Stittsville Stittsville Weekender News - -JUNE June 16, 09 2011
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EDITORIAL
O Canada, we stand on guard! Soon, it will be six months away from Christmas and six months to go to Christmas. But more important than this upcoming June 25th date is that all important and significant date that is coming up, namely Friday, July 1st, Canada Day. Here we are, another year closer to our country’s 150th anniversary in 2017 – boy, what a celebration that year is probably going to see. It will be Centennial Year all over again but probably even bigger and better, if that is possible. We would hope that soon the federal government will announce funding plans for any 150th anniversary celebrations that local communities will undertake at that time. But, right now, let’s get back to this year. Canada Day will again be celebrated in Stittsville
thanks to the Stittsville Village Association which is organizing the activities. While the area used in recent years at the Goulbourn Recreation Complex is unavailable this year due to construction of the second ice pad there, the scene is shifting ever so slightly to the adjacent Sacred Heart High School parking lot and grounds where this year’s activities will take place. Once again, there are going to be games and activities for the youngsters, lots of entertainment including a performance by the Stittsville Concert Band and, of course, the gala fireworks to cap off the day. Some, we realize, may head downtown to Parliament Hill for the Canada Day celebrations there, particularly since Kate
and William, our newlywed royals, are going to be there and it’s a chance to see them. Some may also head over to Kanata for the Canada Day celebrations there. But that still leaves lots of people who will be remaining at home here in Stittsville and will have the opportunity to take in these Canada Day celebrations right here. It is always a great occasion – a chance not only to celebrate our country’s birthday but also to enjoy our friends and neighbours in our own community. It is a chance to be and feel part of Stittsville as well as part of Canada. Make sure that if possible, you attend Stittsville’s Canada Day celebrations this year. It’s a great way to mark Canada’s birthday.
COLUMN
Getting around the politics of getting around Election season and construction season merge once again with the announcement that the province will spend a ton of money to make things easier on the Queensway. Who knows? It might work. Mostly it hasn’t. The creation of more lanes leads to the creation of more cars and a quick return to the congestion that began it all. It can only be a pipe dream in this age when people are driven by cars, but wouldn’t it be nice if that kind of money — $200 million this time — could be spent on light rail and buses. These thoughts are occasioned by a week in Toronto, a vastly different city but with some conditions that should be familiar to us. Spending some time there, mostly on foot, gives you a useful perspective on getting around in the city. First, any city is better if you don’t have to drive in it. Toronto’s network of subways, buses and streetcars takes the strain
CHARLES GORDON out of getting around the city. If you can walk a few blocks, public transit will get you at least close to where you want to go. You save the big parking fees and the mental anguish that go with driving a car in that city. We don’t have public transit like that. Ours is not bad for getting from a suburb into downtown. But you wouldn’t want to spend a day trying to hit all the Ottawa high spots — the National Gallery, Carleton, U of O, Rockcliffe, the Newport and the Prescott — by bus. Mind you, not all of Toronto is that well served either. If you live within reach of the subway, you’re fine, but many don’t. It has been observed, rather ominously, that the people most likely to vote for Rob Ford, the ultra-conservative winner in
Toronto’s 2010 mayoralty race, were those who lived in areas with the worst public transit. In Ottawa, an ultra-conservative could pick up quite a few votes, using that criterion. But transit isn’t taken that seriously here, especially politically. If transit was uppermost in people’s minds, a city politician who failed on transit issues would be out of work quickly. Transit matters less here, and the reason for that is that it is still possible to drive. Sure, you can run into a little congestion, a five-minute delay here, a 10-minute delay there, but most downtown traffic problems could be solved easily by opening up a big trap door under the tour buses on Wellington Street. Meanwhile, people still think it is easier to drive. In Toronto, some people think that. You can see them, not moving on the Gardiner, not moving on the Don Valley Parkway, trying to circle the block for the fifth time to find a parking
space, stuck in the left-turn lane on King or Queen. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, some of that grief is headed our way. Notice how many of the downtown parking lots you used to frequent aren’t there any more? It happens here too: more condos, more people, fewer parking lots. The bad thing is that it is harder to drive a car; the good thing is that fewer people will try. All of which poses a challenge to the public transit people. If you don’t want people to drive in Ottawa, what alternatives are you going to give
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Good public transit, which most of Toronto has, is not only about getting to work and back. It is also about getting to the store and back, getting to the hockey game and back, getting from the museum to the shopping centre and over to the supermarket before heading home. It would be worth a lot more than $200 million to have that here.
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them? Oh, right: a tunnel under downtown. Do you we (a) really think that’s going to happen? or (b) really think that’s going to solve everything?
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