By Ottawa Citizen, December 26, 2015
Environment Canada is recommending people use caution walking or driving in the capital region Saturday night and into Sunday.
In a special weather statement, the agency said the area centred in the capital, extending south to Cornwall and north to the Pembroke-Petawawa area can expect to see snow mixed with ice pellets through most of evening.
By Stittsville Central, December 26, 2015
The verdict is in for the new lane configuration for the lights at Huntmar and Maple Grove.
Councillor Shad Qadri wrote in his weekly newsletter that he’s asking City staff reconfigure the northbound lane markings to allow for a dedicated left-turn lane plus a shared straight/right-turn. The bike lane will be removed. (Lanes in the other direction stay the same.
(NOTE: also read comments - interesting)
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, December 25, 2015
Humberto Ferrer and his team can almost see the light at the end of a 2.5-kilometre tunnel in downtown Ottawa.
"The morale is very high," Ferrer, the deputy director of the Rideau Transit Group, told the Sun."The people are very excited. We're very close to completion. We're in the last six months of excavation and everybody is very motivated."
Just 600 metres more to go and the LRT tunnel between Lebreton Flats and the University of Ottawa will be excavated. It will be a big milestone for Ferrer and workers with RTG, which is the city's contractor on the $2.1-billion rail system, the largest infrastructure project in Ottawa's history.
By Mohamed Adam, Ottawa Citizen, December 26, 2015
The latest effort to develop LeBreton Flats is so very Ottawa. When it comes to doing something big, unique or special, our collective will and competence fail us.
You’d think that after the flop that was the first attempt in 2004 to develop the Flats, the National Capital Commission would have learned the right lessons and produced something breathtaking this time. But such is our limited imagination that the best the NCC could get out of a call for proposals are two similar plans for an NHL-style hockey arena.
By CBC News Ottawa, December 23, 2015
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is coming out against the National Capital Commission's plan to redevelop LeBreton Flats saying the process is "cloaked in secrecy."
Watson said councillors and the public have been left in the dark when it comes to the long awaited redevelopment of the crown land.
"The process the NCC has set up has been cloaked in secrecy and I for the life of me don’t understand," Watson told CTV Ottawa's Chief News Anchor Graham Richardson during a year end interview.
By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen, December 23, 2015
Could this be the year without skating on the Rideau Canal?
Probably not, says Environment Canada weather guru David Phillips. But this winter’s season on the world’s largest skating rink is likely to be short and sporadic.
“It will be measured in terms of days rather than weeks,” Phillips said Wednesday. “It’s going to take a turn of the weather, and I think the odds of that turn of the weather are higher rather than lower. But I think it may not be sustainable.”
By Chris Holski, CFRA News, December 22, 2015
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson considers continuing progress on LRT to be his major administrative highlight for 2015.After years of discussion, Watson tells Newstalk 580 CFRA's Afternoon Edition he's glad to see more and more tangible results.
"The track is being laid, the maintenance yard is ready to open. We've got 100 percent of one tunnel excavated, two others at 60 percent. That's going to leave a mark for a long time in terms of transforming the way we grow and the way we get around."
By Erin McCracken, Ottawa Community News, December 22, 2015
Rehabilitation of the Walkley Road Transitway overpass and Sawmill Creek culvert has stalled and the city has fired the general contractor hired to do the work for breach of contract, according to River ward’s councillor.
Ottawa-based Dalcon Enterprises was hired by the city in May to repair and update the span over the Transitway and the Sawmill Creek multi-use pathway, as well as do some drainage culvert work near the creek for $2.038 million.
By Emma Jackson, Ottawa Metro News, December 21, 2015
OC Transpo will pay less than $100 a day to restore some service to Lees station.That’s according to transit planning manager Pat Scrimgeour, who said the extra trips and routes announced for the east-end station are “pretty minor” and won’t throw OC Transpo off its light rail budget.
“It’s all covered by the global budget that council has set” to ease the pain of light rail construction, Scrimgeour said. “It’s a matter of asking staff members to come in an hour earlier.”
By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, December 21, 2015
Mayor Jim Watson says he’s “disappointed” the $60-million O-Train expansion has failed to live up to the promise of a train every eight minutes.
When council approved the project in 2011, one of its main selling features was slashing the wait time between trains from 15 minutes to eight minutes. But OC Transpo officials now say the original design frequency of eight-to-10 minutes was “an ambitious goal,” and admit the current frequency is closer to 11 -to-11.5 minutes.
By Emma Jackson, Ottawa Metro News, December 20, 2015
A white Christmas is “out of the question” for Ottawa as we head toward double-digit temperatures on Christmas Eve.
“It’s impossible to get any snow flakes before Christmas day,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault.
The long-range forecast shows a balmy high of 12 C on Thursday, Dec. 24 and a daytime high of 3 C on Christmas Day. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week will all be above zero.
By Emma Jackson, Ottawa Metro News, December 20, 2015
OC Transpo has expanded service at Lees station after 300 residents signed a petition protesting cuts last week.
The station’s lower level is being shut down for light-rail construction, and most Transitway buses were going to skip Lees as of Sunday.
The 85 was supposed to only head north beginning at 7:05 a.m. on weekdays, and the 16 would begin downtown service at 6:16 a.m.