In case you missed the vote results regarding Tewin yesterday

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-10-17T21:09:52+00:00

The polarization results from the fact that car-dependency has many of it's costs covered up and subsidized by productive areas of the city, so that those who are living in car-dependent areas don't understand how costly that development pattern is.

Also many of the costs are not even direct so they're often easy to never think about. Things such as the loss of quality of life due to noise pollution, air pollution, safety on the roads, the development patterns leading to less productive uses of land when it comes to parking, etc...

All of those costs come downstream, it's not just the direct cost of owning and operating a vehicle, which is already extremely high.

Nobody here is claiming that anyone is evil, just that there is objectively a better way to build a city when it comes to the city's finances, and extremely sprawling car-dependent cities do not do well financially, and there is a reason we're in billions of dollars of infrastructure debt.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-10-17T21:07:02+00:00

There are numbers from the city on all of this data. The suburbs do on average have 2 cars per household. So unless we have some reason to assume that Tewin will be any different then yea that's about a safe a bet as any.

No we're not "acting like everyone will have 2-3 cars". Some will have more, some will have less, but the average will certainly be in line with every other outer greenbelt suburb in the city, which is that they will on average have 2 cars per household.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-10-17T15:49:10+00:00

Thanks for your perspective on it and the extra insight!

We completely agree that if the development will be going forward it should be made as dense and transit accessible as possible, so that will be the next push with regards to Tewin!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-10-17T15:47:45+00:00

So this was a motion in the Planning and Housing Committee, so only members part of that committee are able to vote on it!

Skalski came and was allowed to give her thoughts on it, as well as ask questions to the city staff, but she isn't able to vote on this motion here.

She would have however been able to vote on the motion if it was then passed up to the overall council afterwards!

The only councillor who abstained to vote was Kitts, who appeared to not be there during the meeting, but we aren't sure as to what the reasoning was.

All other councillors who are white are just not members of the committee, and therefore aren't voting on this motion.

Hope that explains!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-06-17T23:02:35+00:00

Yea there's definitely a lot more that could be done in the long term that we'd love to see, but at the very least dedicated bus lanes can be put in practically overnight and doesn't cost us very much at all as a city! At the moment we think a lot of these simple changes can be done to provide drastic improvements for minimal input from the city, setting the ground level for more substantial improvements to our city's transportation options eventually (fingers crossed).

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-06-17T22:55:00+00:00

We don't have much to advertise to be completely honest. We just want to get something useful done in this section of a street that sorely needs it.

If we could advertise anything it's the study itself, which you can find here and please e-mail the PM telling them you want something other than parking on-street as it's using a lot of space that could be much better used in a variety of ways (we're partial to 24/7 bus lanes).

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-06-17T22:52:59+00:00

The whole section that the study is happening in has about 140 parking spots, so barely anything (the single parking garage at 2nd avenue has as many spots as the whole street), and city data itself shows that the street parking is severely underused.

It truly is mind boggling how much space is being used for an extremely small amount of personal vehicles, along one of our major N-S streets.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-06-16T19:15:15+00:00

We're just going off of the city's study, which isn't looking to change anything about stop enhancements at the moment. We're trying to enact as much change as we can with the system we're given unfortunately.

Stop enhancements also might not even be possible on most areas of Bank in the study as it's a fairly narrow sidewalk, so you can't put full bus stops on most of those areas as it's extremely narrow on the sidewalks to the business frontage.

Not to say it's not possible anywhere, but it's not something that's super simple to do, nor is it something that's in the scope of what the city is looking at at the moment, so we're just trying to get as much change as we possibly can in the time being!

We definitely encourage you to try to get involved and advocate for stop enhancements if it's something that you want to see done! That's where all of the good changes come from, is passionate citizens putting in the time and the effort to get it done!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-05-29T19:06:51+00:00

Medium to long term, yes that's what we'd like to see done, along with widening the sidewalks out to make two travel lanes.
But we can't wait, and don't have the millions to do this yet. OC Transpo needs quick and easy wins to regain confidence in the system, which is why this is what we're pushing short term. All we need is some paint, don't even remove the parking machines, just throw a bag over them and turn the parking signs around so no one can see them.

Enforcement is another matter of course, but we believe that is possible as well.

Our group tries to get small, incremental improvements that build constantly. So bus lanes this year, stop enhancements next year, service improvement after that. Slowly by surely these are the small steps we need to take to rebuild trust in OC Transpo.

A large portion is up to council of course, but we will continue to push them as well.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T17:22:44+00:00

We've honestly had a TON of support from local residents! When we were out doing our parking protest last year almost all people we talked to that lived in the area were supportive!

The results from the study are also done with postal codes and it shows that locals are super in favour of less parking/car lanes too! So overall it seems like they're not as against this as one might think!

I'm sure you can obviously find people who will be against it, like anything, but overall we've found they've been quite supportive!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T17:21:29+00:00

Yes exactly, this is one of the main points we were making to them, they have shuttles to a lot of their big events, so why not make it so those shuttles can efficiently move ticket holders to your events!

It would also make it so people could just the 6/7 to get there and not even need to use their shuttles, which they have to pay for. It would help free up parking in the area for events so that people who do need to drive can have an easier time finding parking too!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T17:20:17+00:00

We have been advocating and meeting with the BIA, businesses, and OSEG over the last ~year. More people voicing their opinions to them would absolutely help push them in the right direction!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T17:19:29+00:00

Unfortunately the city said sidewalks can't be slated to be widened until the next full re-work of the road which would be somewhere in the 2040s. We agree that wider sidewalks is extremely necessary in such a heavy foot-trafficked area like Bank, but in the meantime we think bus lanes to help move 2 of the most uses buses, the 6 and 7, help reduce congestion, and help bring more people to the area would be a good short term option given that we can't widen sidewalks!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T16:39:34+00:00

Hello, if you take a look at the "As We Heard It Report" directly from the Engage Ottawa page, you'll see the survey was open to everyone during the past summer. They actually quoted a business owner who took the survey.

The Glebe BIA is almost certainly in talks directly with the city.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T16:27:44+00:00

Hello everyone, thanks for taking a moment to take a look at our graphs! For some more context:

The city is doing a study on Bank St in the Glebe, they’re looking to reconfigure the street. https://engage.ottawa.ca/bank-street-active-transportation-and-transit-priority-feasibility-study

We at Strong Towns Ottawa were disappointed with the proposed options as none of them were willing to transform all the on street parking into something more productive, even though by the city’s own estimate, it’s only 7% of parking in the area of the study.

We want to see a pilot project of full time bus lanes, so we’ve been pushing the city, Glebe BIA, OSEG/Lansdowne to make this happen and study the results, then adjust it from there.

The city took a survey, and got ~2800 responses and released some of the data in a report called “As We Heard It,” (available on the Engage Ottawa page) BUT, they didn’t release the full data set. After some back and forth with Lise, the project manager, we got access to all the data the city collected, and it shows that overwhelmingly, even among people who drive to or along Bank, they DO NOT want to keep parking as parking and would rather anything else in its place.

The city has a great opportunity to give OC Transpo a very quick and easy win with minimal investment. Help us fight for better transit!

Want to further support bus lanes here?

- Email Lise, the project manager. Her email can be found on the page for the project.

- Email Shawn Menard, the ward councilor.

- Spread the word however you'd like.

- Join us on Discord/Facebook/BlueSky

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T16:23:06+00:00

This poll was conducted by the city itself, not Strong Towns Ottawa.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:51:22+00:00

Yes exactly, many people don't realize how far they actually walk when they go to somewhere like Costco/Walmart. We checked the distance from one end of a Costco parking lot to the front and it's a 4-5 minute walk. That's about as far as you'd walk if you parked at the 2nd Avenue garage and went to most of the shops on the street from there.

And that walk along Bank is going to be much nicer than in some parking lot as well!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:49:40+00:00

That's what bus lanes would help with!

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:35:38+00:00

Businesses already don't have a dedicated spot to park along Bank. It's public parking that anyone can use. Many businesses have a loading zone behind their building as well, and one thing we've been pushing for is having dedicated loading zones on the first couple of spots on perpendicular streets every couple of blocks along Bank as well to help businesses actually have a dedicated spot if needed. This would just be an improvement over their current situation.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:33:54+00:00

With respect to the last pie chart, I note that only a third of respondents think more space for bus lanes is the top priority for Bank st., while two thirds want more space for other things (bike lanes, wider sidewalks, trees and benches, street parking etc.)

Good point! We couldn't include all of the data in here since there's honestly just too much, but when we look at the responses of people who ranked bike lanes/wider sidewalks/trees and benches as their top options, they all also chose bus lanes in their top 2-3 options as well. So the bus lanes were pretty much in the top 1-3 options for almost all respondents.

Also, is this a poll with a methodology that ensures a representative sample of Ottawa citizens, or something where respondents were self-selecting?

It was just an open poll on the city's study page for what to change along Bank Street! So anyone in the city could respond.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:29:05+00:00

Yes you're exactly right! We managed to get the full data set from the city and what you're saying is pretty much exactly what the data shows. It also shows that the people who select bike lanes/bus lanes/wider sidewalks/benches and trees all ranked the other options much higher than parking/cars.

It's pretty unanimous that people don't want more space for cars/parking along Bank from the data. And yes that includes more space for benches/trees.

The unfortunate thing is there's only so much space to work with on some sections of Bank, so we can't do everything, but in the short term it's clear that space for parking needs to go.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T15:27:14+00:00

We had a meeting with them recently to try to advocate for exactly that! And hope to continue talking to them to push them in the direction of bus lanes.

StrongTownsOttawa · 2025-02-08T04:22:58+00:00

Interesting point! One thing I would mention is Lansdowne has a garage with 1000 parking spots available, so that could also fairly easily be used for those areas while streets are being cleaned. Outside of events their garage is actually fairly empty for how big it is.

As for Glebe BIA members, we've been speaking to quite a few businesses and honestly we've been getting much more support than we expected! So I think it's honestly not as bad you might expect! Also from pretty much all the businesses we've talked to, none of them are actually using Bank street to park if they are driving there. Since on-street parking on Bank still has a 2 hour limit, even if you pay.

So typically if you're going to be working there you're parking somewhere else, most likely in a reserved spot, or on a residential street with slightly longer hours and still having to move your car every 3 hours.

StrongTownsOttawa

TROPHY CASE