Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

COMMENT: A tale of two traffic lights

By Glen Gower, StittsvilleCentral, November 26, 2017

#1 Carp at Hazeldean. Residents have been calling for safety fixes at this intersection for years.  City staff says that traffic isn’t heavy enough to justify any configuration changes. Of course, the city’s data doesn’t capture the frustration and near misses that happen all the time at the intersection. A real fix probably won’t come until sometime between 2020-2025, when Carp Road is tentatively scheduled to be widened to four lanes – if there’s money available.

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#2 Maple Grove at Huntmar.  Another intersection where residents have been clamouring for an advance green signal.  This intersection is one of 19 that “meets the warrants” for upgrades due to safety, volume, and other factors.  It would cost $35-million to fix all 19 intersections, but the annual budget available is only $2.4-million.  So this intersection gets punted from the list of fixes for 2018.

Planning committee to consider ambitious plans for Heatherington, Vanier South neighbourhood revitalization

By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, November 26, 2017

Sprucing up parks, creating new programs for teenagers, women and newcomers, and widening sidewalks and bike lanes along St. Laurent Boulevard are some of the ideas outlined in a pair of neighbourhood revitalization plans up for discussion at Tuesday’s planning committee meeting.

Building Better Revitalized Neighbourhoods is a term-of-council initiative to create a “new, made-in-Ottawa approach for identifying and recognizing priority neighbourhoods for improvements, planning for change and identifying opportunities for rejuvenation and renewal.”

PHOTO: Stittsville’s all-weather bike trails

By StittsvilleCentral, November 25, 2017

What a great selfie from Bob Herres, taken earlier this week along the Trans Canada Trail. That’s his good friend Disel, a part Husky, in the background.

Eggertson: City of Ottawa is falling short on renewable energy goal

By Bill Eggerston, Ottawa Citizen, November 25, 2017

Ottawa has one of the cleanest environments in Canada, but that is due to our lack of smokestacks – not because our behaviour is any different from that of other cities.

City council originally wanted to go “100 per cent renewable” but renamed its strategy “Energy Evolution” when it realized the Herculean effort that would be required to reach even a fraction of that original goal.

A city report estimates that five per cent of our energy is from locally produced renewables from the half-dozen hydro dams and thousands of rooftop solar panels; it does not include the contribution of biomass (wood stoves in rural homes) or the output of NetZeroPlus heat pumps.

Heron Road separated cycling facilities (Data Centre Road to Bank Street) Functional Design Study

Open House - November 27, 2017

Open House Monday November 27, 2017 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jim Durrell Recreation Centre - Elwood Hall 1265 Walkley Road

On-line consultation: November 23 to December 4, 2017 Ottawa.ca/HeronWestCycling

The City of Ottawa is developing a design for separated cycling facilities in the Heron Road corridor between Data Centre Road to the west and Bank Street to the east.  Through a combination of raised cycle tracks and multi-use pathways on both sides of the road, this design addresses the need for seamless connections with:

• Cycle tracks designed for the Baseline Road Bus Rapid Transit Corridor (Phase 1 - Woodroffe Avenue to Data Centre Road), and
• Cycle tracks designed for the Bank Street Renewal project (Riverside Drive to Ledbury Avenue).

Cityscapes on Nov. 29: The Walkable Road to Healthier Cities

At this #Cityscapes installment, I will be moderating a discussion between two nationally-renowned experts in the field of public health to discuss how the built environment and our approaches to transportation and land-use planning can contribute to positive public health outcomes.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer will kick off the conversation by speaking to her recently-released seminal report entitled "Designing Healthy Living". Dr. Doug Manuel, Professor and Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, will draw on his extensive academic and applied research that has made a major contribution to public health policy in Ontario. This will be a relaxed, conversational panel discussion with an opportunity for audience questions.

NCC unveils new plan for Nepean Point

By Ryan Tumilty, Ottawa Metro News, November 23, 2017

Samuel de Champlain will still be looking proudly across the Capital Region, but the grounds around him on Nepean Point are getting a major overhaul.

The National Capital Commission (NCC) selected a winning design for the point at its board meeting on Thursday. The winning project is called Big River Landscape and was designed by Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. with Patkau Architects, Blackwell Structural Engineers and ERA Architects Inc. In addition to keeping the current Champlain statue exactly where it is, the proposal adds a pedestrian bridge across St. Patrick’s Street from Major’s Hill Park.

 

Glebe Community Centre starts green bin program

By Michelle Nash Baker, Ottawa Community News, November 23, 2017

Organic waste at the Glebe Community Centre will no longer get tossed aside.

The community centre launched the start of a city-run compost program on Nov. 1.

The initiative was thanks to a group of youth living in the community who realized enough wasn’t being done to help the environment and the simplest answer was to reduce a huge amount of waste at the community centre.

Ontario lost up to $1.2 billion selling clean energy at a loss: engineers

By Antonella Artuso, Ottawa Sun, November 21, 2017

Ontario lost between $732 million and $1.25 billion over the past two years selling surplus clean electricity outside the province, an analysis by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) estimates.

That’s the difference between what Ontario agreed to pay to produce nuclear, water, wind and solar power, and the bargain basement price it sold it for on the international market.

Energy expert Paul Acchione, OSPE’s past president and chair, said excess clean electricity should be offered first to Ontario businesses and residents at that lower wholesale cost.

The Stories of Stuff: Touring S. Vinnie's Sorting Centre

By Fateema Sayani, Ottawa Magazine, November 23, 2017

Black Friday is on the horizon and you’ve already been inundated with the inevitable onslaught of advertisements. Impulse purchases will be made. People will line-up overnight and fight for the last big-screen TV. And next year, a bigger, better TV will be fought over. Black Friday is annual reflection that our economy revolves around the consume, toss, repeat cycle.

But what happens after people are done with household goods for whatever reason, be it change of taste, death, downsizing, moving? They often end up at a thrift shop.

Reevely: Transportation, water and sewer plans take hits in Ottawa's 2018 budget

By David Reevely, Ottawa Sun, November 22, 2017

The city is postponing or cancelling numerous road, water and sewer projects in its 2018 budget, slashing its capital program by $160 million in the coming year compared with what it expected to spend.

The details are in a memo the city treasury sent to councillors late Tuesday, comparing the forecast its accountants prepared for 2018 when they made up last year’s budget with what the budget actually contains. It’s a one-page explanation, with an 18-page spreadsheet attached, itemizing hundreds of construction and major repair projects. The bottom line is that the city expected to spend $889 million on capital projects in 2018 but now it’ll only be $729 million.

Committee passes green budget despite resource concerns

By Kieran Delamont, Ottawa Metro News, November 21, 2017

The mayor’s 2018 draft budget took another trip through the ringer Tuesday, with members of the environment and climate protection committee questioning whether or not the city has the resources to make a meaningful effort to combat climate change.

The committee took a hard look at the numbers in the budget, hearing from a number of delegates who had a simple message: there’s not enough money in the budget.

But at the end of the day, the committee passed the draft budget without a single substantial alteration.

Coun. David Chernushenko, chair of the environment committee, said that a lack of spending on climate change is not the result of a lack of support, but perhaps a lack of seriousness.