By Trevor Pritchard, CBC News Ottawa, May 19, 2018
Gatineau Park's campgrounds are finally open for the season, but don't expect to be toasting marshmallows under the stars this weekend.
On Thursday morning, with a spell of dry weather looming, Quebec's ministry of forests, wildlife and parks imposed a widespread ban on campfires in the province.
By Adam Foote, CBC News Ottawa, May 18, 2018
The warm weather is bringing a different dynamic to Ottawa's roads, causing Ottawa police and other road safety advocates to preach patient, legal behaviour.
Nine cyclists have been struck this week at locations across the city, according to police. None were seriously injured.
The number is a little higher than a normal week, said Sgt. Mark Gatien of the Ottawa police traffic unit.
By Sabrina Marandola, CBC News Ottawa, May 18, 2018
If you're a driver with a learner's permit, you'll have to be off Quebec roads between midnight and 5 a.m..
The curfew is just one of the dozens of new or modified rules of the province's updated Highway Safety Code.
The changes come into effect today and will mean everyone who uses the road — pedestrians, cyclists and drivers — will have to form some new habits.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, May 16, 2018
If Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are elected in June, they’ll cut Ontario’s gas taxes 10 cents a litre, he promised Wednesday, because prices don’t matter, the whole discipline of economics is bull and climate change isn’t real.
They appear to have most people on their side. An Ipsos poll for Global News released this week found that 72 per cent of Ontarians think carbon taxes are just a cash grab and 68 per cent think the effects are just symbolic.
One conclusion you could reach is that we collectively wish that governments would make the price on carbon emissions a whole lot higher, so it would really make a difference. That’s probably not what we meant, though, and Doug Ford went the other way Wednesday, announcing he’ll cut the price of gasoline by 10 cents a litre, partly by eliminating the current cap-and-trade regime and partly by just cutting the provincial tax on gas.
Governments should heed nature’s value Re: We need nature for our own good health, May 10
Kudos to Sherry Nigro for her timely article, outlining why everyone benefits from nature.
The Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre has been active for the past 30 years in connecting people to the natural world, providing a better understanding and appreciation for local wildlife and encouraging co-existence. A decade ago, people would call us, upset about a wildlife or green space issue, expecting us to take action. Now, people are rallying together to become guardians of treasured pieces of habitat in their community.
By Alayne McGregor, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, May 18, 2018
Raised cycling tracks a problem Re: Letter: Blame the cyclist, not the bike lane, May 5
Of course there are scofflaw cyclists, but my experience as a long-time cycling advocate is that it’s the city’s badly designed raised cycle tracks that encourage them.
Who on earth thought it was wise to put a cycle track between a sidewalk and bus stop on Beechwood? That’s just asking for conflict. Similarly, most raised cycle tracks are too narrow, causing cyclists to veer into pedestrian spaces when they need to pass.
In the shared sidewalk/raised cycle track in front of city hall, cyclists frequently abuse pedestrians for simply trying to walk where they need to go.
By Mohammed Adam, Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2018
The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in condo towers in Ottawa as the city made urban high-rise development a key element of its vision for sustainable planning.
The idea is that high-rise intensification ensures the kind of high density cities need to build more compact, sustainable, livable communities. As urban centres become denser and denser, with more people living in smaller spaces, the thinking goes, the less pressure there is to sprawl. Ottawa has certainly taken the idea to heart, and now 20-, 30-, 40-storey behemoths are rising into the sky.
The LeBreton Flats area is on its way to becoming a skyscraper city all its own.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2018
Despite his vows to give Ottawa $1 billion for the next stage of light rail construction, Doug Ford’s dodgy budget plan means he can’t be trusted to follow through, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne said in a campaign stop at an OC Transpo train yard Thursday morning.
All the parties have competed for two days over who will make getting around easiest and cheapest. What they choose to emphasize says a lot about their philosophies.
On Wednesday, Ford promised his Progressive Conservatives will cut gasoline taxes by 10 cents a litre to help drivers. Thursday, Wynne touted the Liberals’ record of multibillion-dollar transit spending and brought out a patched-up version of a broken Liberal promise to cut the price of car insurance. The New Democrats’ Andrea Horwath stood up in Toronto to promise hundreds of millions of dollars for city transit operating budgets.
By Stuart McGinn, 1310 News, May 16, 2018
A local councillor wants ride sharing vehicles to clearly identify themselves.
Riley Brockington, of River Ward, wants Uber and Lyft vehicles to be marked with a sticker in effort to improve public safety. This comes after a man in Ottawa was charged with two counts of sexual assault after posing as an Uber driver last week.
Police have also said that was not an isolated incident.
By Bridget Britneff, Global News Ottawa, May 15, 2018
Some councillors sitting on the city’s environment and climate protection committee want to make it mandatory for festivals and other special events hosted in Ottawa to provide recycling bins on their sites in time for summer 2019.
By Mike Vlasveld, 1310 News, May 16, 2018
Ecology Ottawa thinks the municipality could do a lot more in it's push for active and sustainable transportation.
It has released a report with recommendations, as it believes the decisions made by the City of Ottawa in the next five years could shape the way its residents move around the region for years to come.
Titled 'Seizing the moment for Safe and Healthy Streets,' Ecology Ottawa highlights progress being made as well as opportunities for improving pedestrian, cycling and transit infrastructure.
By Beatrice Britneff, Global News Ottawa, May 14, 2018
Staff at Ottawa City Hall will be taking another crack at increasing recycling in the city’s parks this summer, after a pilot project launched last year produced some less-than-ideal results.