By Emma Jackson, Ottawa Metro News, July 27, 2016
OC Transpo is investigating after a cyclist complained a bus driver tried to squeeze her off Wellington Street West in Hintonburg.
The cyclist, who goes by @katychancey on Twitter, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the driver of a route 16 bus reportedly “squeezed me on Welli, opened door and said, ‘you got your one metre, now stay out of the middle of the road.’”
By Erin McCracken, Ottawa Community News, July 27, 2016
Already envision yourself catching the train for work and then walking or cycling from the light-rail station to your workplace?
Now’s your chance to help draft how the new transit stations within Stage 2 of Ottawa’s light-rail system east, west and south will link up with a greater network of pedestrian and cycling pathways and crosswalks.
The city is preparing to host a series of summer public consultation meetings as part of its Stage 2 Station Connectivity Study in an effort to get feedback on the 22 new LRT stations and how they fit into the bigger picture of getting from point A to point B in the city once LRT is up and running.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, July 26, 2016
Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is in Ottawa on Wednesday for some summer door-knocking, putting a brave face on his party’s Eastern Ontario operation.
In late spring, a group of presidents of local riding associations wrote to Brown and other party brass with a long list of complaints, from worries that money raised here is being sucked into the black hole of the party’s debt to anger over Brown’s surprise announcement at a party convention in Ottawa that he agrees Ontario should put a price on greenhouse-gas emissions to fight climate change.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2016
This summer, Postmedia’s Tom Spears brings you the often offbeat science behind the season that calls us to go outdoors. It’s a series we call the Science of Summer. Today he looks at an environmental disaster that is slowly turning into a victory.
I was in school back in 1974 when two California scientists published a study with the prosaic title “Stratospheric sink for chlorofluoromethanes.”
By Aidan Cox, Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2016
A seniors home in Orléans has a new bike that will give residents the chance to enjoy the scenic trails along the Ottawa River, while someone else does the work.
At the core of Bruyère Continuing Care’s “Cycling Without Age” program is a new pedicab-type trike with a relaxing two-person seat at the front, powered by a volunteer who pedals and steers the bike from a seat behind them.
By David Sali, Ottawa Metro News, July 26, 2016
He might be riding his proposal for a privately backed commuter train into uncharted territory, but that hasn’t dampened Joseph Potvin’s sense of optimism.
Potvin is director general of Moose Consortium, a group of 12 mostly locally owned businesses pushing to build a train that would link six rural Ontario and Quebec communities to downtown Ottawa using 400 kilometres of existing track.
By Blair Crawford, Ottawa Sun, July 26, 2016
Petfinder, meet bugfinder.
Specifically, a bug so big, so creepy, so like-the-alien-in-Alien-looking, that when I saw it it crawl out of a fist-sized hole in a tree near Britannia Beach, it made me skid my bike to stop to ask:"What the hell is that thing?"
The brightly coloured, wasplike insect was on a tree that had been badly damaged by a pileated woodpecker. It was at least 15 centimetres long, with most of that being an enormous spike on its back end. If that's a stinger, I worried, it could likely deliver a dose of venom straight to my heart.
By Lindsay Richardson, Ottawa Citizen, July 26, 2016
Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services has issued a warning that the West Nile virus is still a threat in most urban areas.
The ministry stressed the importance of adopting “simple and effective personal protective measures” against mosquito bites, since recent surveillance activities confirmed that mosquitos carrying the West Nile virus are active and circulating in Quebec, officials said in a statement released Monday.
By Nick Stow, StittsvilleCentral, July 25, 2016
EDITOR’S NOTE: Poole Creek may be Stittsville’s most important natural feature. It meanders from the Trans Canada Trail to the Carp River, crossing through neighbourhoods old and new, playing a crucial role in our community’s ecology. In this series, ecologist Nick Stow follows the creek from start to finish, looking at how it changes as it travels through wetlands, forests and new subdivisions. All photos by Nick Stow.)
I’M CROUCHED LOW, SLOWLY CREEPING THROUGH YOUNG FERNS AND CEDARS TOWARD A SHADED POOL, where my instincts tell me a brown trout should be resting. Sunlight and reflections dapple the surface of the water. In the shadow of the bank, the sandy, leaf-littered creek bottom looks bronze. Freezing against a tree trunk, I concentrate on the patches of bronze, looking for movement. After a few seconds, I can make out the shape, then the speckled, grey back and splash of gold on the sides, holding near the bottom. Perhaps 14 inches long, and just over a pound. I raise my camera, and try to slide surreptitiously into a better position. With a quick flip of its tail, the fish is gone.
By Ottawa Sun, July 25, 2016
The pit bull-type dog that mauled a woman in Vanier on the weekend has been surrendered by the owner and will be euthanized, says the city.
City bylaw officers removed the dog Saturday after it attacked a 50-year-old woman at a house on Montfort Street, causing what paramedics called “critical wounds” on her torso and extremities.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, July 25, 2016
This summer, Postmedia’s Tom Spears brings you the often offbeat science behind the season that calls us to go outdoors. It’s a series we call the Science of Summer. Today’s story revisits a loon researcher we wrote about a few weeks ago — the time with a new story of why loons leave their chicks at home.
I had a recent chat with Walter Piper about the loons he has been studying for the past couple of years. Now there’s more loon news: he has written about loon behaviour that seems to make no sense.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, July 25, 2016
The city and its light-rail contractor have had to be stopped from cutting one of Ottawa’s showpiece bike routes.
The path runs from the Ottawa River to Carling Avenue, parallel to Preston Street, and it’s one of Ottawa’s bike triumphs. In the last four years, we spent several million dollars upgrading it from the muddy, bumpy track it used to be, adding safe crossings of the east-west roads and even separate tracks for cyclists and pedestrians in busy spots.