The release of the Downtown Tunnel Feasibility Study occurred in Aug 2016 (delayed from Q1 2016). This Study examined several possible routes for a tunnel from the 417 to the Macdonald-Cartier bridge and concluded that a tunnel was technically feasible. The recommended route for a tunnel would locate it's southern portal off the Vanier Parkway near Coventry Rd and continue under the Rideau River, East Sandy Hill, East Lowertown with the northern portal at the southern end of the Macdonald-Cartier bridge. The proposed tunnel would be 3.4km long, would in fact be 2 separate tunnels (one for each direction of travel), with 2 lanes in each tunnel. The cost was estimated at between 1.7B$ and 2.0B$ (2015$). It was estimated that if the tunnel existed in 2016 that it would carry approximately 1700 trucks and 20,000-25,000 cars per day. During the peak afternoon period the car traffic would approach 1400 vehicles per hour and a forecast was made that this would increase to 2500 vehicles per hour by 2031. Unfortunately the Study did not provide any forecast for how much additional truck traffic the tunnel would carry by 2031. Ottawa City Council on Sep 14, 2016 voted 21-2 to set aside 2.5m$ in the 2017 budget for a detailed environmental assessment (EA) for this tunnel and commissioned the Mayor to approach the provincial and federal governments to also contribute to the funding of the EA on a 1/3 basis. The EA process includes significant opportunities for formal public consultations. It is expected it would take 3-4 years to complete. The CCC welcomes this result and believes strongly that after 50 years of urban decay and several decades of failed solution attempts, that a viable solution must be found to the problem of over 2000 interprovincial trucks transiting through downtown streets every day. Documents for Download: The Study document and further supporting technical appendices (as of Aug 2016) can be downloaded from the City of Ottawa website at this link: http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-consultations/transportation/study-documents |
On Apr 6, 2016
Councilor Chernushenko has signalled an intention to bring a motion before
Transportation Committee requesting that the City undertake a study concerning
the broad issues of 'user pay' for roads. The intention of this study is to
have its results available for consideration during the 2018 update of the
Transportation Master Plan. At one end of the spectrum, user pay approaches could be designed to focus on congestion pricing as a means to shift auto demand away from peak periods, thus reducing time lost due to congestion while at the same time raising revenues that could be used to re-invest in more transportation options. On the other end of the spectrum, user pay approaches could be designed to focus on raising the revenue required to pay for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the road network, opening the possibility of shifting these costs off the general property tax bill and allocating them more fairly to those who use the road resource the most. But, there is opposition to the idea, including from Mayor Jim Watson. In contrast, the City of Toronto is proceeding with a study, and even The Globe and Mail newspaper is urging cities to get on with it. Implementation of
any form of pricing/funding of our road use is a long ways away but all journeys start with a first step. That step requires analysis of key concepts such as
potential pricing tools, realistic projections of the funds they could raise,
benefits they could provide, analysis of what roads are really costing us,
equity and inclusion implications, etc. These would form the foundation for the
start of an informed public policy debate.
The City has shown
its willingness to enter into these kinds of funding consultations with the
public as exemplified by the current initiative to discuss new and fairer ways
to allocate to users the funding of our water and sewer
infrastructure.
We cannot continue
to avoid starting similar discussions on how we fund and improve our
transportation network. |
A recent Ottawa Citizen article reports a Nov 2015 internal city memo that states that as a result of lower than expected collections of development charges that funding would not be available to start this project until at least 2020 or possibly even longer. That represents a delay of several years from the original plan. Just a few more years of delay and it just may be possible to realize our preferred plan to have the Trillium Line extension to south of the Airport (planned for 2023) completed first and to evaluate the timing/need for the road expansion once the benefits of the transit expansion can be realized and evaluated. Later in January 2016 the mayor hinted that he would be supportive of re-prioritizing the Trillium line expansion ahead of the road expansion. Both articles go on to provide the details that the City had expected 43m$ of development charges revenues annually but that going forward a more realistic projection was 26m$ annually. A city official is then quoted as saying "the new reality means that road projects will be introduced at a slower rate to match available funding". This 'new reality' is something that the CCC was already suspicious of starting back in 2012 as discussed in this post. |
The City held its first public open house on Jan 27, 2015 to present and solicit feedback on its proposal to widen the airport parkway. This project is
proposed to have a 3 stage rollout as follows:
Stage 1: expand
Airport parkway to 4 lanes divided hwy between Hunt Club and
Brookfield
- Completion is
envisioned for 2019, Projected Cost: 31m$
Stage 2: expand
Lester Rd to 4 lanes between Albion Rd and the Airport
Parkway
- Completion
envisioned for 2020-2025 timeframe, Projected Cost: 13m$
Stage 3: expand
Airport parkway to 4 lanes divided hwy between the Airport and Hunt
Club
- Completion
envisioned for 2026-2031 timeframe, projected cost 36m$
End-End project cost
= 80m$
The study is
expected to go through 3 rounds of public open houses and be finished in the latter half of 2016. More details...Airport Parkway Widening: Details |
On Nov 29th the Province of Ontario committed 375,000$ to co-fund a study proposed by the City of Ottawa on the feasibility of implementing a downtown tunnel between the 417 and the Macdonald-Cartier bridge as a possible solution to the downtown interprovincial truck problem. It was announced at the press conference that they expected to complete this study over the next 12-15 months. Glenn Murray the provincial minister of infrastructure and transport in his address affirmed that they would not be committing to spend this kind of money unless they were serious about exploring this possibility. The City's 2-page backgrounder document is an excellent summary of the proposed scope of the study. From the document: There will be two parts to the study of a tunnel alternative: Phase One: The first part of the study will assess the technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel and its portals; impacts of portals on adjacent land use, transportation facilities and buildings; ventilation requirements and impacts; potential conflicts with existing utilities and the Confederation Line; geotechnical analysis; the feasibility of using the tunnel by trucks carrying dangerous goods; other relevant tunnelling issues, and construction costs. Phase Two: If a tunnel solution is deemed technically feasible based on the analysis completed in Phase One, the second phase will go into more depth, and look at issues such as the likely utilization of the tunnel by long-distance trucks and cars; potential community impacts; as well as the potential for repurposing surface streets. |
On Nov 15 2013, the City's Transportation Committee met to review the draft 2013 Transportation Master Plan which outlines the transportation vision for the City to 2031 and beyond. One item that is always mentioned in these Transportation Master Plans is the need for a solution to the downtown interprovincial truck problem. In the past that solution has always been listed as a new interprovincial bridge somewhere in the City's east end. In a surprising move, a motion was tabled and passed at this meeting indicating the City was prepared to commit to funding 50% of a 750,000$ feasibility study for a downtown tunnel (to carry trucks) connecting the 417 to the Macdonald-Cartier bridge contingent on the Province of Ontario committing to be a co-funder of the study which is to be led by the City. This is a welcome move by the City of Ottawa especially in light of the collapse in June 2013 of the initiative to build a new bridge across the Ottawa River. While the CCC was a participant in that interprovincial bridge study, it had lobbied during the past 5 years that an analysis of a downtown tunnel between the 417 and the existing Macdonald-Cartier bridge should be part of the overall assessment process related to a potential new interprovincial bridge. This was largely because it was becomimg increasingly clear that a new east end bridge would at best be only a partial solution to the downtown truck problem and a solution that required a highly unpopular shifting of trucks into other residential areas of Ottawa and Gatineau. In response the Study partners issued a short tunnel memo which discounted a tunnel option claiming that it was not feasible and did not meet the projected 2031 needs to enable more cars to cross the Ottawa River. The CCC (as well as other community groups) was never satisfied with the level of analysis that was undertaken as part of that memo. The Nov 15th motion of the City of Ottawa indicates that the City is now prepared to do a more detailed feasibility analysis of this tunnel option. Further information: Downtown Tunnel Option Detailed Discussion |
The 2013 TMP updates the list of road expansion projects envisioned between 2014 and 2031. The Alta Vista Transportation Corridor (AVTC) phases 2 and 3 were both listed as post 2031 projects. The CCC has been arguing for years that this road was poor urban planning and should be removed from the plan. Although the City did not remove it from the 2013 plan, the delay of more than 15 years as compared to the 2008 Plan indicates that the CCC has a valid argument. More details about this roadway are provided on the AVTC details page. |
On Nov 15th the CCC provided comments to the Draft 2013 TMP. Copies of the actual submissions are available on our 2013 TMP page. The comments were focused on the following areas all identified to be of common interest across the CA`s participating in the CCC. a) Interprovincial Transit - need for a better plan to reduce the cars cuttting through downtown CA`s (in both directions) - need a better plan to reduce the volume of STO buses on Rideau & Wellington b) Interprovincial Truck Route-Trucks in the downtown - need for a review of the current truck routes to explore possibilities to reduce the impact of the current truck routes (short term action) - and a need for the City to be proactive and take the lead with other levels of government to get started on a new long term plan (now that the east end interprovincial bridge project has been halted) c) A more ambitious cycling plan - the proposed TMP has a very ambitious plan to transform transit but only a status quo plan to improve cycling - we are not clear on why the `affordability lens` allows for such an ambitious transit plan but an un-ambitious cycling plan and we would like to request more focus on correcting missing links and unsafe stretches of road for cycling in our communities d) Improving the Pedestrian experience - because so many people walk in the downtown communities, we need more emphasis on improving walkability and safety. These include...better repairs of cracks & holes in existing sidewalks, better snow and ice clearing, slowing of traffic in areas of high pedestrian volumes - also there are many measures that can be made that communicate the pre-eminence of walking in our communities such as compelling construction sites to keep sidewalks more open during construction periods e) More visibility of decision making criteria on TMP infrastructure projects - in general, there was a sense that not enough information had been provided in the TMP to indicate why certain transit, cycling, and road projects were prioritized over others - even city councillors seemed in the dark on many of these - also, the plan contains many changes from the 2008 plan and we believe there would be more credibility of the current plan if it explained the reasoning behind the changes (ie.. why did many important projects in 2008 suddenly become so much less of a priority) |
The NCC led interprovincial transit study which was initiated in 2009 published its concluding report in April 2013. It consists of a single summary document together with a number of supporting documents focused on specific sub-topics (long term network infrastructure evolution, user experience harmonization, STO/OC Transpo bus operations improvements, governance issues). The full set of these can be found on the Interprovincial Transit Study Resources page. There appears to be no intention to have the recommendations of the report brought to Ottawa City Council for their deliberation. This final report recommends tweaks to improve the operational integration between OC Transpo and STO but does not recommend any major inter-provincial transit changes until at least 2031 at which time it is suggested that the STO Rapibus facility be converted to LRT with a link across the Ottawa River west of downtown. The report identifies challenges to finding a way to terminate this new interprovincial LRT line in downtown Ottawa, outlines several possible options (transfer all passengers to Ottawa east-west LRT, operate through Ottawa's tunnel, or build a new line on the surface in Ottawa's downtown) and leaves a final decision to some time in the future. In terms of STO bus operations in downtown Ottawa, the report basically calls for the status quo of ~100 buses per hour on Rideau/Wellington streets for another 20 years. This is combined with 35 OC Transpo buses per hour on the Rideau portion which together translates to approximately 1 bus every 25 seconds (during rush hours for another 20 years). Uninspiring to say the least. In the interim (between 2013 and 2031) the study identifies the possibility of extending the existing O-Train across the river. This will not address the core challenge of moving large numbers of passengers to/from Ottawa's downtown. It's main benefit would be allowing some interprovincial passengers better connections between points south and west in Ottawa and Gatineau's downtown without them needing to connect through existing downtown transit routes. This would help to reduce slightly the number of STO buses downtown. Similarly, a potential new bridge at Kettle Island could carry some bus routes which would enable some transit trips between the east sides of both cities without those passengers needing to transit through the downtown. This too helps reduce slightly the number of STO buses in Ottawa's downtown. The O-Train interprovincial extension and bus routes on a Kettle Is bridge are not core to the long term interprovincial transit strategy. More detailed information about the results of the study and the CCC's involvement can be found on this interprovincial transit study webpage. This is the NCC's interprovincial transit study website. |
On May 14th 2013, the NCC announced the decision of their "Evaluation Committee" regarding the "technically preferred corridor" for a new interprovincial bridge in the east end of the NCR. The choice was Kettle Island (via Aviation Parkway-Montee Paiement). Kettle Island was preferred over 2 other corridors under consideration, both of which were located further east. This is basically a re-confirmation of the Phase 1 study which also recommended Kettle Island in 2008. Previous studies in the 1990's had also arrived at similar conclusions. The CCC was present at all stages of the study and attended the May 14th announcement to the public consultation group which consisted mostly of representatives of community groups that were adjacent to the 3 different east end corridors under evaluation. Reaction was swift with local politicians at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels for the affected area all declaring that they would not support a bridge at Kettle Island. Reasons given included that these areas were too built up as residential areas to be appropriate for such a corridor and that the proposed bridge was not providing an adequate solution to the volumes of inter-provincial trucks in the downtown. The detailed evaluation report which explains the decision making process used to demonstrate why the Kettle I. corridor is the best route is presented in this Final Evaluation Report. The evaluation scored all of the corridors with a weighted evaluation of factors such as transportation, social, cultural, environmental, land-use, cost and economic spin-off effect. The study claimed that even if the weighting factors were varied significantly more towards measuring social and environmental effect that Kettle Island would still score consistently better than the other corridors. The proposed project costs were updated as 1.1B$. This cost is composed of approximately 50% bridge costs, 25% new road work on the approaches to the bridge and 25% for engineering and contingency. The proposed bridge consists of 2 traffic and 1 dedicated transit lane in each direction. The roadway approaches on both the Ottawa and Gatineau side need to be modified and widened, significant interchange modifications required at the 417 and 50 interchanges, and overpasses would be built when the corridor crosses over Ogilvy Road on the Ottawa side and Blvd Maloney on the Quebec side. A more detailed report can be found on our Interprovincial Crossings Details page, |
On May 1, 2013 the City finally (after a near 1 yr silence) convened the 5th meeting of the public consultation group (PCG) for the W-LRT route selection study. The CCC has been participating all along in this process and indicated our disappointment that the public open house held the week before occurred before the PCG meeting. This was not the 1st time this has happened and the City acknowledged this was not the way things are supposed to be done. At this PCG meeting the City reiterated the proposal already presented at the public open house of their new preferred route now called the Richmond Underground or 'green' line. It was quite apparent that there is no interest whatsoever on the part of the City to consider the possibility of a Carling routing for the W-LRT. The position that the CCC presented at this May 1st PCG meeting is that the manner in which the City could develop in the next 20-50 year time horizon could be considerably different if the W-LRT took a northerly route (Parkway-Richmond) versus a southerly route (Carling). Because of the magnitude of this city building potential, a detailed picture of what these differences could be like in the 20-50 year time horizon and a city-wide debate on the costs/benefits of these differences was warranted. It is our view that nothing of this sort has occurred to date. For more details on what was discussed at the meeting regarding the new proposed Richmond Underground route and why the Carling Ave route has been discounted, visit our W-LRT project page. Considering the level of detail that the public has been provided and engaged in for other large infrastructure projects (Downtown LRT, East End Interprovincial Bridge, Lansdowne re-development), the transparency in the case of the W-LRT route selection is sorely lacking. This leaves one to speculate on possible reasons why the process has been so poor for this project. On multiple occasions the City has mentioned that the available transit funding 'envelope' over the next 20 year horizon is fixed and limited and as a result any increase in costs for building the inside-the-Greenbelt components of the system (such as this W-LRT segment) means less money available for extending later to the 'outside-the-greenbelt' portions. It seems plausible that once again suburban priorities are trumping urban ones and that doing it on the cheap to get out to the edge of the Greenbelt is more important than doing it right. Could this be the reason for the lack of willingness to have a detailed conversation with the public on the Carling route. At least can we have this conversation? For the sake of the next 100 years and the shape of how our City will develop? |
On Jan 29th the City officially launched the public consultation process for the update of the 2013 Transportation Master Plan. This launch was attended by the CCC and the CCC is actively working on a set of proposals/comments to provide to the City. The first release of detailed information for public consumption is the results of the 2011 Origin-destination survey. Details of the TMP update process, the CCC's planned submissions, and links to the 2011 Origin-Destination survey results are provided on our 2013 TMP update page. |
After a delay of more than a year, the project team produced an interim report and recommendation to City Council. This occurred prior to convening any further meetings of the public consultation group (PCG) in which the CCC is a participant. The PCG meeting was then held, subsequent to the report and decisions at City Council. The report produced a diagram illustrating the rankings of the 15 corridors based on a complex matrix of ranking criteria/sub-criteria. Based on this information council permission was requested to perform more in-depth analysis on the top 4 ranked corridors. The Carling Ave route is not a part of any of these corridors. At the City Council meeting considerable discussion prevailed on whether or not this meant that a Carling Ave centric route was 'off the table' and would no longer be considered. The public was assured this was not the case and that 'all routes remain on the table'. However it is difficult to understand how this could be possible when Council directed City Staff and their consultants to concentrate further analysis on the top 4 (Ottawa River Parkway-ORP corridor and 3 of the Richmond/Byron corridor variations) none of which involve a Carling Ave based route. Report is expected back by mid-2013 with a recommendation of a preferred primary corridor for the W-LRT route from Tunney's Pasture to Lincoln Fields/Algonquin College. Further information and a discussion of the CCC perspective on this interim report is available on our W-LRT project page. |
The CCC's Budget Analysis research page for transportation and transit related capital and operational expenditures has been updated with 2012 budget figures. 2012 is an unusal year as 340m$ of additional (ie. more than typical) road and sewer renewal projects have been funded for implementation in a compressed timeframe of 2012 to 2014. These accelerated projects are those which would originally have been implemented over a longer (2012-2017) time frame. The intention is that there would be little to no road works undertaken in 2015-2017 while the LRT is under construction. The 340m$ accelerated transportation related expenditures includes expenditures of up to 18m$ on cycling and 4m$ on sidewalks. |
Despite numerous efforts on behalf of the DCA and CCCA communities, and with the support of the local councilor, the City staff in charge of this project insist on carrying through with plans to widen this section of roadway as part of the sewer and water renewal project in 2012. The CCC at it's Nov 30, 2011 meeting agreed to send to City Transportation Committee a letter re. Bronson Ave. in support of the DCA and the CCCA's efforts to oppose the further widening of Bronson Ave north of the 417. More information can be found at the Rescue Bronson page of this website. |
The results of a truck survey performed in 2007 by the MTO on the Chaudiere and Macdonald-Cartier bridge has been summarized in a document dated Feb 2011 and posted on the www.ncrcrossings.ca website. This document contains information such as: - total number of trucks on Chaudiere and Macdonald-Cartier bridge, by truck type, by time of day - origins and destinations of truck journeys on these bridges - journey lengths in kms For more information and a copy of this document follow this link to the Truck Studies section of this website. |
On Jul 14, 2011 a report was tabled to City Council announcing that the LRT tunnel would be shifted to an alignment along Queen Street rather than the original 'cross-country route' under the deep foundations of downtown highrises. This new route will enable the two downtown stations to be considerably shallower (15m vs 30m) and will also provide more flexibility to the construction team in terms of potential construction techniques making it more probable for the City to tender for a fixed price contract. More details can be found on our LRT project page. |
On Wed Jun 15th 2011, OC Transpo put forward a proposal to double the
capacity/frequency of O-Train service. Apparently the savings on bus costs
almost completely covers the costs to implement this O-Train expansion.
Congratulations to those who have been advocating for greater use of the O-Train
corridor for years. Hopefully the City will pay a little more attention to your
suggestions next time around! Regarding a 2nd stage of expansion - route extension to Riverside south...this is what this report has to say: "At the Transit Commission meeting of May 18, 2011, staff were directed to analyze the feasibility of extending the O-Train corridor south. Pending Commission and Council approval of this report, staff will proceed with a feasibility study using existing budgets." For more details visit our Transit Issues page. |
In May 2011 the following Notice of Detailed Design Commencement was issued indicating that work on this project to widen the 417 to 8-lanes was starting. Also during May 2011 several presentations were made to Ottawa City Council on the topic of accelerating the implementation of Ottawa's east-west LRT project. These presentations referenced the fact that the LRT project was dependent on this 417 widening project being finished prior to 2016 as the added lanes on the 417 are intended to be used for OC Transpo buses during the 2016-2018 timeframe when the Bus Transitway will be taken out of service for transition to LRT. More details on the 417 widening east of downtown can be found on this page |
This informative document dated Jan 2011 by the TRANS committee uses the Origin-Destination survey of 2005 and compares it to previous surveys from 1985 and 1995 to show trends in population, car ownership, and travel patterns. It then suggests ways in which these trends should be taken into account to adjust models and projections into the future. Presumably much of this analysis will be used as part of the planning and modelling that will go into the 2013 update of the 2008 version of the Transportation Master Plan. For a summary of the key observations from this document and to retrieve a copy go to the Key Documents section of this website. |
The 2011 budget proposes 5m$ towards the construction of Phase 1 of the Alta Vista Corridor referred to as the Hospital Link, with an intention to ask for a further 50m$ in 2012 to complete this 1.2 km roadway which would serve no other purpose other than to be an alternate access road to the Ottawa Hospital. Due to its excessive cost relative to its benefits, and due to the fact that in reality what is to be built is really the first phase of the complete Alta Vista Corridor, the CCC has sent the following Alta Vista Corridor opposition letter to City Council as part of its 2011 budget deliberations. For further details consult this Alta Vista Corridor section on this website. |
Today at Transit Commission, OC Transpo provided an initial view of how they plan to achieve annual operational cost savings of 22m$ per year starting from 2012. This will come from 4 different sources.
Route Changes: In other words, 80% of the cost savings come from reducing service in off-peak hours in lower density areas where transit ridership tends to be lower. The details of which routes will be adjusted as part of item #2 and #3 above will be presented to the transit commission and for public comment on Mar 23. The following points were made regarding the upcoming route changes:
Double Decker Buses: The second major item in today's announcement is the proposal to purchase 75 new double decker buses and put them into operation as soon as possible as express buses. OC Transpo was planning to add another 118 buses to it's fleet by 2016 as this was going to be necessary to cope with route detours that will happen while the LRT is under construction. Todays' proposal basically asks to buy more buses now four years sooner and to buy double deckers rather than articulated buses. This will result in annual operating costs savings of 2.5m$ in 2012 and 10m$ in each of 2013 to 2016. The 2013 to 2016 savings will be offset by 4m$ per year of financing costs to buy these buses (resulting in a bottom line annual savings of 10-4=6m$ per year). Following are some points which were noted regarding double decker buses:
This last point is the reason why it is proposed to use them only on express routes where there will be less stops. It was also noted that they anticipate with a double decker bus overall end-end trip times on the express routes to be on average 6% longer than today (because of longer loading/unloading times). More information on the business case behind the double decker bus proposals will be provided at the Mar 23 Transit Commission meeting. |
Feb 2, 2011: The City of Ottawa Transportation Committee approved a statement of work to commence an Environmental Assessment study to select and design a solution for improving transit service along Baseline road from Bayshore station to Prince of Wales Drive. A range of alternative corridors and designs will be examined, including on-street bus lanes (centre and curb side) and segregated transit service. The study will carry on for 18 months and will examine the need, the existing conditions, and potential alternatives. Those alternatives will be evaluated against a number of criteria and a cost and design proposed for a recommended solution. During this time period numerous public open houses will be scheduled as well as meetings with smaller consultation groups of citizens, businesses, and other government agencies. The next step is the selection of a consultant to perform the EA study. More details can be found on the Baseline Road Transit Improvements page. |
The CCC has performed a detailed analysis of the 2011 budget for both operational and capital costs for the road network and for transit. These results are published in the Research link on this website. This analysis reveals that a signficant portion of our property tax bills is going towards funding transportation within the City. Using this funding wisely is one of the most important functions of the City staff and politicians. |
The 2010-2014 term
of council will replace the transit committee with a transit commission which
will consist of 8 councillors and 4 members of the public and will meet on the
3rd Wed of every month.
The relationship
between roles of City Council and the transit commission is described in the
following Report to council. An approximate summary of this document follows:
The following topics
will continue to be dealt with at the council level:
Outside of those
main topics, the Transit Commission will be responsible for the following topics:
Note, responsibility
for Environmental Assessments related to transit projects would fall under the
review of the Transportation Committee (as they already possess EA expertise
arising from EA's related to road and other transportation related
projects). |
A public consultation process is underway into the planned services renewal (sewer and water) and road reconstruction of Bronson Ave north of the Queensway. The Centretown and Dalhousie Community Associations are making the case that the road profile on this section of Bronson would achieve a better balance between community quality of life and automobile needs if it was reconstructed as one travel lane in each direction combined with opposing left turn lane pockets at intersections. Read more about it on the CCC Roads Issues page and explore further links to the Rescue Bronson initiative. |