Downtown Ottawa

East of the canal, but west of King Edward Avenue, including the Rideau Centre and the ByWard Market, is also normally considered downtown, and is referred to locally as 'Lowertown' or Lower Town. The residential neighbourhoods around the central business district are also generally referred to as being downtown. These include Centretown to the south and Sandy Hill and Lower Town to the east. North of the Ottawa River the centre of Gatineau, Quebec can be considered an extension of Ottawa's downtown.

Map of downtown Ottawa

Downtown Ottawa has a grid pattern of streets, aligned either east-west or north-south with a number of the streets being one way.

From east to west, the prominent streets are Elgin Street, Metcalfe Street, O'Connor Street, Bank Street, Kent Street and Bronson Avenue.

Starting from the east:

• Elgin Street, a ceremonial route for the daily Changing of the Guard and site of many prominent buildings and landmarks, and a restaurant district south of Laurier Avenue,
• Metcalfe and O'Connor (which includes a bidirectional separate bike lane), both of which are busy multi-lane one-way streets,
• Bank Street runs through the heart of downtown and is a prominent retail centre,
• Kent Street, another busy multi-lane one way with high traffic volumes,
• Lyon, the edge of the central business district, with a wall of towering office buildings and hotels to the east and shorter buildings and parking lots to the west,
• Bay and Percy, are one way local residential streets, and,
• Bronson Avenue is a major avenue that forms the western edge of downtown.

Sparks Street is a pedestrian mall in Downtown Ottawa, closed off to vehicle traffic.

The northernmost east-west street that crosses downtown is Wellington Street, site of the parliamentary precinct, National Library and Archives, and Supreme Court. It is a major four-lane thoroughfare. To the east, it connects to Rideau Street, and to the west, the Kichi Zibi Mikan.

South of Wellington is Sparks Street, most of which is a pedestrian mall closed to vehicles. The heritage district runs from Bank to Elgin, with CBC broadcast studios at Metcalfe and Sparks.

The streets to the south are dominated by office and hotel towers: Queen Street, Albert Street, Slater Street, Laurier Avenue and Gloucester Street.

The City of Ottawa zoning restricts and regulates development to allow high-rises north of Gloucester St. and affords heritage designation to some areas and buildings.

Intersection of Kent and Queen Streets. Ottawa

Other streets in Downtown Ottawa which go east-west (from north to south) include:

Other streets in Downtown Ottawa which go north-south (from west to east) include:

Albert and Slater carry the Transitway through downtown. A new 12.5 km (7.8 mi) light rail line, called the Confederation Line opened in September 2019. Part of it is a tunnel under downtown's Queen Street and travel east to Rideau Street and turn south under Nicholas Street to eventually resurface south of Laurier Avenue East. Construction of the 2.1 billion dollar line, including the 2.5 km (1.6 mi) subway tunnel did not end in time for the 2017 celebration of Confederation's 150th anniversary. It includes three subway stations; one between Lyon and Kent Streets, integrated with Place de Ville, the next station was built between O'Connor Street and Metcalfe Street and one under Rideau Street with multiple entrances in the Rideau Centre.