By Overbrook News, August 19, 2018
The City of Ottawa wants your input on the projects, policies, programs and services that affect your daily life. From open houses to workshops and online consultations, your feedback helps to shape City decisions.
The following opportunities are now available online:
By Louise Sproule, The Review, August 17, 2018
Despite significant isolated storms in recent weeks, South Nation Conservation (SNC) is advising residents that the watershed will continue to remain in Level 1 Low Water Conditions under the Ontario Low Water Response Program.
The localized storm events that occurred have helped conditions temporarily, however stream gauges within SNC’s jurisdiction showed minor increases in flows before going back down again, below normal. The long forecast indicates that the remainder of August and September will be warmer and drier than normal. Alleviating the low water conditions would require regular rainfall over the next weeks and months.
By StittsvilleCentral, August 18, 2018
The new park space at the southwest corner of Stittsville Main Street and Hazeldean Road was officially commemorated on Saturday as Kavanagh Green.
The name is meant to recognize the contributions of the Kavanagh family to Stittsville.
(...)The name was selected by the City of Ottawa Commemorative Naming Committee and was open to public input (and approved by city council) last year. The new park was supported through Stittsville ward’s cash-in-lieu of parkland fund, which is money the city collects from developers to pay for new green space.
By Kieran Delamont, Ottawa Citizen, August 20, 2018
More dead catfish than usual are washing up on the banks of the Ottawa River east of the city, prompting the Ottawa Riverkeepers to monitor what it believes is higher bacteria levels in some parts of the river.
Reports have been coming in to the Ottawa Riverkeeper from around Hawkesbury, 110 kilometres east of Ottawa, that there have been more dead fish than in an average year. Mike Gasher, whose house backs on to the river near Hawkesbury, said that he returned home after some time away and found “quite a few (carcasses) along the shore. I think my neighbour counted eight or nine.
“It’s just a nuisance,” he said. “When they wash up on the shore, they really smell.”
The Ottawa Riverkeeper said that the organization is monitoring the situation.
By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa Citizen, August 20, 2018
Provincial penalties for drivers who disobey the law pertaining to crosswalks and pedestrian crossovers will double on Sept. 1, just before many students head back to school.
The fines can be levied if a driver fails to stop at a crosswalk, or obstructs a crosswalk by stopping inside its boundaries.
Those actions could also lead to a charge of careless driving, especially if they cause bodily harm or death to a pedestrian. Fines for careless driving will increase from a maximum of $2,000 to a maximum of $50,000, in addition to six demerit points levied against a drivers record, and a maximum of two years in jail. Courts can also suspend a driver’s licence for up to five years.
By Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen, August 19, 2018
GPS data was a boon for Ottawa transit users when it arrived on OC Transpo some years ago. But as many Ottawans can attest, it’s not always perfect when it comes to predicting accurate bus arrival times.
This week a popular transit app launched a new feature designed to show Ottawa transit users exactly where their bus is at any given moment, and it’s powered by fellow OC Transpo riders.
The new feature relies on “crowdsourced real-time transit data” to provide users of the aptly named Transit app with the ability to follow the location of the bus they’re waiting for — to the second. Think the same kind of vehicle tracking seen on the Uber app, but instead of your approaching Uber driver’s phone shooting out location co-ordinates, it’s the devices of other Transit app users riding on the bus allowing you to track its movement.
By CBC News Ottawa, August 17, 2018
Neonicotinoids, otherwise known as neonics, have been the focus of enormous controversy over the last few years with scientists and environmentalists raising serious concerns about their impacts on bees, natural pollinating insects, butterflies, beetles, and aquatic organisms.
The European Union has already banned them, and now Canada looks poised to follow suit.
By CBC News Ottawa, August 17, 2018
Montebello, Que., a town beset by a series of boil-water advisories in recent years, has finally replaced its aging water treatment plant with a new state-of-the-art facility.
"The [old] plant had a lot of problems. There were a lot of interruptions," Alexandre Icarà, the MNA for Papineau, said in French.
The advisories became so commonplace the province decided to step in to help replace the plant, forking over roughly $2.5 million of the $3.8-million construction cost, Icarà said.By Peter C. Webber and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, August 16, 2018
Don’t bring back photo radar
Re: Armchair mayor: Photo radar will save lives in Ottawa, Aug. 10.
Bringing in photo radar is simply the wrong approach. It is the same philosophy that has seen the steady reduction of speed limits and the lengthening of pointless waits at many red lights, where there are no vehicles or pedestrians.
Too often a small, vocal minority bullies our politicians to adopt policies which, on the surface, are all about safety. However, the unintended consequences of increased commute times, pollution and carbon emissions – not to mention driver frustration leading to road rage – are simply ignored or downplayed.
By Kieran Delamont, Ottawa Citizen, August 17, 2018
Most city infrastructure projects are, at first, destruction events: to build anything, you often have to remove what’s already there. Sometimes this is controversial, as when people are involved; other times, it is as simple as pushing dirt around.
So as plans for Phase 2 of the city’s major light rail project begin to take shape, a seemingly simple question arose: What do you do with the trees that are in the way of the planned route?
A host of politicians — Mayor Jim Watson, Carleton MPP Goldie Ghamari, Ottawa West—Nepean MP Anita Vandenbeld — descended upon Woodroffe Park on Friday to announce that, with the help of a $25,000 grant from Tree Canada, the city was able to transplant 50 trees from Byron Linear Park, in Westboro, and replant them at a handful of parks in the city’s west end, including Woodroffe.
By Jenn Pritchard, 1310 News, August 16, 2018
The Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel (CSST) is closer to becoming a reality in the capital as the tunnel-boring machine emerged from the rocky cliff behind the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday afternoon.
Tunneling started on Chamberlain Avenue in December 2017, travelling 2km to the Ottawa River from eight-storeys below Kent Street.
The CSST will help cut down on the number of sewage overflows getting into the river after a major rainfall.
By Beatrice Britneff, Global News Ottawa, August 15, 2018
The City of Ottawa is moving ahead to implement new so-called “gateway” signs demanding vehicles slow down to 40km/h in certain residential areas – but the current budget for the initiative means it’ll take about 30 years before the signs are installed citywide.