Mark Sutcliffe’s approach combines maintenance of the existing road network with major transportation projects and alternatives to driving. His campaign states that road and sidewalk investment doubled during the current term and that the City invested more in public transit than during any previous Council term.

His earlier transportation commitments included $100 million over four years for roads and sidewalks, improved winter maintenance, public pothole reporting, clearer road-construction information, growth-related road infrastructure, off-peak construction work, larger ward traffic-calming budgets, expanded red-light-camera use and rural road safety edges. Several of these themes remain visible in his current record and 2026 budget communications.

In the lead-up to the 2026 election, Sutcliffe has also promised that, if re-elected, he will boost funding for rural roads and advance work on an Ottawa ring road. These pledges signal a stronger emphasis on improving rural connectivity and exploring or progressing a bypass route around the urban area as part of his broader road network strategy.

The July 2026 Transportation and Mobility Strategy under his administration identifies 48 potential measures. These include traffic-signal optimization, real-time monitoring, faster incident response, enforcement, construction coordination, express transit routes, Park & Ride expansion, parking adjustments and support for walking and cycling. The City also worked with Ontario to reduce conflicts between Highway 417 construction and heavier fall commuting.

Sutcliffe also supported an agreement to advance a provincial upload of Highway 174 and the LRT. He argues that the arrangement would improve transportation accountability and free municipal funds for more reliable transit. His position is therefore not simply road expansion; it is a network-management strategy that uses maintenance, targeted capacity, transit and intergovernmental funding.

The key questions are whether announced investments reduce the road-maintenance backlog, whether signal and construction measures produce measurable travel-time improvements, whether new suburban development receives roads and transit early enough to avoid creating additional bottlenecks, and how increased rural road funding and any ring-road work affect congestion patterns and long-term land use.

Jeff Leiper’s 2026 campaign has not published a standalone roads and traffic platform. His clearest transportation commitments focus on making transit dependable enough to reduce congestion and give residents a practical alternative to driving.

His campaign proposes restoring recent transit service cuts, creating a public Transit Service Guarantee, publishing on-time performance and frequency results, delivering dedicated bus lanes citywide and advancing the Baseline Bus Rapid Transit project. Dedicated lanes are a road-allocation policy as well as a transit policy because they give buses priority over general traffic where congestion otherwise causes delays.

Leiper’s broader public record supports complete-street design, neighbourhood traffic calming and safer conditions for walking and cycling. His campaign also proposes a multi-year plan to address deferred maintenance of City assets, although it does not yet specify a road-resurfacing funding target or a list of major road-capacity projects.

His likely distinction from Sutcliffe is that he gives greater priority to moving more people within the existing right of way rather than treating added general-purpose road capacity as the main response to congestion. Compare Ottawa identifies that as an evidence-based interpretation of his published transit policies, not as a complete roads platform.

A fuller policy would need to address potholes, winter maintenance, construction coordination, rural roads, goods movement, major suburban bottlenecks and the balance between bus lanes, cycling facilities, parking and vehicle capacity.

Alex Lawson’s campaign identifies road maintenance and improved snow removal as basic City services that should operate consistently, with an emphasis on practical delivery rather than complicated new systems.

His most detailed roads proposal concerns rural road safety. Lawson argues that Ottawa’s standard traffic warrants can disadvantage villages and rural communities because they rely heavily on vehicle and pedestrian counts developed for busier urban environments. A dangerous rural intersection may never reach the numerical threshold required for a stop sign or crosswalk, even where speeds, sightlines, school routes or collision history indicate substantial risk. He would establish a rural standard that weighs speed, visibility, school routes and how residents actually use the road. His examples include Dalmeny Road and Nixon Drive, Flewellyn Road and Shea Road, Constance Bay Road and Dunrobin Road, and heavy truck traffic through villages such as Manotick.

In addition, Lawson now pledges that, if elected mayor, he will eliminate paid on-street parking in Ottawa by turning off parking meters and making on-street parking free across the city. This is a new, specific commitment affecting how curbside space is managed and how the City uses parking charges as a tool. It extends his roads and traffic platform beyond rural safety and maintenance into parking policy.

His overall position remains supportive of better roads and traffic management but still developing: he has not yet released a complete citywide plan covering traffic signals, construction coordination, road-resurfacing funding, downtown congestion, suburban bottlenecks, parking-garage policy, freight movement or major capital projects. The confidence level reflects strong evidence for rural road reform, maintenance priorities, and now a clear stance on paid on-street parking, but limited evidence for the rest of Ottawa’s road network.

Saravanamuttoo argues that Ottawa’s congestion is driven both by unreliable transit and poorly coordinated construction. He maintains that restoring reliable, affordable transit is central to reducing car dependence, with a focus on lower fares, redesigned routes and higher frequency on key corridors.

His congestion plan adds a governance and construction‑management layer. He proposes creating a “People’s Office for Better Construction” to better coordinate road projects, tighten rules for lane closures, and impose stronger penalties for contractors that cause excessive delays or cost overruns. He presents this as a way to minimize avoidable disruption and keep traffic moving during necessary infrastructure work.

He also calls on the federal government to ease its current return‑to‑office mandate and to operate shuttle buses from underused federal parking lots, aiming to cut peak‑hour traffic into central Ottawa. Consistent with his broader fiscal plan, he says identified operating savings should be redirected toward roads and core municipal services, and he has criticized high procurement costs, using speed‑bump pricing as an example.