OTTAWA — Alex deVries doesn’t scare easily. A high-tech worker who bikes between his home in the Glebe and his job in Kanata, often along Carling Avenue, he has had more than a few hair-raising experiences.

However, one of the hairiest moments of his commute is the dash across Queen Elizabeth Drive during rush hour, as he tries to cross between the Rideau Canal bike path and the residential streets of the Glebe.

“It’s a very common route for skaters and cyclists in opposite seasons,” deVries said. “The Bank Street bridge blocks the view of oncoming traffic. It’s very dangerous.”

On busy days, and especially during festivals, thousands of people like deVries brave the sprint across either Queen Elizabeth Drive or Colonel By Drive to get to the canal and its recreational pathways.

Statistics from the National Capital Commission show that, during Winterlude 2009, the canal attracted 457,000 skaters.

A five-day count of cyclists during Bike to Work week in June of this year showed 6,500 bike trips along the recreational pathway on the east side of the canal alone, or 1,300 bike trips each day.

At the Canal Ritz restaurant, waitress Erica Brown regularly watches diners trying to make their way across the road after a meal.

“At dinnertime, they’re usually all in this big huddle, trying to cross,” she said. “Usually some car will stop, or you’d be waiting for minutes.”

Yet the National Capital Commission, which owns Queen Elizabeth Drive, Colonel By Drive and the recreational paths on both sides of the canal, has not installed a single pedestrian crossing between Pretoria Bridge and Dow’s Lake, a distance of five kilometres.

“Eventually, somebody is going to get killed,” said Councillor Clive Doucet, whose Capital ward contains that section of the Rideau Canal, “and they’re going to have to do something.”

The NCC did hold a public workshop in June 2008 to discuss the issue. A status report from September 2009 identified a list of 15 “top priority locations” for further study.

After the public workshop, the NCC hired a consultant, Stantec, to study traffic and pedestrian volume and movements at the identified locations, with the aim of producing a final report by December 2009.

It’s now seven months past that date and the report hasn’t come out yet.

“I requested a study and they’ve done the study, and we can’t get any results from it,” a frustrated Doucet said.

NCC media-relations advisor Mario Tremblay said the delay occurred because the consulting firm needed extra time to gather the data from all four seasons of the year. The data has now been gathered and compiled for internal review, and the NCC intends to present it to the public at a fall workshop, he said.

He added that the NCC had allowed the installation of pedestrian-crossing signals across Colonel By at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, plus a four-way stop on Queen Elizabeth Drive at the Corktown bridge.

“The fact we are pursuing a study of 15 intersections on Colonel By Drive and Queen Elizabeth Drive, in consultation with community groups, demonstrates our interest in reviewing any potential crossing issues,” Tremblay said in an e-mail.

Data from the Ottawa police, RCMP and OPP indicate that 10 people were hit by vehicles while crossing either Queen Elizabeth Drive or Colonel By Drive in 2008 and 2009. Seven of those accidents were at traffic lights, two at stop signs, and only one at a place with no kind of pedestrian crossing.

Doucet said the problem of trying to cross the road would become more acute once Lansdowne Park was redeveloped with shopping, concert events and professional sports franchises.

“I think they’re petrified of cluttering (the Driveway) up with lights because it’s a beautiful stretch, and it is, a beautiful, beautiful stretch of road,” he said.

Doucet said the solution didn’t have to be traffic lights at every corner. In fact, lights would be a clumsy fix because cars would have to wait, idling, even if there were no pedestrians wanting to cross. Instead, he suggested small landscaped roundabouts or traffic islands with pedestrian-activated crosswalks.

“You configure the road, so the driver has to slow down and make a little jog,” he said. “These little roundabouts can be very, very beautiful.”

Tremblay said the NCC values both safety and aesthetics along the canal.

“Pedestrian and cyclist’s security is very important for the NCC,” he wrote in his e-mail. “The NCC places a high level of importance on the scenic value of the parkway system, which function as Capital Arrival points to scenic destinations and cultural institutions.”