Ethnic diversity

According to the City of Ottawa website, there are roughly 4,180 native English-speakers in Lower Town, 3,530 Francophones, and 2,235 with other mother tongues. Lower Town is home to a wide variety of immigrants and visible minorities, of which there are 2,495.

Lowertown's population is rather diverse. Its main stretch along Rideau Street is very bustling and includes many African, Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, and Lebanese businesses, a large grocery store, the Rideau Branch of the Ottawa Public Library, and an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

King Edward Avenue

Today, King Edward Avenue is a six lane main road running north–south through the centre of the neighbourhood. It is connected on its north to the MacDonald Cartier Bridge, a main connection with Gatineau, Quebec, which leads to heavy traffic travelling to and from Gatineau through the area. The traffic exits Lower Town either to the east along St. Patrick or to the south along Rideau and Nicholas to the 417 highway, as south of Rideau, King Edward is a four-lane (and further south, two-lane) road through the Sandy Hill residential neighbourhood with no heavy truck traffic allowed.

The street is so large and so busy that it exists as a major barrier between the east and west halves of Lowertown. Since it is the main truck route between Ottawa and Gatineau there are large numbers of tractor trailers travelling through the core of Ottawa daily, along with tens of thousands of commuters in cars. It is one of the highest accident sites in Ottawa.

The road from the bridge was intended to connect to a new Vanier Parkway to the north of the neighbourhood, across Green Island and Maple Island. This connector was never built because of political opposition, and instead St. Patrick Street east of King Edward was built into a major four-lane thoroughfare cutting through the neighbourhood. The end of the connector from the bridge instead connects to King Edward at a sharp turn where the connector would have continued directly to the east.

King Edward was itself rebuilt into a six-lane major thoroughfare from Sussex Drive to Rideau Street, and the plan was to continue the six-lane through Sandy Hill to connect to the Queensway (417) highway. This also was never built.

Rideau Street

1845 painting of Sappers Bridge the Rideau Canal and Lower Town by Thomas Burrowes

Rideau Street has had its share of major development and redevelopment spanning over three decades. Prior to the typical appearance of shopping malls, the characteristic sign of modern suburbanization commonly seen as North American cities increase in size and population, Rideau Street west of King Edward was a popular shopping area of Ottawa. For many years, Rideau Street was one of Ottawa's primary retail thoroughfares, containing department stores such as Freimans, Ogilvy's, Woolworth, Caplan's and Metropolitan. Although the local department stores are gone, Rideau Street still features The Bay department store, the Rideau Centre shopping mall, and the street is adjacent to shops of the Byward Market.

The Byward Market, to the north of Rideau Street has consistently thrived throughout ongoing development in surrounding areas. To the south, the Rideau Centre development, a four-level shopping centre, began construction in 1981 continuing through 1982 and upon completion, provided a shopping mall atmosphere upon its official opening on March 16, 1983, as retailers moved inside.^[10] As part of the construction, the section of Rideau Street between Sussex Drive & Dalhousie Street was turned into a major bus interchange, which would undergo many major changes in the decades to come, seeing the originally constructed enclosed bus shelters replaced for covered shelters in the 1990s.

Further development began once a 230,000 ft expansion of the Rideau Centre was undertaken by Cadillac Fairview on September 26, 2013.^[11] The transit shelters underwent another major change during this time, including their relocation and modernization, as construction of Rideau Station, one of 13 stops announced as part of O-Train Line 1, named Confederation Line, began in August 2013, as part of Ottawa's existing light-rail system built and operated by OC Transpo.^[12][13][14] Rideau Street stretches throughout the traditional Lower Town district of Ottawa, of both commercial and residential areas which in the past was predominantly Francophone, but now has one of Ottawa's largest immigrant populations, notably including many Francophone Africans and Somalis. North of Rideau and west of King Edward is typically considered the commercial Byward Market area.