Crawling along: No timeline for Highway 174 upload as uncertainty continues

There’s still no clear timeline for when Ottawa’s Highway 174 will be uploaded by the provincial government. CTV’s Leah Larocque reports.

There is still no clear timeline for when Ottawa’s Highway 174 will be uploaded by the provincial government — leaving commuters and local leaders in limbo.

Orléans Liberal MPP Stephen Blais is calling on the provincial government for clarity.

During Question Period at Queen’s Park on Tuesday, Blais told members of provincial parliament, “What should be a short drive home becomes an hour-long commute. And tragically, people continue to have accidents, suffer injuries, and die on the unsafe stretches of Highway 174 to Cumberland, Rockland and beyond that need to be widened and divided. The highway has not been uploaded. There is no funding. There is no plan.”

The eastern Ottawa corridor, which connects Orléans to the rest of the city, remains under municipal control despite a provincial commitment to eventually take it over. The upload was first announced in 2024 as part of a broader funding agreement between the City of Ottawa and Ontario.

Two years later, key questions remain unanswered.

Highway 174 was once part of the provincial highway system before being downloaded to the city in the late 1990s.

Under the current agreement, the province has committed to helping fund maintenance and rehabilitation work; however, that support comes without a firm deadline for when — or even if — full ownership will change hands.

In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, the Ministry of Transportation says, “The agreement with Ottawa includes a three-stage, phased plan to assess considerations related to provincial ownership of Ottawa Road 174 (Highway 174). This assessment is currently underway. Once complete, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) will review the results. In the interim, the province is providing the City with up to $56 million to support capital and operating expenses for the roadway.”

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says when the upload happens it will be a “game changer” for residents in Orléans.

In an email Attributed to Will McDonald, Director, Strategic Projects Office, the city says, “The three-year agreement will allow the MTO sufficient time to conduct a review of the highway prior to making a recommendation on the conditions of the upload of Highway 174 to the Province.”

The city says it is working closely with the province during the due diligence process in alignment with the terms of the New Deal for Ottawa.

Orléans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas was disappointed there was no timeline or funding announcement in the recently released provincial budget. “I would have absolutely liked to have seen that the budget outlined that it was being uploaded tomorrow. I think from my community standpoint, from the city’s standpoint, the sooner that this highway is uploaded and brought back to where it belongs with the province, it will take that burden of maintenance and cost off of the city’s shoulders.”

Dudas says, “When the province uploads this highway, it’s going to free up all the money that the city has been putting in to maintaining this roadway.”

“It would also mean that the province would then be able to look at this roadway, look at it from a safety standpoint, from a traffic standpoint, and assess whether there’s improvements that they can do. But I am very excited to see more of the money that our Ottawa taxpayer dollars, staying within the Ottawa area and going towards other transportation projects.”

For now, the upload remains a promise — but one without a schedule.

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