By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 2016
It is a curious thing about sidewalks. Not everybody wants them, even brand new and free.
I’ve been driving to work in the same building for more than 30 years, using Iris Street easily 10,000 times. Lots has changed. A dog-walking field turned into a neighbourhood mall that IKEA sampled and eventually ate, the Transitway arrived, restaurants lived and died, the spaceship Starbucks finally docked.
But there was always one sidewalk, on the north side of the street, as pedestrian traffic ebbed and flowed. A few weeks ago, road crews showed up and began digging a trench on the south side, nearly the whole length from Greenbank Road to Woodroffe Avenue.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-blooming-iris-whats-with-the-multimillion-dollar-sidewalk