blogs

Photo: A VIA Rail locomotive at Ottawa Station. Ottawa could have been part of a high-speed passenger rail route connecting Ontario and Quebec. Instead, as video creator Paige Saunders explains, lobbying and politics resulted in an underwhelming alternative, branded “high-frequency rail”. ...

“How original” When I heard that the City of Ottawa was proposing to increase OC Transpo fares and… do something to service to solve the budget pressures facing the transit service, I could only think of Squidward’s monotone delivery of “how original”. ...

An O-Train running near University of Ottawa. Current status of the O-Train: OC Transpo head Renée Amilcar said on Thursday she was “very confident” that trains would be running on August 14, while Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says brighter days are definitely ahead, 100%, yessireebob, FOR SURE. ...

Photo: O-Train Line 1 Pimisi Station. By Jean Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. A lot of people were confused and annoyed on Canada Day with the situation at Pimisi Station. The station was open most of Canada Day, except people couldn’t really use it to get to celebrations at LeBreton Flats because the Booth Street bridge was closed (except for people with accessibility needs). ...

I sympathize with Ottawa By-law. They have the unpopular job of enforcing rules. I therefore don’t have much interest in deriding them, but sometimes you do have to scratch your head. On Tuesday, By-law tweeted a picture of a park trash can stuffed with several extra large pizza boxes, saying: “There are many reasons to visit Ottawa’s parks. ...

Artist’s rendering of a finished St-Laurent Station. (via ligneconfederationline.ca) Over the past few days I’ve been skimming the framing report for Ottawa’s new official plan — Ottawa Next: Beyond 2036. It was presented to the planning committee in mid-February and contains the city’s evaluation of the forces that will change Ottawa in the coming century. ...

Recent photo of coupled train testing on the Confederation Line, via City of Ottawa rail office. A controversy over the Trillium Line extension contract involving SNC-Lavalin, the province commits $1.2 billion for Stage 2 work, while train testing picks up. Here’s a summary of the week in LRT. ...

Artist’s rendering of a finished St-Laurent Station. (via ligneconfederationline.ca) Mayor Jim Watson thinks the Confederation Line will be ready before the end of Q2, he told CTV Ottawa on Tuesday. Watson was being interviewed about the federal budget when Graham Richardson asked him about LRT. ...

Eric Darwin’s must-read urban issues blog West Side Action is back after a sabbatical of a few months. Darwin stopped writing a few months back and said in May he was looking for a break from the blog after a 10-year run. ...

(David Johnston/Flickr) If you’re looking for some things to do with dad in Ottawa for Father’s Day 2018, the Kids in the Capital blog has a good list of ideas, including: Vintage car show at Billings Bridge Historic Site. Canadian Museum of Nature Father’s Day Brunch 2018 FCA Ottawa Ferrari Festival Italian Week Festival Ottawa Beer Festival For the full list, check out Kids in the Capital…