Pat Bickerton

The city sends mixed messages about the values that inform the design of transportation projects.

For each project design, city staff should rank the priority of:
* Project cost
* Vehicle speed (travel time)
* Volume (how many people it moves)
* Safety

And Ottawa!
strongtownsottawa.ca/2025/09/04/p...

Needed infrastructure work is being deferred because of your low tax increases, with the backlog growing every year. There's a $2.6-billion backlog just in road resurfacing. At some point we will need to pay for it, and that ENORMOUS tax increase will be YOUR fault, not a future mayor's.

And let's not forget about all the car vs. car collisions that happen because of right turn on red.

I've personally seen 6 collisions at Bronson and Catherine in just the past few years, but not a single one since they added a no right on red sign.

It's a really stupid maneuver to allow.

Imagine adding onto the cost of every apartment tower going up in the core millions of dollars in DCs to pay for new suburban roads, and then also admitting that those same roads have zero benefit to anybody else in the city except for those suburban growth areas.

When are they going to fix this?

One of the more disturbing sections of the city's report on right turns on reds : they say that banning right turns on reds will lead to worse safety because drivers will be impatient and kill/injure people due to being inconvenienced.

We can't seriously be hiding behind this right?

The agenda for February's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee is up and still no Bank Street bus lanes. It was supposed to be on the agenda for this meeting, but has been delayed yet again.

This "pilot project" has been in the works for over 4 years, and is now over a year behind schedule.

Lots of water pipe repair coming our way. The city has finished replacing most pipes from 1930 and earlier.

Now, we're replacing 40s and 50s infra but every year, more and more pipe ages out. Can we keep up?

Graph inspired by a delegation by @sjamieit.bsky.social

Of the emergency water, sewer and storm repairs shared on BlueSky, the average age of failed pipes is 62 years (installed ~1964)

Pipes are 67 years old. We're seeing at many failures of that vintage.

Yikes. Hopefully crew can restore service quickly. Please update with an address when you can.

Taking guesses on how much people think the recently approved Greyhound station redevelopment will need to pay in Development Charges to the city.

Pipes are 63 years old

Troy Charter Interim General Manager of OC Transpo Friday, January 30, 2026 Bus cancellations unfairly impacting downtown core and equity-seeking residents Mr. Charter, I don't need to explain to you the issues facing OC Transpo at the moment, and the impacts that these issues are having on the whole city. I know that you are well aware of these problems, and I have appreciated your transparency and knowledge when talking to the media. I am writing to state more specifically that the cancellations and lack of reliable service has been impacting residents of Ward 12 more than others. During the first few weeks of January, residents have suffered through some of the worst transit service in recent months. While heavy snowfall has been a complicating factor, it is also more reason that we need reliable transit service, so that residents are not left waiting outside in the cold. As you noted in your statement to CBC, cancellations and delays impact downtown urban routes disproportionately. Among the most impacted routes, the 6, 7, and 12 all go through Ward 12. I have been advocating for more bus-only lanes and transit priority signals across the city. Allowing buses to move first through traffic and intersections will address the domino effect that happens when, for example, traffic on Bank Street causes the route 6 or 7 to be late arriving in Ward 12. I introduced a motion to this effect at the budget meeting of City Council. I look forward to working with you on this. People who live in Ward 12 are overwhelmingly renters, low-income, students and shift workers. Most do not own a car. These are equity-seeking groups that do not have another option for getting around the city, especially in winter. Unreliable service makes life much harder for these people who already get by with very little. I will be submitting an inquiry at the next Transit Commission on February 12 asking staff to look into how these cancellations and delays affect equity-seeking groups, though I a…

Shoutout to @stephanieplante.bsky.social for speaking out on unfair transit reliability issues downtown.

Thank you for stating your commitment to bus-only lanes and transit priority signals. Let’s speed up the 6, 7 and more urban routes!

cc: @arieltroster.com @shawnmenard.bsky.social

This is welcome news!

Curious, was this always planned, or is this in response to bus shortage pressures?

I'll pass on a hold-the-date. Thanks @railfans.ca and @bettertransitottawa.ca for talking transit data with me on February 2.

Notez bien cette date. Merci à @railfans.ca et @bettertransitottawa.ca pour nos échanges sur les données de transport en commun le 2 février.

Campaign slogan FiX Transit. Not 'Free' Transit.

@mayormarksutcliffe.bsky.social I campaigned on fixing transit
CBC: And it’s not fixed, when can you say it will be fixed?
Mayor: that’s a great question

This does not give me confidence for the eventual opening of Phase 2 East.

This does not look good for eventual opening of Phase 2 East.

Oh man. We can be bus buddies 🤝

As a regular rider of the 82, I'm looking forward to hearing about service improvements. Thank you!

@lainejohnson.bsky.social

Especially considering 5 of the 10 items in the bulletin were about public transit/transportation.

Maybe not a worse approach but agree that DCs are out of control and should be drastically reduced, if not eliminated entirely.

I actually like Make Housing Affordable's approach of what they call "win-win" IZ. Basically, if you commit to building affordable housing units, you are exempt of some DCs and go in the fast lane for approval. In theory, this would limit impact on market rate units.

Hundreds!

Unfortunately, more bad news. The amount of pipe that approaches end of life dramatically increases in 20-30 yrs. These pipes were installed in the decades that followed WW2 in the suburban neighbourhoods.

Read: even if we closed the 10-yr funding gap, it won't be enough for what's coming.

This section of water main pipe was installed in 1957 (69 yrs old). The city has 443 km of water pipe older that this and over the next 10-yrs, an additional 570 km of pipe will reach this age.

City replaces water mains at a rate of ~200 km every 10 yrs, so we have a problem.

What is even more concerning, is that the amount (read: km of pipe) of water, sewer and storm pipe was are approaching 75 years in age is about to increase dramatically over the next 20-30 years.

It's going to get much worse.

This pipe was installed in 1957 (69 yrs old). The city has a LOT of pipes that are just as old as this one.

A manor park street (Braemar St) with no sidewalk and lots of snow making it inaccessible for many. A sign on a front yard says “No Sidewalks - Don’t Pave Paradise”. This road leads directly to Manor Park public School (about 300 metres ahead)

The #ManorPark sidewalk issue is not over yet…. still signs up in the snow!
It will come to @en.ottawa.ca Public Works &Infrastructure Committee in Feb - a staff report is expected.
@ecologyottawa.bsky.social @cafesottawa.bsky.social @horizonottawa.bsky.social @cafesottawa.bsky.social

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