20 Posted Sep 14, 2010, 2:48 AM lrt's friend Registered User Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 9,473 Quote: Dado Originally Posted by I've seen a picture of this before... the City Hall gallery had an exhibition on the rail history of Ottawa awhile back and there were overhead pictures of this area over a few decades.



I think the overpass was to allow a "short cut" from Tremblay to the Vanier Parkway and westbound Queensway without having to go all the way around the interchange.



If you look carefully you can see a second overpass under construction. It's between the railway station site and the Vanier Pkwy overpass. I think that one was to allow traffic from the eastbound Queensway a quicker way into the railway station.





All of this was removed by the time the Transitway was built (it might have been removed as part of its construction).



Over the years, all the roads in this area have been rerouted a number of times.



When I was a kid, Riverside Drive in the area of Hurdman's Bridge was but a rough country road and ran right next to the river near the bridge. In 1966, there was no Vanier Parkway. This came quite a bit later. The CPR that crossed Overbrook and Vanier where the Vanier Parkway is today was only abandoned that year. At that time, that interchange was named the Alta Vista Drive interchange. Alta Vista Drive followed a direct path to the interchange in those days, crossing through the middle of the Cancer Park at the corner of Riverside Drive and Industrial. The Transitway access at that intersection was actually an earlier connection to Riverside Drive. Going north of the interchange it fed onto a residential street just north of RCMP headquarters and then to River Road.Over the years, all the roads in this area have been rerouted a number of times.When I was a kid, Riverside Drive in the area of Hurdman's Bridge was but a rough country road and ran right next to the river near the bridge.