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Eric DeLorme's avatar

There is very little about transportation in Ottawa that makes sense.

Between:

1) the multiple authorities (City, "Phase 2", NCC, MTO) "managing" road closures seemingly without consulting each other making it almost impossible to get around town in a timely manner (tried to leave Orleans on a weekend lately?),

2) the weaponized incompetence of OCTranspo only made worse with LRT,

3) a mayor that at his core believes a city should be run like a business, and

4) urban "planning" that built Ottawa as an overgrown, low-density, car-centric suburb rather than a proper city (Ottawa has more in common with Mississauga or Laval than it does Toronto or Montreal),

I cannot help but feel we're at an impasse, literally and figuratively, and it makes me profoundly sad. Visiting comparable mid-sized cities in Europe is an eye-opening exercise in how things could (should?) be, and makes returning to Ottawa that much more depressing.

How do we get out of this mess?

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Kathleen Erin's avatar

I especially like that you pointed out that line 2 has been closed for so long. I live right off of line 2 and have been waiting for it to open so that I could really start taking advantage of the transit system. But if the trains just become less convenient by the time it reopens it won’t make sense for me to use it.

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