About 500 motorcycles are expected to hit the city from Friday for a series of events reminiscent of the “Freedom Accord” protest in February.
The route on Saturday will leave the shopping center St.  Laurent around 10:45 a.m.  and will pass through the city center, leaving via Highway 417. The entire route has been designated as a no-go zone, interim chief Steve Bell told reporters Thursday.
Rolling Thunder-related events are scheduled for Friday through Sunday, and police have vowed that the event will not be a repeat of the three-week downtown earlier this year.
“There is an expectation from the community that we will handle it differently, that we will respond more and be more proactive to ensure that it does not lengthen,” Bell told CTV News on Thursday afternoon.  “That’s what we’re doing”.
Residents are being told to wait to see an increased police presence in the city center and ByWard Market areas, and a curfew will be set up to prevent vehicles involved in a rally, protest or demonstration from entering.
The area stretches from Waller Street to Bronson Avenue and Wellington Street to Laurier Avenue, along with the ByWard Market area from MacKenzie Avenue to King Edward Avenue and Rideau Street to Murray Street.
However, the roads do not close.  Police said the roads will remain open to home and business traffic, pedestrians, cyclists and OC Transpo.  Police continue to encourage people to visit businesses in the city center.
“The city’s roadblocks, heavy equipment, police and police vehicles will be at various controlled access points around car-free zones to filter out legal traffic in and around these roads,” Bell said.
.RCMP and OPP officers will be deployed in Ottawa, along with municipal police officers.
Ottawa police distributed the full scheduled Rolling Thunder ride on Saturday.

The full route route has been revealed

The bike ride is scheduled to arrive on Friday, with a rally and march scheduled for Parliament Hill at 6 p.m.
Most of the events are scheduled for Saturday, including the Veterans for Freedom service at the National War Memorial and a rally and march on Parliament Hill.
Bell said motorcyclists plan to gather in an unspecified area on Coventry Street on Saturday morning for a walk in the city.  They plan to leave at around 10:45 a.m., heading north along Vanier Parkway, turning into Montreal Street and joining Rideau Street.
They will then turn south on Waller Street and then head to Mackenzie King Bridge.  After crossing the bridge they will turn south on Elgin Street and then east onto Laurier West Avenue.  Finally, they will turn on Nikolaou Street and enter the national road 417.
This route leads them to a few blocks from the National War Memorial, a key point for protesters where some will already gather on foot.  But vehicles will not be allowed to park there.
The entire route has been designated as a no-stop zone.  Officers will be along the route directing traffic and ensuring that cyclists “safely and quickly leave the area with as little impact on residents as possible,” Bell said.
Bell said police also have a plan in case people do not follow their instructions to proceed.
He did not specify the location on Coventry Street where the cyclists intend to gather.
“We are not participating in any kind of event coordination. The information we have is that the organizers are planning to gather in and around this area,” he said.
But social media messages indicate that cyclists plan to gather at the St. Louis Mall.  Laurent.
CTV News contacted Morguard, which owns the mall, to comment on the possibility of cyclists gathering there.
“Providing a safe and enjoyable shopping experience for our visitors is our top priority,” a spokesman said in response.  “St. Laurent Mall is open to customers this weekend.”
During the February demonstrations, protesters set up a long-term baseball camp on Coventry Road.  Bell said police will work to ensure this does not happen again.
“We are not going to tolerate any kind of illegal activity that indicates any kind of long-term occupation of any area of ​​our city,” he said.  “We will be very, very proactive in locating and dismantling any kind of circumstance like this.”

The mayor “much more confident”

Bell said the siege of downtown in February changed the community’s expectations of how police handled ongoing protests.  Ottawa faces hundreds of protests in a given year, but the occupation changed police response, he said.
“What you are seeing is that we are taking a much more proactive stance on how we manage people in and around this core of the city center,” he said.
“We know there has been a rift between our community and the police as a result of the February siege,” Bell said, adding that police have focused on developing a plan that addresses the community’s concerns.
“We believe this is what we have developed,” he said.  “Our hope is to start rebuilding that trust with our community, because it’s vital to us.”
In parts of the center that are not covered by the curfew zone, where protest vehicles will not be allowed, there will be no parking or stop restrictions, and no increased police presence to reassure residents, Bell said.
Mayor Jim Watson said Thursday that he felt much more confident about the planned police and city response to the protest.
“I feel much more confident today with the plan in place and the preparatory work that has been undertaken by the police and our various departments to help slowly but surely restore public confidence that when such events occur, they will – and will – do it. “We are better prepared to deal with it.”