By Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen, May 11, 2014j
A Progressive Conservative plan to take over rail-based transit in Toronto won’t extend to Ottawa’s light-rail system currently under construction.
PC leader Tim Hudak announced Sunday that if elected on June 12, his government would “seize the wheel” by, among other things, uploading regional highways and the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway and light rail operations.
By Stephanie Kinsella, CFRA News, May 7, 2014
Councillors on the transportation committee are green lighting the first step in the process of widening the Airport Parkway.
An environmental assessment is required for infrastructure projects such as this one, and the study will take two years to complete once the contract is awarded.
By Clive Doucet, Ottawa Citizen, May 7, 2014
Memory is a dangerous thing to have and a dangerous thing to lose. In Jane Jacobs’ last book, Dark Age Ahead, she suggested that dark ages are not triggered by an actual event or endless debates around public budgets, but by the collective loss of memory. According to Jacobs, Dark Ages are characterized by the onset of a collective amnesia. People start to forget what used to make their society successful.
The mantra in the late Roman Empire became “get on with your life.” People continued to buy villas and lead comfortable lives, but the common wealth was allowed to fester and shrivel; until one day people forgot even why public hygiene was needed. The effectiveness of memory erasure is impossible to overestimate. Fifteen hundred years ago, people began to die from water born bacterial infections that didn’t exist when public hygiene had been a value people
By Robert Bostelaar, Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2014
The long winter haunts us still.
Sports leagues have had to postpone the start of seasons that normally begin in early May because fields remain soggy from melting snow and the heavy rains that followed.
By Michael Woods, Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2014
Residents worried about future bus traffic along the Scott/Albert corridor won a reprieve at city hall on Wednesday, but they say they still hope to reduce the number of buses that will use the route in a couple of years.
About 2,500 OC Transpo buses a day will be detoured onto Scott and Albert streets starting in 2016, while the Transitway between Empress Avenue and Tunney’s Pasture is converted to the Confederation Line light rail project.
By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen, May 6, 2014
Plans were unveiled at an open house Tuesday that should make it possible to cross the Queen Elizabeth Driveway at Fifth Avenue this summer without taking your life in your hands.
THE PROBLEM
Heavy traffic makes it difficult for cyclists and pedestrians using the paths along the Rideau Canal to safely cross the Driveway.
By Mai Habib, CFRA News, May 3, 2014
Barrhaven will be getting a few new trees this weekend.
Trees Ontario has teamed up with CAA North & East Ontario to host a community tree planting from 10am-2pm on Saturday at Winding Way and Prince of Wales Drive.
The event will also challenge participants to do more to protect the environment and to learn about the benefits of urban tree planting.
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, May 2, 2014
Whatever result comes from the June 12 Ontario election , it could force Mayor Jim Watson and other candidates to rethink their own platforms ahead of the municipal election in October.
Cleaning the Ottawa River and building the next stage of LRT would factor high on the list of priorities in the next term of council.



