So rail is dead!

Wow – Council killed the project.

I hope that’s a lesson because this thing has been on questionable for a while – and it all a result of flawed consultation and (excuse the reference) railroading opposition.

This morning I heard one councilor suggest that they didn’t sell the public on the vision – and then explain that vision – the last developable land is in the south. What a vision; serve developers not the citizens in communities east and west of the core stuck in traffic daily.

That was the core problem for most people – the travel problem is east west not north south. What’s more there’s lots of developable land in side the green belt – we don’t need an 800M sop to developers to meet the real population growth.

The pity about this project is that the warning signs have been there for some time. From the first complaints that the environmental assessment was to narrow to the location of the service yards at every juncture opposition grew not diminished. And staff’s and councils response – push on, create artificial deadlines, allude to a secret contract, posit legal repercussions. In the end the citizens were not buying any of it.

It’s time that those councilors who supported this thing – and placed the city in it’s current position – asked themselves – will I let this happen again? And voters need to ask themselves – four years from now (when we know if we get sued and what the cost was) if my councilor supported the project at every juncture do I want them back.

Let’s hope that more than a rail project died yesterday – lets hope an approach to governing died as well.

By-Law Control Officers - Approach & Controls

In the past month I've seen two incidents which make me wonder about the training and oversight of Ottawa's By-Law control officers.

The first involved my neighbour, a mild mannered elderly gentleman who speaks neither English or French. In the process of jockeying vehicles he had reversed incompletely into another neighbours driveway so that his vehicle crossed the sidewalk.

A passing By-Law officer took exception to a running vehicle stopped across the sidewalk, even though my neighbour was obviously moving between one vehicle and another. Surely a running vehicle has the right to pause or stop across a sidewalk - as that's often a necessity to safely enter traffic.

When I came outside I heard the officer say he was going to issue a ticket "because of his (my neighbours) behaviour" - as if there's By-laws on behaviour .

I thought that was an aberration but today I had a similar experience. I was stuck behind a timid driver at a T junction. For three lights they wouldn't enter the intersection - though their was room to - because drivers going straight through partially blocked the intersection during our light. By the time I jumped out of my car to urge the driver to nose forward there were 20+ cars and people honking as we waited through a fourth light.

A By-Law office stopped and asked if there was a problem - "no just trying to get traffic to move" - "You're the one blocking traffic" was his immediate accusation - delivered in a threatening tone.

To me both these incidence point to training and oversight issues.

I've asked my councillor after the first incident to provide a link to the By-law department abuse complaints process. Of course I'm still waiting - likely because there is no policy or oversight - which means these types of issues will continue.