Carling Avenue is a major east–west arterial road in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It runs from March Road in Kanata to Bronson Avenue in the Glebe. The road is named for John Carling, founder of Carling Brewery and Conservative MP and Senator, Postmaster General and Minister of Agriculture.
At approximately 19km (12miles) in length, Carling Avenue begins at the fringes of the Glebe neighbourhood and runs in a straight direction west until the Ottawa River where it bends north to go around Crystal Bay and Britannia Bay and ends north of Kanata. It used to begin at O'Connor Street, one block east of Bank Street, but the part east of Bronson was renamed Glebe Avenue on February 7, 1974.[1] It is a four to six-lane principal arterial road for most of its urban length, with a speed limit of 60km/h. The portion through the Greenbelt and into Kanata is generally a two-lane rural highway (although widening is planned, which would also remove a substandard underpass in the 3700 block about midway between March Road and Moodie Drive), with a speed limit of 80km/h.
In December 2005 one lane in each direction between Booth Street and Cambridge South just before Bronson was converted to a bus-only lane. This very short (roughly 150 m) bus-only section speeds up bus traffic through the Carling/Bronson intersection during rush-hour.
Carling avenue is roughly 19km long.
Notable features located along Carling Avenue from west to east are Mitel, the Carling Campus, the Communications Research Centre, Smithvale Stables, Andrew Haydon Park, the Lincoln Fields Shopping Centre, Carlingwood Mall, Fairlawn Plaza, Westgate Mall, the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, Ottawa Civic Hospital, Old Dominion Observatory, and Claridge Icon condo tower. It also runs along the northern boundaries of the Central Experimental Farm and Commissioners Park.
Carling is now known as Ottawa Road #38 but used to be Highway 17B east of Richmond Road until the Ontario government downloaded the highway to the local government. Until the 1970s, the western part of Carling was also part of Highway 17.
From 2004 to 2007, Carling Avenue was named one of Ontario's worst 20 roads in a CAA survey,[2] [3] citing frequent bumps and potholes.
One of the first UFO monitoring stations used for Project Magnet was located on Carling Avenue.[4]
Dow's Lake station on the O-Train Trillium Line, is located near the intersection of Carling Avenue and Preston Street. OC Transpo bus routes also serve the station.
The addresses change erratically on Carling; they are not consistent from point to point and rise rapidly in the eastern part, then slow down to a very slow rise west of Bayshore.
Major intersections (from west to east, approximate address point):
Neighbourhoods along its length are: