19 August 2026

Rural Road Safety

Statistic card: 1 in 3. More than a third of Ottawa's fatal collisions happen on rural roads, which see fewer than one in ten of the city's collisions.

Rural intersections are assessed against urban thresholds.

Traffic control at an intersection or crossing is installed when the location satisfies a warrant. Warrants count vehicle volumes, pedestrian crossings in the busiest hours, and collision history against fixed thresholds. Ottawa’s all-way stop criteria include a threshold of nine recent collisions.

Those thresholds are calibrated to urban and suburban volumes. Rural locations carry fewer vehicles and far fewer pedestrians, so they satisfy the volume elements infrequently regardless of the physical conditions of the road.

Collision severity does not follow the same distribution as volume. More than a third of Ottawa’s fatal collisions happen in rural areas, on roads that see fewer than one in ten of the city’s collisions overall. And the city’s own road safety annual report shows serious collisions falling citywide while the rural share of them rises: one quarter of Ottawa’s fatal and major-injury collisions now happen in the rural area, up from about one in five a decade earlier.

Fatal crashes

1 in 3

More than a third of Ottawa’s fatal collisions happen on rural roads, which see under 10% of collisions overall.

Nixon & Dalmeny

8 of 9

Collisions over two years, against a nine-collision criterion. It did not qualify.

Flewellyn & Shea

Collisions from 2017 to 2022. The permanent fix is targeted to start construction in 2028.

Skewed intersections

Locations in the city’s 2020 rural safety study. The backlog isn’t published in one place.

How the current process performs

Nixon Drive and Dalmeny Road, south of Osgoode. Eight collisions over two years, against a nine-collision criterion. The location did not qualify for an all-way stop. Following two serious collisions weeks apart in June 2026, the second of which was fatal to an eight-year-old child, the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee and council approved a motion installing an all-way stop and directing staff to monitor the location.

The committee also approved an enhanced process for rural intersections at that time: speed studies consistently included in rural signal assessments, volume data collection extended to the highest eight hours within a sixteen-hour period to reflect longer rural commutes and earlier departures, and new all-way stop criteria for collector-to-collector and local-to-collector intersections. Those are improvements to the inputs of the existing model.

Flewellyn Road and Shea Road, near Stittsville. Thirty-four collisions between March 2017 and November 2022. An all-way stop is not physically possible because the intersection is offset by more than a hundred feet. Interim measures installed to date are speed boards, flashing lights, and repainted lines. The permanent fix, realigning Shea Road and building a roundabout, is targeted to begin construction in 2028, with land acquisition and utility relocation identified by staff as capable of extending that.

Constance Bay Road and Dunrobin Road. Ranked first of twenty-two locations in the city’s 2020 Safety Study of Ottawa Rural Skewed Intersections, on collision history, road grade, sightlines, and traffic control. A single-lane roundabout was recommended. The modification is proceeding under a Municipal Class Environmental Assessment.

The commitments

Adopt a rural road safety standard.

Within the first year, adopt a standard for rural intersections and crossings that weighs operating speed, sightlines, road geometry and grade, school walking routes, and heavy truck volume alongside collision history, rather than treating volume as the primary qualifying test. The Ontario Traffic Manual provides for the application of engineering judgment; this standard makes that application consistent and reviewable rather than case by case.

Automatic engineering review at half the collision threshold.

Any rural location reaching half the applicable collision threshold triggers an engineering review without a resident request, with a published finding and a date for any recommended work. This replaces the current outcome, in which a location below threshold receives a determination that it does not qualify and no further assessment.

Publish the rural safety backlog.

Publish all twenty-two locations from the 2020 skewed-intersections study with current status, funded year, and expected completion, updated quarterly, alongside every rural location with an open safety review.

Publish interim measures with completion dates.

Where a permanent fix is more than two years out, the city publishes an interim safety package for that location with a completion date: lighting, advance warning systems, sightline clearing, and rumble strips on rural road types where they are effective. Interim measures are tracked and reported on the same schedule as the capital project they precede.

This is one part of the Lawson plan for rural Ottawa.

We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Ottawa deserves better.