By Michelle Nash Baker, Ottawa Community News, June 3, 2016
Pavement in Sandy Hill is in danger of disappearing – that’s if a local environment group gets its way.
The Sandy Hill Tree Group is working with the city’s Neighbourhood Connections office on a pilot project that aims to de-pave three city-owned areas along Somerset Street – replacing the current asphalt-ridden areas with perennials, shrubs and trees.
By Michelle Nash Baker, Ottawa Community News, June 3, 2016
Standing on Emond Street in Vanier on a Tuesday afternoon, there is a group of children playing in the park.
Another group of twenty-something’s getting ready for a night out, couples sitting on their porches and people pulling into their driveways after a long day at work. Sounds quaint?
Add a speeding car or two, one car that has clearly circled the block three times and you begin to ask where the "family" street feel has gone.
By Leah Larocque, CTV News Ottawa, June 3, 2016
The city says Phase 1 of Light Rail Transit in Ottawa is on time and on budget. “ We are exactly where we want to be,” says Steve Cripps, Director of the Rail Implementation Office.
The 2.1 billion dollar project, called the Confederation Line, will take light rail trains from Tunney's Pasture near Hintonburg to Blair Road in the east end.Cripps confirmed construction is underway in all 13 stations of the line, and that excavation of the underground tunnel should be complete this summer.
He says, “2016 is going to be an excellent year for this project. Within the next month tunnel excavation will be complete, we are going to see light rail vehicles on track this summer, we are going to see the implementation of the final detour.”
By Aidan Cox, Ottawa Citizen, June 5, 2016
Lowertown residents are worried the presence of red-light cameras on King Edward Avenue isn’t doing enough to keep their children safe.
“I’m scared for my kids,” Cindy, who chose not to disclose her last name, said Saturday.
“I’ve seen lots of cars going through that one,” she said, pointing to the intersection at St. Andrew Street. “They’re supposed to go 40 km/h maximum but no, they just go through.”
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, June 5, 2016
The city mailed a record number of red-light camera violations in 2015 but can’t take advantage of a new rule empowering municipalities to go after out-of-province offenders.
It’s a huge deal in Ottawa since the city’s roads are filled with Quebec-plated vehicles every day, but so far in 2016 city hall hasn’t been able to ring up guilty motorists from the other side of the river when cameras catch them burning red lights.
By Andrew Foote, CBC News Ottawa, June 4, 2016
Ottawa police are reminding drivers it's a $175 fine, a disruption to the transit system and a risky manoeuvre for regular vehicles to use a bus lane.
Officers handed out 41 tickets to drivers in less than two hours during rush hour Friday afternoon on the Heron Road bridge over the Rideau Canal and Rideau River, between Prince of Wales Drive and Riverside Drive.
By Hillary Johnstone, CBC News Ottawa, June 4, 2016
Farmers in Eastern Ontario say they're in "dire need" of rain in the next "week to ten days," or they risk losing up to forty per cent of their crop.
On Friday, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority declared a "moderately severe" drought, and data from Environment Canada shows the Ottawa International Airport recorded the driest May since 1959.Some farmers in North Gower, about 40 kilometres south of Ott
By the Editor, Ottawa Citizen, June 3, 2016
With northern Alberta still reeling from the wildfire that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray and neighbouring communities, the federal environment commissioner this week released a report that suggests Canada is not adequately prepared – or preparing – for severe weather. This conclusion comes at a time when extreme weather events are expected to become more frequent and intense due to climate change.
Aside from the heartbreaking personal losses that disaster can bring, there is a stiff monetary cost to all Canadians from this problem: In the past six fiscal years, the report notes, the federal government has spent more on recovery from “large-scale natural disasters” than in the previous 39 years combined.
By Elizabeth Argent, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, June 4, 2016
Ashcroft plays bait and switch
Once again, Ashcroft would have us believe that it cares what the residents surrounding its development of the Convent land in Westboro think. We went through this whole process in Phase I.
It was disingenuous then and is disingenuous now. I believe Ashcroft’s agenda is to extract every penny possible from the Convent property by building the highest-possible density it can with little regard for the community surrounding it. The city of Ottawa approved a site plan for nine and four storeys.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, June 3, 2016
The provincial government decided to widen Highway 417 before Ottawa decided to build a light rail system and is carrying through with it even though there’ll now be a rail line right next to the highway.
That’s how old the thinking is behind the plan that Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Bob Chiarelli and other local MPPs announced last week: Nine years, back when Larry O’Brien was mayor, city council had just cancelled Chiarelli’s north-south LRT line and nobody was sure any transit scheme at all would replace it.
By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen, June 3, 2016
After a decade of inexplicable delay, the federal government is poised to announce the designation of the Ottawa River as one of 42 heritage rivers in Canada.
Ottawa Centre MP Catherine McKenna, the minister of the environment and climate change, let the cat out of the bag this week at the annual Riverkeeper Gala on Lemieux Island.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, June 3, 2016
The provincial government will kick in half the cost of adding light-rail extensions all the way east to Trim Road and to the Ottawa airport, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday morning.
The city government already has a $3-billion plan to build rail east to Place d’Orléans, west to Bayshore mall, and south to both Baseline station and Riverside South. It wants to run the Place d’Orléans line farther east to Trim Road and to include a spur to the airport off the Riverside South line, but doesn’t want to pay for them. The promise of $158 million from the province gets those additions halfway to being funded, with the federal government now being asked to cover the rest.