jay2028
Active Member
People love to say Ottawa has no vision but can you look at Toronto and say thats a city with vision no .
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- Thread starter hoggytime
- Start date
sm4012
New Member
I swear to god it’s like Ottawa doesn’t even exist to Doug Ford. He’s too focused on meddling with Toronto to even care. Thank god for the NCC who have been really killing it lately IMO.
jay2028
Active Member
Ford is doing more harm then good.
sm4012
New Member
Oh definitely, in a way it’s probably beneficial that he doesn’t meddle like he does with Toronto. But overall Ottawa seems to be forgotten by higher levels of government regardless.
jay2028
Active Member
Its better to be forgotten them to be used as revenge.
postingaboutottawa
New Member
Ottawa is still dealing with the consequences of active hostility during the Harris and then the Harper years. The LRT despite presumably sharing most of it's current deficits would have gone over a lot smoother if hurdman was able to realign using ncc land and phase 1 ended at lincoln fields.
On the other hand the modern standard of 'vision' is not all negative even if ambition has gotten less impressive and more practical. The CSST, the Expansion of the Capital Pathway/River Park Plans, or certainly the District energy system all pieces of infrastructure which similar sized metros in north america are getting nowhere near. The parlimenatry precint renewal is one of the most ambitious heritage resoration projects in the world and by the time it's finished will span four decades of activity.
After many years of talking about how to make things better in this city my honest feeling is that it is difficult for people who live and are of the 'urbanist' persuation to step away from an inferiority complex developed to a significant extent out of Montreal being so close and such a jewel. As a consquence there is this tendency to try to nail down a political pathology which can be solved via deliberative democracy for Ottawa to reverse the wrong course taken in the past. That isn't to say that things shouldn't be better or even that better leadership couldn't quite easily set a better course simply by being more ambitious in spirirt, however it probably means trying to minimize using the opportunities we have now to litigate the questions of the past. In IR discourse a cliche is quoting Clauswitz saying war is politics by other means but i feel it is really the inverse that is more true in domestic politics, i.e. that politics is war by other means. Wars are lost when people go into them trying to fight the last one.
On the other hand the modern standard of 'vision' is not all negative even if ambition has gotten less impressive and more practical. The CSST, the Expansion of the Capital Pathway/River Park Plans, or certainly the District energy system all pieces of infrastructure which similar sized metros in north america are getting nowhere near. The parlimenatry precint renewal is one of the most ambitious heritage resoration projects in the world and by the time it's finished will span four decades of activity.
After many years of talking about how to make things better in this city my honest feeling is that it is difficult for people who live and are of the 'urbanist' persuation to step away from an inferiority complex developed to a significant extent out of Montreal being so close and such a jewel. As a consquence there is this tendency to try to nail down a political pathology which can be solved via deliberative democracy for Ottawa to reverse the wrong course taken in the past. That isn't to say that things shouldn't be better or even that better leadership couldn't quite easily set a better course simply by being more ambitious in spirirt, however it probably means trying to minimize using the opportunities we have now to litigate the questions of the past. In IR discourse a cliche is quoting Clauswitz saying war is politics by other means but i feel it is really the inverse that is more true in domestic politics, i.e. that politics is war by other means. Wars are lost when people go into them trying to fight the last one.
jay2028
Active Member
Don't know if i would say Montreal is a crown jewel.
sm4012
New Member
Oh I don't disagree that we are doing fine for ourselves in comparison to other cities, in fact I am actually quite positive for what the future has in store for Ottawa. The western LRT expansion (for all the faults with the system) should be pretty big in terms of connectivity, and LeBreton seems like it's shaping out to be a really special place. I just personally believe that this would be a good opportunity to do something special in the city while the political will exists for it, but that is not to say I would be disapointed if they went with Tremblay (even if I despise the trainyards and basically that whole area around the station). It has good connectivity already with the LRT system and other forms of transit, its just the land usage around it which is kinda terrible.
sm4012
New Member
Montreal is definitely a crown jewel of urbanism in North America. Good transit, plenty of bike lanes, plenty of dense, mixed use neighbourhoods and overall quite charming in general.
postingaboutottawa
New Member
You added crown, I don't know that I would say that either. I recommend putting "a jewel" in inverted commas if that is the issue you want to take with the point I was attempting to get across.
jay2028
Active Member
Royalmount
Was proposed to be a massive mixed use which ended up getting rejected and now its just shopping center
Bell Centre
There were grand plans to build around the arena it got scaled down yes it still nice but nothing like was proposed
Big O
Renovating the stadium at a cost of a billion has not sit well with many
Soccer and football stadiums
For years there has been calls to build a new stadium for the soccer and football team.
R,E,M
Has had many issues and is not perfect its far from it
Mixed use
Many of there recent mixed use have been scaled down big time.
Bikes lanes and parks are what they do very well.
I wonder why either Hamilton-London (current combined metros around 1.4 million) or Kitchener-Waterloo-London (current combined metros around 2.4 million including Cambridge/Guelph) aren't part of the masterplan (yet). People already commute from K-W/Cambridge/Guelph to Toronto on slow trains, I'm sure a lot of the ones that work downtown would love (and be able to afford) an HSR alternative. London could be commutable as well with HSR.
Quebec City-Trois Rivieres have a current combined metro of only around 1.1 million, and there's wayyy less ground transit between Montreal and Quebec City than the other two corridors I just mentioned, and the distances are far greater. I know they want to replace planes, which is one explanation, and Quebec City has far more flights to replace than the other two corridors, which could be part of it, but it doesn't seem like enough of a reason to start with Quebec City rather than going West first.
Quebec City-Trois Rivieres have a current combined metro of only around 1.1 million, and there's wayyy less ground transit between Montreal and Quebec City than the other two corridors I just mentioned, and the distances are far greater. I know they want to replace planes, which is one explanation, and Quebec City has far more flights to replace than the other two corridors, which could be part of it, but it doesn't seem like enough of a reason to start with Quebec City rather than going West first.
Attachments
I think it's mostly political. They wanted to get as far deep into both Quebec and Ontario to ensure political support from both Provinces and avoid any backlash from Quebec.
I suspect that halfway through the construction of phase 2 to Quebec City and Toronto, they'll start looking at the next phase to Southern Ontario.
Question is, what do we do next? Calgary-Edmonton is the most logical Phase 4, though that could very well be done by another party by then. Anything beyond that would be extremely expensive for little gain.
I would hope that, once sane people are in Washington once again one day, we can all dream, we could see a California/Oregon/Washington/Vancouver HSR.
I suspect that halfway through the construction of phase 2 to Quebec City and Toronto, they'll start looking at the next phase to Southern Ontario.
Question is, what do we do next? Calgary-Edmonton is the most logical Phase 4, though that could very well be done by another party by then. Anything beyond that would be extremely expensive for little gain.
I would hope that, once sane people are in Washington once again one day, we can all dream, we could see a California/Oregon/Washington/Vancouver HSR.
jay2028
Active Member
A couple experts have said it would be a pr nightmare if they just did it in the GTA to London.
Just London, sure, but I don't think we'd see much pushback if they finished the Quebec City-Windsor corridor.