18 minute read
LETTERS
Cookbook evokes memories
Editor, Glebe Report
Re: The Story of a cookbook, Glebe Report, December 2021
My name is Philip Sexsmith, and I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick. A student of mine sent me a link to your publication, and I wanted to thank you and your columnist Marisa Romano for bringing back some wonderful memories.
I grew up in Ottawa. I lived in Nepean and attended Century Public School and Sir Winston Churchill Secondary. When my parents retired, we moved to New Brunswick where I’ve lived for the last 50 years.
I was privileged to direct a performing group called Characters Incorporated for over 15 years. We were able to tour Canada and much of the world. We often performed for the National Capital Commission and appeared on the main-stage, noonhour show with Alanis Morissette and Buffy Sainte-Marie for Canada 125. We also performed in our nation’s capital on several other occasions. Ottawa was always a highlight for my kids, especially the chance to experience Sparks Street, the Byward Market and buying milkshakes at Zaks!
I still have my copy of the cookbook that Marisa references. It was compiled by my wife April and a few parent volunteers, printed and bound by hand! Little did we know that 25 years later it would somehow find its way from Fredericton to Ottawa.
We still use that cookbook. Even though online recipes have made cookbooks somewhat obsolete, my wife is preparing a few recipes from it this very weekend.
I can’t thank you enough for this article. Not only did it bring back some beautiful memories, but it reminds me just how fortunate I was to have worked with so many wonderful and talented young people.
Thank you both for your publication. It was like receiving an early Christmas present.
Philip Sexsmith Fredericton, NB
Glebe Spree feedback
Editor, Glebe Report
Every year businesses are doing the Glebe Spree. This year customers were not as enthusiastic as in previous years. While COVID is a factor, it’s not the real reason. Most customers felt that they were not going to win the $10,000. I have suggested over the years making the prize ten times $1,000, which would be more fun: small prizes from our businesses – they do not have to be big. The whole idea is to foster community spirit.
On another note, businesses were left with tons of entry forms and stickers – we were told to throw them out! What a waste!
The last remnant of the Bank Street streetcar needs a commemorative
plaque. PHOTO: JAY MILLER
Last vestige of Bank Street streetcar
Editor, Glebe Report
The one remaining vestige of the former Bank Street streetcar line is the tall, dark red electrical pylon still standing on the west side of Bank, south of Chamberlain between Rosebery and Strathcona (outside The Works restaurant).
This was brought to my attention through a talk given by author David McGee, who highlights the pylon in one of his Lost Ottawa books.
I thought putting a plaque on it to commemorate local history would be a nice gesture.
Jay Miller
And the dogs appreciate it
Editor, Glebe Report
One of the joys of winter in the Glebe is to see residents in their Canada Goose parkas diligently walking their lovely dogs around the neighbourhood.
Long may it continue.
Ian Ferguson
Thank you
Editor, Glebe Report
A heartfelt thank you to those community members who generously donated holiday gifts to the Canadian veterans living at Ottawa’s new Andy Carswell building. Your kindness makes our community a special place to live and has given hope to those in need.
Also, a huge thanks to local businesses for their donations, including Nat’s Bakery, Lightning St Organics, Ben’s Barbecue Sauce and Jacobson’s.
Glebe needs affordable housing
Editor, Glebe Report
Letters to the editor on housing development, in the Glebe Report or any other newspaper, always raise questions for me: Does the letter writer own a house already? If so, when did they buy that house?
The housing crisis we hopeful new homebuyers are facing requires a much more thoughtful response than “we want to preserve our neighbourhood.” It is obvious that buying a house is very different now compared to even five years ago. For starters, my colleagues at Carleton University could afford a house here when they started their positions as faculty members. I cannot.
Why is wanting affordable housing considered to be destroying the neighbourhood? More importantly, why shouldn’t people working in the Glebe be able to afford to live in the Glebe as well – aren’t they also part of the Glebe neighbourhood spirit?
To me, any new housing is better than a lack of affordable housing. A neighbourhood needs neighbours – unless the letter writers only want to be neighbours with people who can afford to buy an already existing, exorbitantly expensive house here.
Seyda Ipek Assistant Professor, Department of Physics Carleton University
Salt, please
Editor, Glebe Report
The snow and ice have started to accumulate again, making the sidewalks treacherous for pedestrians. After the snow, rain and subsequent freeze in early December, I was disappointed to note that very few people had put salt out even two days afterwards.
Glebe residents, please salt your sidewalks (and those of your neighbours if you have the extra two minutes) to help keep our neighbourhood safe for winter walking. The city gets around to it eventually but in the meantime, it’s a quick and thoughtful gesture we can make for the safety of our community.
We will have many more opportunities this winter to show this small kindness.
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Some nasty surprises when the new Civic opens
By Barbara Popel
The new Civic Hospital is scheduled to open in 2028. When it does, Ottawa residents will be in for some nasty surprises, one of which may be deadly. This article describes three of them.
Most people – staff, outpatients, visitors – get to the current Civic Hospital in a car, usually a private car but sometimes a taxi or an Uber. We know this because the Ottawa Hospital (the corporation which owns and manages several of the city’s hospitals, including the Civic) measured what’s known as “modalities” – how people arrive at the Civic – just prior to the pandemic. 85% of the arrivals were “auto driver” (that is, private car), the remaining 15% being “all non-private auto” (that is, bus, LRT, bicycle or walking). In June 2021, the Ottawa Hospital announced that their plans for the new Civic Hospital campus in the Experimental Farm involved a big “modal shift” – by 2028, only 50% of arrivals would be by car! There are as yet no detailed plans on how this will be achieved, but if it doesn’t happen, well, then in 2028 they’ll see if they can figure out how to fix the problem. Oh, and by 2048 (when the other five buildings on the campus are finished), only 35% of arrivals will be by car.
Another thing we learned, buried in the thousands of pages of documents the Ottawa Hospital has posted on the City’s devapps website about the new Civic campus, is that 17 intersections in the vicinity of the campus are already congested at certain times of the day. This should come as no surprise to the readers of the Glebe Report! I bet you could name most of these intersections without reading the Ottawa Hospital’s documents.
But let’s get back to what Ottawa will see in 2028.
When the hospital opens in 2028, it will have 10,439 staff (the current Civic has 3,473) and 50% of arrivals by staff, visitors, outpatients and construction workers are supposed to be by car. The number of parking spaces – 3,122 - will be not much more than the 2,700 spaces at the current Civic. To replace the NCC parking lot across from Dow’s Lake Pavilion, 199 of these spaces will be reserved in the garage for the NCC, leaving 2,923 parking spaces for everyone else who wants to park on the campus. Most of these – 2,324 – will be in the parking garage. That’s a lot – the garage is about the same size as the garage at the airport – but will it be enough? So, let’s say you are driving from Orleans to the new Civic Hospital to visit your grandmother who has just had her gall bladder removed. You get off the Queensway at Bronson and,
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The plan for phasing construction of the new Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital. Notes: The city has said that it has no plans for Phase 1A. Phase 5 is either technically impossible (the LRT station’s platform cannot be moved south of Carling for reasons relating to the curvature and slope of the tracks south of Carling) or is unacceptably expensive and disruptive (the city won’t build a pedestrian access tunnel under Carling to the LRT platform; it would reduce walking time by a minute. The dates for Phase 10 have appeared elsewhere as 2045-2048.
SOURCE: THE OTTAWA HOSPITAL (PARSONS)
if it’s the wrong time of day, there’s a good chance that from Bronson to Carling, your car crawls along. Once you get onto Carling, you speed up a bit, but then you hit the Rochester intersection. When you get to Preston, it’s even worse. The worst intersection will likely be a new one, when you try to turn left onto the campus’s Road A to get to the hospital’s parking garage. Ouch! And when you get to the garage entrance – surprise! It’s full!
Let’s say you are having an MRI and you have the option of taking the LRT to the hospital. That’s ecologically responsible! So you get off at the Dow’s Lake LRT station and…face a walk of 520 meters to the main entrance of the hospital. That’s what the City’s Planning Department says is the distance. (They originally said it would be 250 meters, or about the length of 2 1/2 football fields.) You’ll take the stairs from the existing LRT platform up to Carling (or take the elevator if you have trouble with stairs), then walk a short distance to the existing traffic light next to the LRT tracks to cross Carling. Then you’ll walk to what seems to be the shortest pedestrian route to the hospital - the sidewalk next to Road A, which will take you up to the hospital on the top of the escarpment. By the way, the distance from a transit stop to the old Civic is about 75 meters. Wear comfortable shoes!
I hope you don’t get the third nasty surprise, because it could, quite literally, kill you. Remember that I mentioned all those congested intersections? With the added traffic the campus will generate, plus the traffic from all the new developments nearby (the ultratall condo towers on Carling, the Booth Street/Canada Lands development, the new towers near Carling and Bronson), traffic congestion will often be ugly. Ambulances already have difficulty travelling north on Bronson. There’s a real risk that some ambulances - especially ones travelling south on Preston or west on Carling or Queen Elizabeth/ Prince of Wales - will be delayed in getting to the ER entrance in the rear of the new hospital.
These are only three of the nasty surprises Ottawa residents will get when the new Civic opens. Sadly, there are more.
Barbara Popel is secretary of the Dow’s Lake Residents Association and a member of its Special Committee on the New Civic Hospital.
TRADE-UP AUCTION TO RAISE MONEY FOR FRINGE PERFORMANCES PROTESTING DESTRUCTION OF EXPERIMENTAL FARM TREES
By Yasmeen Amer
As protests continue against the location of the new Ottawa Hospital Civic campus and the environmental damage it will cause in the Experimental Farm and Queen Juliana Park, a trade-up auction is being organized to raise money for performances about the issue at this year’s Fringe Festival.
A trade-up is an auction where instead of bidding money for an item, people bid with other items of higher value, says organizer Heather White.
White explains that Irene’s Pub will post the item for auction on its Facebook page or website every week, and anyone interested can send their bid to ottawatrees@yahoo.com. The item of highest value will then be traded and posted the following week.
Starting with a black walnut donated by Adrian Baker, an artist who draws a lot of inspiration from nature, the first item will be posted on February 9. The auction will go on for 12 weeks and the final item will be auctioned at Irene’s Pub for money that will be donated to defray the costs of the Fringe Festival performance.
The Fringe Festival will be held from June 16 to 26. It provides a platform for local, national and international theatre artists to produce their work. Each year, Fringe runs a lottery to determine who will perform at the festival. White says their production crew, Everything Matters Productions, was lucky to win a spot this year and they have begun producing a performance entitled whY!
“The main reason we’re doing this is to raise awareness about what is happening to our environment and to encourage people to be involved in whatever way they can,” says White.
The Fringe performance will be “specifically looking at the use of Queen Juliana Park and the cutting down of 750 trees on federal park land” for the construction to start this spring of a four-story parking garage beside Dow’s Lake, says White.
Many local artists who have been involved in protests this year, most notably the Tree Songs protests, will be involved in the Fringe performance. Artists have been using their talents in painting, sculpting, singing and songwriting to showcase their love of trees and to spread awareness of the issue.
Romani Bays, a singer and songwriter, has been protesting most Thursdays and Sundays, wrapped up in many layers to stay warm. She wrote and performed an original song about the
Red flags for the proposed new Civic Hospital
By Brian Murray Carroll
You may have heard it said that “if the tray table in front of your airplane seat is dirty or broken, what does that tell you about how the airline maintains its engines?”
The proposals for the new Civic Hospital in the Experimental Farm are replete with red flags that suggest this project is headed for parking problems that will cost unknown amounts to solve and huge cost overruns in construction.
Let’s start with a “tray table” example: the presentation by the consultants about the proposed parking garage which will replace Queen Juliana Park. Presentations like this are the bread and butter of the architectural business. If you can’t wow the client, how do you expect to win the contract? Two main pieces of the presentation were supposed to be animations. They probably looked good in PowerPoint. Except the consultants shipped a PDF file to the city staff, so the animations didn’t run. If they can’t get this little detail right, what else are they getting wrong?
Critical to the number of parking spaces of the proposed parking garage are the traffic modal shares of staff and visitors coming to the new hospital. The target automobile modal share (the percentage of arrivals by car) is ultimately 35 per cent. This is supposed to be achieved by Traffic Demand Management (TDM). There are two red flags for their projection. This is a level of TDM that has never been achieved in Ottawa. Not in volume. Nor in frequency. Let me explain.
For volume, Ottawa’s most successful TDM project has been the Redblacks games and major events at Lansdowne Park. There, transit share has been about 56 per cent, far short of the goal for the proposed Civic Hospital.
As for frequency, the above events take place a few dozen times a year. TDM for the proposed hospital is supposed to achieve its goals seven days a week, all year round.
A major part of the proposed hospital plan is use of public transit, including the Light Rail Transit (LRT). Except that the LRT station is five football fields (520 metres) from the entrance to the hospital. This will discourage LRT use by all but the very fit. The consultants proposed that the Carling LRT station be extended south of Carling. But city staff stated that no such extension can be built because the tracks curve and drop south of Carling to enter the Rideau Canal train tunnel.
This is a recipe for failure. TDM failure.
Beyond parking, there lies due diligence with respect to finances. The similar Oakville Trafalgar Hospital opened in 2015 with 340 beds. Total cost: $2.7 billion, or $8 million per bed. The new Civic is supposed to open in 2028 with 640 beds. Cost $2.8 billion, or $4.4 million per bed. Are we supposed to believe that somehow this new hospital will cost 45% less than a recently constructed hospital in the same province? Where is the due diligence?
This is another recipe for failure. This a recipe for another major cost overrun in this city, similar to the LRT. A failure of administration of the public purse.
These are but two examples of severe problems on the horizon. trees at the Experimental Farm for Tree Songs 3, which took place on January 22 and 23.
“Parks and forests are the gems that we have in society,” says Bays. “People go in there to find peace, to find tranquility, to find smiles and happiness and to exercise.” She says she’d love to be involved in the Fringe performance as well.
Says White: “I am one of many people who have been opposed to the building of a parking lot in Queen Juliana Park and have been protesting and working with local government to stop this process, which to many people seems unstoppable. I’m one of a large group of people who are supporting the development of the play. We’ve had people wanting to write, direct, make props and do the sets, and we’ve had light and sound people coming forward, too.”
White explains that over 50 local artists have already written original songs about the trees for the Tree Songs protests and some will be featured in the performance. Local artists have stepped up for these protests as well. For example, Arthur II, a local artist, will be providing a weekly rendering of the item up for auction at the trade-up auction. His work will be displayed in the front window at Irene’s Pub.
Irene’s, located at 885 Bank Street, will be the centre for the trade-up auction, one of several initiatives to raise money for the Fringe performance. Items will be displayed there each week as well as being posted on the pub’s website and Facebook page, and all trades can be dropped off and picked up there.
Yasmeen Amer is in her final year at Carleton University, majoring in Journalism with a double minor in Business and Political Science.
Irene’s Pub will host a trade-up auction to raise money for Fringe Festival theatre performances to raise awareness of the plight of the trees in the Experimental Farm slated to come down when the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital is built.
