The New Years Grinch

You would think that after all the goodies I have consumed over the holiday period I would be feeling fat and jolly but no, just fat! Still grouchy after all these years. It does seem a shame that my first letter to the editor for 2014 is me complaining again but, I could not resist. With the incredible cold and snow that winter has delivered so far, I thought it wise to link these conditions to the many proposed buildings in our downtown core. Planners simply do not take this amount of snow and/or cold into consideration when they draft these new developments. Anyhow this letter is in today's Ottawa Citizen.

So, welcome to winter in Ottawa! Ever since November it has felt like mid winter. The city was forced to start their snow removal program early because we have received so much snow. Frigid conditions have been hazardous. Have Mayor Watson, city councillors and our planning committee noticed the weather?

 

Whenever I attend meetings about proposed infill houses or massive condos, the draft pictures are always set in summer scenes. There are benches, flowers, blue skies and scraggly new trees. When you talk to city officials, staff or councillors and dare to ask where people will drive or park you are sometimes made to feel like a dinosaur. Driving is the new smoking! 

 

City officials claim that the residents they are cramming into my West Wellington neighbourhood and all downtown areas, will not come with cars. They will jog to work, bike to the grocery store, walk to their gym and do yoga on the benches outside their condos...year round! Hardly anyone will drive anymore. We will take public transit, not cars.

 

I do take buses and think our transitway works well. I look forward to the light rail system and will be happy to use it. However, I will not sell my car. I will still drive many places. I will bike when I can, but I will never bike from November to April. I will not attempt to walk down a sidewalk when it is covered in ice. This is Ottawa folks. 

 

You can't prevent these new residents from bringing their cars with them. The traffic in our section of the city is already crazy. Don't attempt to drive Byron Avenue during evening rush hour. Parkdale is impossible at any time. We can only imagine the permanent gridlock from morning to night once all the new condos are completed. And these new houses which are sprouting up like mushrooms; the ones with no yards, no grass, no living things anywhere? Where do you think they are shovelling their snow? They have no front yards to put it on, so it is going on the snowbanks and streets; another reason for the early snow removal.

 

Next time I attend one of those planning meetings I'm going to ask for the mid winter version of their drawings.

The snowbanks on our block