Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

RTG refuses to tell taxpayers how they'll finish LRT

By CBC News Ottawa, September 14, 2018

The consortium building Ottawa's $2.1-billion light-rail system is refusing to publicly release its plan for finishing the project, and Mayor Jim Watson doesn't support the desire of a number of councillors to speak directly to Rideau Transit Group (RTG) officials about it.

The bombshell news earlier this week that RTG won't meet its Nov. 2 deadline for handing the system over to the city stunned some councillors, including transit chair Coun. Stephen Blais, who demanded to know why they weren't told earlier.

Just a few weeks prior, council was sent a memo from the city's rail office that raised no red flags.

Today's letters: Senior living, clutter on the canal, one small step

By Maureen Cech, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the editor, September 14, 2018

Something is rotten near the Rideau Canal

Hold your nose when walking or biking beside the Rideau Canal. Not only is there garbage floating on the water, but the chipped and broken railings provide no handholds when you fall into the potholes on the walkways. Oh, and watch out for dead trees when it is windy! 

Maureen Cech, Ottawa

Today's letters: Karlsson's departure, Ford's powers, LRT questions

By Barry Curran and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, September 14, 2018

Here we go again: another delay in handing over the keys to the LRT project. For the last few years, the city and OC Transpo have been trying to shove LRT down our throats. We are getting fed up with it.

OC Transpo then goes ahead and changes bus routes, saying it will streamline service, without public consultation. We don’t need LRT.

Reevely: Federal carbon tax is too sneaky to be constitutional, Ontario will argue in court

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, September 14, 2018

A new “made-in-Ontario” plan for climate change will come this fall, the province’s environment minister Rod Phillips said Friday, at the same time as the Progressive Conservatives ask judges to strike down the federal government’s national carbon tax.

“We’ll talk about the targets when we bring forward the plan,” Phillips said in a short appearance in Toronto to talk about the province’s legal arguments against the federal tax. “That’s a commitment we have made, that the plan will be coming forward in the fall. It will also address the critical issue of adaptation.”

The earth is getting warmer, which means different and often damaging weather. Deluges of rain caused brief but harmful floods in Toronto this summer; in the north, fires raged through dry forests. Ontario will have to prepare.

Egan: Coyote Scary — decoy used to spook Canada Geese at city parks

By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 2018

Could the world’s most un-wily coyote be the answer to the Canada Geese problem in Ottawa’s premier parks?

Maybe, just maybe, we need a bird-brained idea to solve a nuisance most fowl.

At Andrew Haydon Park, the Ottawa River showcase in the city’s west end, the city is “employing” a decoy coyote to discourage geese from settling in, eating their faces off, then pooping all over the winding paths. Can’t take ’em out? Then fake ’em out!

He even has a name. On the edge of the pond by the bandshell, there is Cayou or Caillou — hard foam things can’t spell — standing at attention, his synthetic fur tail moving in the breeze. From a distance, he looks real enough. Up close, one can spot the moveable legs and ears, and a collar, which has fluorescent green stripes and the words “City of Ottawa” in magic marker.

Capital region bears witness to surprising inrush of... black bears

By the Canadian Press, Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 2018

OTTAWA — High population density is a feature of most Group of Seven capitals — but Ottawa stands out among its international peers these days with an unusual demographic situation: a sudden influx of bears.

Black bear sightings surged of late in Canada’s national capital region. Conservation officials say they’ve already had to round up more than 30 of the large mammals roaming urban areas since the start of the month.

From a human’s perspective, the bears have been getting into mischief. Locals have seen them wandering along leafy residential streets, nosing through backyard compost containers and one was even spotted rambling the alleys of Ottawa’s touristy ByWard Market.

Gatineau puts a lid on it to keep employees' bikes safe

By CBC News Ottawa, September 11, 2018

They resemble a row of giant snails, but the City of Gatineau is hoping the giant plastic shells standing guard outside a municipal building will protect employees' bikes from both thieves and the elements.

The $27,000 pilot project at 100 rue d'Edmonton allows employees to store their bicycles inside six "bike lids."

Each pod can store two bikes. They're locked with a combination, and are available to city employees on a first-come, first-served basis, a city spokesperson said.

Greenpeace suing Ontario government over cancellation of cap-and-trade program

By CBC News, September 11, 2018

Leading environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the Ontario government over the cancellation of the province's cap-and-trade program.

• Cap-and-trade is over, Ontario PCs say as new legislation unveiled

Lawyers for Ecojustice, in conjunction with the uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic, filed the suit on behalf of Greenpeace Canada, according to a news release issued Tuesday afternoon.

The suit aims to halt the regulation, approved in July, which calls for the end of the province's cap-and-trade program. The program was brought in by the previous Liberal government.

Adam: On LRT, Doucet shouldn't do anything to mess up funding

By Mohamed Adam, Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2018

There is considerable frustration in the city at news that commuters won’t be riding the Confederation Line LRT in November because of construction delays. The city says the builder, Rideau Transit Group, will now complete construction by Nov. 30, and because of required safety tests of vehicles, tracks, computers and such, the trains won’t be running until some time in the new year. Ottawa residents are right to be disappointed because this latest setback follows an earlier six-month delay.

The delay comes days after mayoral candidate Clive Doucet unveiled a bold transit plan that includes renovation of the Prince of Wales Bridge and commuter rail from Ottawa to Smiths Falls and West Quebec. But then Doucet rained on his own parade by suggesting he would delay construction of the $3.6-billon Stage 2 extension of the east-west Confederation Line and north-south Trillium Line. This, he would do to make sure the now-delayed first stage from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair worked properly.

Egan: When rubber meets, then leaves the road — our love affair with speed bumps

By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2018

Kirkwood Avenue is undergoing more traffic “calming.” Out where rubber leaves the road, the nervous breakdown edges closer.

First the mid-west street was four lanes, then it was two-ish, with some parking and some bulb-outs. It once had no speed bumps, then it had some, then the “some” were adjusted, and now it has more. I know this because the first time I drove over this summer’s new speed bump — technically called a “hump” — the car nearly had a second sunroof.

We watched several dozen vehicles go over the new hump at the corner of Iona Street one afternoon. It was illuminating. A handful of cars actually came to a stop, like grandma was lying on the road, most slowed to about 20 km/h, and a few sailed right through at normal speed, probably for the first and last time. OC Transpo buses did an ungraceful dance, dump trucks shook to their steely bones. The top of the hump already looks slightly battered.

Bear sightings in capital region on the rise, but that should be no surprise

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2018

It’s bear season in town, the annual period when bears on the hunt for calories are poking noses into garbage cans and climbing backyard apple trees, not causing much harm but scaring the daylights out of people.

Richard Moore has been dealing with them for 33 years as a conservation officer with the National Capital Commission.

These days he is receiving a couple of reports of bears every day, and sometimes three or four.

“The last couple of years we’re getting a lot of sightings. We’re getting a lot of bears close to properties on the Quebec side, and also as you can see in the ByWard Market,” he said Tuesday.

Ottawa mayor shouldering blame for LRT delay

By Mike Vlasveld, 1310 News, September 11, 2018

Jim Watson told 1310 NEWS, there's only one person to blame for the light rail system not meeting its latest passenger-ready deadline.

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Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says residents can count him among those frustrated by yet another delay in the city gaining control of its new light rail transit line.

The city had thought the Confederation Line would be passenger-ready by November 2, but it was revealed at a meeting Monday, that the Rideau Transit Group still had plenty of work to do.

Watson told Ottawa Today with Mark Sutcliffe, there is really only one person to blame.