6.6m of the 12.6m (over 50%), road. This space could much better serve those moving through, as well as those staying in the area,” the group says on its website.

Simpson said this affects buses as well.

“We’ve had buses stuck in traffic, we’ve had buses waiting behind parked cars, and we think this is a great way to make sure people can arrive on time,” he said.

According to data from the City of Ottawa, parking on Bank Street accounts for seven per cent of the total supply in the area. There are 143 spaces on the street out of a total supply of 2,000 spaces, including parking garages. There are 971 parking spaces at Lansdowne and another 139 in the Second Avenue garage. Parking utilization is higher in the evenings and on weekends.

According to a City of Ottawa survey, nearly a third of respondents (32 per cent) said bus lanes were the most important feature for a redesign of Bank Street, while 13 per cent cited on-street parking as their most important feature. Forty-five per cent of respondents who drive to Bank Street said they’d be willing to walk between five and 10 minutes after parking to reach a destination, and 15 per cent said they’d be fine with a longer walk.

Simpson says Strong Towns Ottawa volunteers will be out near the entrance to the Second Avenue parking garage between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday to meet with community members and raise awareness about the issue. The marquee sign was only scheduled to be up for part of the day Thursday, but the ads at the Mayfair Theatre will run until June 15.

“The community response so far has been really, really good,” said Simpson. “We raised the funds for this in less than two hours, so we were blown away by the community response.”

Details on the Bank Street Active Transportation and Transit Priority Feasibility Study can be found on Engage Ottawa.