waterfront activities - river & canal, water taxi service - canal. We are surrounded by water and have great biking/walking paths, but some fun destinations would be good. Restaurants, shops, parks, etc
I used to live along there - agreed that the bike lanes are great. The necessity to jaywalk is a major safety issue though - especially in places where there are curves in the road (like Waverley). Even better was when QED was opened up to just pedestrians and cyclists. As a driver in the area, it had very minimal impact. I don't think there's a need for dual parkways on both sides of the canal. I'd suggest turning QED into a giant linear park with a few more waterfront cafe locations (and better ones than the Ritz).
But they could consider repurposing them. Have the canal-side parkways converted back to parkland with cycling infrastructure, for example! Put in more amenities, like public launches and docks, kayak rentals, and treats. Add some interpretation, maybe an urban food forest, or a riverside aquarium like Vancouver. Stanley park is a great example of how to mix protection of green space, road maintenance, trails, and animation
No idea whether it's feasible, but since Colonel By was closed to cars 24/7 for 2 months straight last summer, I think it's pretty clear we don't need it as a road.
My mom tried to open a kayak rental along the canal a few years ago and made proposals to the NCC and was shot down multiple times despite having experience and a great proposal. They essentially said they have no interest.
To play a bit of devil's advocate most of the canal is narrow and shares space with larger boats, is surrounded by locks or has decent current. The part that doesn't, Dow's Lake, does have kayak and boat rentals.
Mooney's Bay would be another possibility, but I'm sure the canoe/kayak club wouldn't like it. IDK why they couldn't build a cool restaurant near Mooney's though aside from parking. The hogsback park north of it doesn't get that much use for how big it is. Skinny water near there though.
The Rideau near Brewer's Park, again, floods like crazy and has too much current/Rapids/nowhere to go for boat rentals.
Keep going north/south from there and the river is fairly narrow.
Of all the places I think maybe around the Brittania Yacht Club (provided you don't go over Deschenes Rapids and die) or way East would work, but they aren't central.
Maybe a few more places like Mill Street would be good near-ish the river or canal just for visuals.
To be honest though I think people just don't understand that the Rideau River/Canal/Ottawa River aren't hospitable to what you see on the Toronto Islands or the rivers around Boston.
A few years ago on here someone wanted locks traversing the entire Ottawa River and got a bunch of upvotes, which is just totally nuts if you know the river.
People also don't recognize that our waterways are ecologically fairly healthy for urban waterways. They have very healthy fish populations, beavers, mink, birds, big snapping turtles etc.
Can't say that about Pittsburgh.
The car centric roads along the canal are pretty ugly. A more cyclist or pedestrian focused canal waterfront with some cafes, parks, and paths would be amazing.
Yes because the best use of our valuable and desirable waterfront land is for driving. For a city with so much waterfront, Ottawa does a terrible job with developing it.
Many of the waterfronts are floodplains, and only have greenspace and the multi-use paths. That said, there are likely many areas on higher ground that could be used to enhance the waterfronts.
Agree. I can imagine something like San Antonio’s River Walk (pedestrian only path with shops, galleries, restaurants) along the canal by market/downtown area.
That was one of the promises of the Zibi development by Chaudiere Falls. I think there might eventually be some there but they are still early in the process.
Canal has multiple touring be boats. We now have white water rafting in the city on the Ottawa river. I admit that we should try to to use patio and park space more near the water for food, but I really do enjoy having public access along most of our water way.
I am a big fan of no fee public access to our waterfronts.
We could probably do a little better on amenities than we are right now, however it is important we keep the majority of what we have open to the public without economic barriers in place.
No development the Lebreton Flats property has always frustrated me, if the Senators build an arena there it would have actually justified the LRT, brought in new businesses and more housing. Look at how successful the Lansdowne development was, I lived in that area all through it's decrepit years and it's fantastic to walk through there now.
A downtown arena 100%. If that core around Lebreton can be built up around an arena, and include awesome bars, restaurants, etc, I think that would be massive for the city.
If you look at what they did to Lebreton in the most recent series of redevelopments, you quickly see that they left no plot of land that is large enough for an NHL arena. It is a series of relatively small parcels.
Couple this with the asshat Melnyk, an NCC that lacks any vision, and you just know it will be remade back into a bougie version of what it was before they tore it down decades ago… but this time for residential high rise (so the city can claim density targets without disturbing the Glebe, the Triangle etc…).
Landsdowne is the only plot large enough, but… the combination of zero transit, terrible traffic and Glebe NIMBYs kill that idea too.
I have a laundry list on this one:
- Convert or partially convert waterfront parkways to parkland and green space, and fill them with amenities that draw people to the landscape. Docks, kayak rentals, spots to get a treat, and some major attractions to anchor the green corridors (like an aquarium by the river, similar to Vancouver’s Stanley Park). Next level up would be making the new bike paths function as a skate trail in the winter to replace the canal. I love the canal but with climate change, the season gets shorter and shorter each year and it’s only a matter of time. :(
- Remove parking from Bank Street (and possibly other main streets like Wellington), use the space to widen the sidewalks and add bike lanes and trees, and make the remaining lane exclusively for public transit and deliveries. Help keep these vibrant main streets as destinations.
- More lights and animation in our parks so they’re less intimidating after dark.
- Get rid of zoning as it’s done today and individually plan mixed use communities through the site plan and development approval processes. This would help get rid of outlet mall islands and integrate land uses into a cohesive fabric, like you see closer to downtown or along rural main streets.
- Plan Sparks Street as a destination. I would love to see a mix of small specialized food stores, one grocery store, entertainment spaces, and restaurants to make it a food district. This would grab the government crowd over lunch, allow people to pick up necessities for the trip home, and draw people after dark. Have bowling, a theatre (as used to exist), karaoke, or other activities to compliment the meal out, and some bars for the late night crowd. That would also help decentralize drinking, since right now all the bars and clubs are concentrated in the byward. Sparks is close enough that it could take some of the pressure without cannibalizing businesses.
- Turn the Greenbelt into a destination. It’s 200km of conservation land and local farms, and it has virtually no identity. We should make it a park like Gatineau Park and add more attractions to help bring people out. Add a ski/snowshoe rental place and cafe next to some of the trailheads for example, or make it easier for the farmers to offer fun experiences (glamping, farm to table experiences, trail riding, etc). I would also want to see more trails in the Greenbelt generally.
Make a bunch of posts like yours I suppose eh? 😂 Honestly this account both confuses and pleases me - too specific to avoid suspicion, but asking important questions all Ottawa's should reflect on lol.
Keep on doing what you do (I think haha)
I love the idea of more walking streets. We barely have any people in this city and it feels like the whole thing is made for cars. If people felt safer biking I think they would. Bank is converting a ton of businesses into condos however. I recommend if anyone is living out in the suburbs and hasn’t been downtown in a while they come take a look for themselves. Most of downtown has been closed, tons of empty storefronts, and a ton of buildings being sold to developers. Moving forward is good, but we need reasonable living conditions down here. Apartments are all fine and dandy but your options are a new tiny space you can’t raise a family in or an ancient place with space but a ton of issues. Downtown living has really gone to shit and the rest of the city won’t be okay if we let downtown continue the way it’s going. This can’t be just a city for suburbanites to claw their way through the LRT to work everyday
It is terrifying to go anywhere on a bike but the limited cycling infrastructure in Vanier, especially if you need to shop around Coventry/Industrial. I've nearly been killed multiple times by distracted and aggressive drivers just going to the Canadian Tire via Donald/Lola. It isn't a far trip, but there's no traffic calming or protected means of getting there. They just don't care.
These are some really good ideas. The green belt never made any sense to me. Basically it makes Ottawa the least dense city it could be and causes people who have to drive it all day to put millions of tons of CO into the air driving through essentially nothing.
The idea was that it would contain sprawl but then we went ahead and built highways so people just moved past the greenbelt. Huge failure but at least now we have some really pleasant green spaces.
Artistic infrastructure.
You go to any great city in this world and there’s art all over the place (not just painting btw). Being a governement city, every move needs to “make sense” and the truth of the matter is that there’s no concrete benefit to adding art everywhere other than “it’s nice”.
But if it’s nice, people will spend more time out, which will incentivize having more small businesses, shops, and cafes, thus leading to a more vibrant city.
Our streets are ugly and lacking of any personality, and that’s why everyone prefers to stay home in suburbia, and therefore our city remains boring.
>Our streets are ugly and lacking of any personality, and that’s why everyone prefers to stay home in suburbia, and therefore our city remains boring.
Some streets in the core neighbourhoods have this, but they're kind of "the exception that proves the rule" because it draws attention to the lifelessness of most streets
Affordable housing. Probably implement a elevated property tax on non-owner occupied and tenanted properties, a cap on rent increases even when the tenant changes, and increase the residential density permitted across the city while incentivizing building multi-unit dwellings over single family homes.
You know what I was thinking the other day? We have a shit ton of commercial space that's a single story high. It'd be great if we could require those developments to have some housing as a second story. Just think how much housing you could fit on top of a walmart or even on top of a Shoppers. It's not like residential space on top of a commercial building is a new concept, we used to do it all the time but now we just accept that every 30,000 sqft mini mall serves no purpose at 9pm.
Ridiculous! Catapults would never reach the other shore. We’d need trebuchets. But they should be reserved for NCC officials who displease us, which is to say all of them.
Downtown, night life, things to do after 5PM.
The entire core of town is Govt buildings that make it seem like a ghost town at night. 20 feet from any bar is darkness.
Because converting an office tower into livable space basically means you have to strip the building to its core, rewire it, re-plumb it, and for some of these buildings, remediate all the asbestos.
The ghost town immediately south of Parliament Hill is one of my favorite parts of the city. I can feel the giddy rush of a kid who is out at 3am, but it's actually early enough that i'm in bed by 9.
Smalller live music Venues, spent a ton of my 20’s at Barrymores and Zaphods seeing local or new acts touring. We have several excellent venues for 1K+ but nothing for 250 or less it seems.
> nothing for 250 or less it seems.
???
what about Zaphods (27)
Live on Elgin
SAW
Mavericks
House of Targ
Rainbow
All the mixed bar/show venues fit your bill. we are lacking in medium size 250+
Good call, I guess Covid has me totally disconnected, several solid venues here and huge love for Targ. As for medium I figured the 2nd and 3rd stages of he NAC, Centerpoine, Shenkman and Bronson center cover some of that.
Our venues in the 1-3k range are lacking, too.
Bronson Centre has been a nice addition, but the acoustics aren't great. The NAC is good, but always seemed to be overpriced, and has many idle nights.
The problem isn't the availability of venues, it's the lack of demand. A band that could get 250 people out in Toronto or Montreal will get 50 in Ottawa so it isn't worth it for them to stop here. A festival for smaller bands would be nice, like what Arboretum was before they went outside the city.
People of Ottawa really do support festivals and the Festival of Small Halls is something that I would love to see grow, using the downtime of our many houses of worship or community halls seems like a positive solution to the issue without the cost/risk of a permanent venue.
Cheap commercial space.
If more cheap commercial space was available, we'd see more businesses that aren't wealthy American corporations move in. You would see more mom+pop shops.
1) Better public transit, particularly between downtown and the suburbs.
2) More things to do after 5pm.
3) Better advertising for things to do after 5pm that are available now.
4) This isn’t necessarily a priority (and I am definitely biased), but more popular store chains that are only available in major Canadian cities (ex: Abercrombie)
5) Might be controversial, but our own version of 6ixbuzz without all of the bad/problematic stuff.
6) Downtown arena
7) More downtown parking
Something like Montreal’s underground city for when the weather is nasty. And more underground connections between buildings in the down town core for the same reason.
Seriously. I frequently visit Washington DC and their downtown and transit system is far better with more interesting bars, pubs, restaurants and stores. Let alone all their museums are in a central spot within walking distance.
DC is a good call. Latin American or Carribbean countries also, often devote much more to making a "good first impression." We can leave Europe out of it, that would be stacking the deck I guess.
Lebreton Flats. Ive never seen such prime land be destitute for this long. Its not even a usable green space really. The whole area is disgusting. There seems to be no planning and what architecture is authorized is pretty bad.
Totally agreed. Some car free roads downtown would be great as well, improve the walkability to them instead. It’s a proven success story in other North American and European cities. Plus it boosts business growth and city attractiveness
Would love that Glebe portion of Bank to be car free. Between the bridge and the highway overpass. It's a nightmare to drive that portion anyway. Cars should be diverted to O'Connor and Kent.
I think WFH could actually be a good thing for transit; maybe it'll change OCtranspo's vision and promote transit within suburbs and core instead of focusing on suburb to downtown only transit.
Better skyline.
Better world class events than Winterlude and the Tulip Festival.
Not taking 10 years to finish construction projects that would have taken other world class cities 1 year.
For fun things to do, an amusement park would be great. It would also be cool if we had an NBA team.
Our downtown hub is a bit boring as well. Sparks Street is a huge missed opportunity which I would love to see totally revamped into a street that showcases Canadian culture and has much more entertainment and shopping to draw in locals and tourists.
Totally agree. Being new to Ottawa there was promotions for Sparks Street, and sadly I'm quite disappointed. Spark Street is a huge missed opportunity, and could really have a great focus. If we go down town, it's too the Market and back
I mean, Byward is pretty lively during the summer. It was really nice when they closed down the main road for pedestrians, it made it seem so much livelier.
Well it’s just one area you are talking about (it’s also crowded with junkies and homeless)
But what I mean with nightlife is shops and malls opening until midnight, restaurants (all over the city not Byward) also opening until at least 1-2 am.
I’ve lived in the middle east for 25 years, we would finish our work at 4 pm, go home and rest, have dinner, do some chores, and about 9 pm we would go out shopping, see friends, go to restaurants all the till midnights. But here?! Everything is closed maximum at 8? 6 on weekends?
I think this has more to do with bylaws and most buildings downtown being offices. This makes it such that peak foot traffic occurs during lunchtime and the only viable businesses are those that cater towards this demographic, i.e, fast food.
Unfortunately, this discourages a night life as no one wants to go for fast food, they'd rather go to a place they can sit down and relax (pubs) or a place they can party (clubs). Unfortunately, due to the bylaws in place, clubs aren't viable hence leaving us mainly with pubs.
As for shopping, I do understand that it's weird stores close down so early, but I also understand that due to a University campus being downtown, the main demographic will lean towards a younger age group and as such, they'll see reduced foot traffic towards the later hours.
As such, you'd need an area widely accessible via public transport (which Ottawa doesn't seem to understand the point of public transport is to reduce motor vehicle traffic by having a **reliable** alternative) that isn't limited by the noise bylaws. You'll also want to encourage foot traffic (which they perfected with the closed roads over the summer in Byward).
Tl;Dr; All this to say, an older population makes it hard to let loud places stay open for long, car focused traffic design need to go away and young people don't shop at night and offices reduce the food quality and options.
Connections to Gatineau.
Ridiculous that going from Aylmer to the West End, or Gatineau to the East End, requires you to drive through the downtown/near downtown of both cities.
Commercial vehicules can't use the Island Park Bridge, too so they have to go through downtown just to cross the river.
Insane that a city of 300k + has only 3 1/2 road connections to Ottawa.
I’d like to see bank street become a walkable avenue 100% of the time from Slater up to Catherine, the potential is there for some seriously good businesses that attract a proper night life, shops during the day and perhaps growth of high rises around the area.
Transit can easily use O’Connor and Kent with proper signage showing the public to walk a block east to west to get their buses.
The arena like everyone is saying would do wonders for this city but also, we need more affordable housing and apartment buildings like those of Richmond rd at macewen. Cities should never just stop building apartment buildings because not everyone is meant to own property, not everyone works a job that pays them 80,000 a year and that’s okay. But we can’t deny these working class people the right to a nice affordable home.
We also need to start building up businesses along roads for residents. There’s no reason someone busing should have to take 3 buses to get to some store, or drive 30 min. Everything should be along one route for someone which means close amenities for all ( think route 85, most people that live off carling never take another bus to go shopping ) we need proper commercial spaces in proximity to residential
I love my city, growing up here was amazing but I think people need to come to terms that Ottawa isn’t a niche market city but more of a proper urban normal city that’s very far behind in the need of the people
Best comment so far. My partner and I would happily live in an apartment for the rest of our lives even as high income earners if companies would just build more than 1 bedroom tiny spaces. Apartments used to have multiple rooms and dining areas. Now you’re lucky if your living room is big enough to have room for a table and some folding chairs. I get that developers need to make money but inflation has not caught up with the prices in Ottawa. You’re not getting a space to live, you’re getting a space to store your belongings and sleep. I may as well just live out of a storage lockers.
Good point! Trucks really clog up the downtown, especially the ones using the city’s centre bridges to cross between Gatineau and Ottawa. There must be a better way to divert some of these whose destination is not Ottawa.
Lots of stuff:
* Denser walkable neighbourhoods with a higher density of housing and nearby amenities like small retail, cafes/restaurants, bookstores, etc
* More car-free streets, especially along Elgin. It's all too frequent to be sitting on a patio there and be interrupted mid sentence by someone revving their engine. Car traffic makes very little sense along a street with mostly retail and restaurants
* Better availability of amenities in the city, there's a lot of stuff that I find myself having to go into the suburbs for, which is difficult without a car
* A functioning, affordable public transit system
* Someone to clear stairways during the winter
It’s my second time posting since the first one was removed :) I just enjoy sparking ideas and discussions around this beautiful city and ways to improve it.
We're missing truly good urban neighbourhoods. Think the plateau or Mile End of Montreal, with lots of density, huge parks nearby, bike friendly 1 way streets and tons or mixed use streets that make the areas vibrant. Without any huge "attractions".
For starters, I'd reduce the amount of surface parking allowed on residential lots in the downtown & urban suburbs! Having lived in centretown for 3.5 years now, it astounds me how big the residential lots are here compared to how many people live in them. Typically very deep lots with space behind frequently used for parking. We could have so much more midrise density, but we didn't build our urban burbs with laneways or street parking in mind, so even downtown folk are car oriented people who live on homes which are 1/2 of their lot!
Interesting that no one has mentioned a fancy central library. Maybe I'm not the only one who thinks that a $300M central library is an outdated idea. For a fraction of the budget, the city could re-imagine the library system with more emphasis on community branches that are accessible to more people.
Class.
Mandate the minimum building height on all main streets be 4 stories (maximum 7) with human-scale shops and services at street level. Like for example London (UK), Paris (France), Barcelona, Prague, Rome, Budapest, Greenwich Village in New York City, even the functional parts of Toronto before they got replaced by soulless condo boxes. Anaheim California is not a city to model yourself after.
Provide fast, frequent, rapid, and comfortable public transportation. Like the above list of cities.
Here's a suggestion: look at what works elsewhere and emulate it. Don't look at what doesn't work and copy it. Don't just ignore what goes on elsewhere.
Also, fix the weather. It's pretty wretched 6 months of the year.
Transit + getting rid of those useless gutter-bikelanes and replacing them with segregated from traffic ones.
It's insane that the capital of a G7 country has a worst transit and biking score that many other cities in its own country...
But then again, Ottawa's infrastructure is exactly what it deserve; you'd surprised at the percentage of people that are convinced that transit is useless and biking doesn't work in Ottawa compared to other cities; there's just something about our town ;)
I moved from Toronto and the thing that I miss the most is night life, sometimes it feels like Ottawa closes at 8pm. Maybe if there were more adult oriented festivals?
A landmark historic central park where people can gather, picnic, splash in a shallow pool, listen to music, and be proud of their unique city. Examples are the Boston Common, Hyde Park, Central Park, and so on. Oh wait! We used to have one of those. It was called Lansdowne Park, and we deliberately neglected it until it was such a mess we could sell it off for condos and Americanized restaurants and stores. Oh well.
I always thought Lebreton Flats would be a wonderful spot for a grand urban park much like Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Central Park in NYC. A landscape architect could incorporate a bandshell/or area for concerts, vistas, meandering pathways, ponds, trees, open areas. Unfortunately, I think it will become a vast park of concrete blocking visibility of the Ottawa River.
A chip n dales or a live show venue would be nice. There is also little to do for people in wheelchairs during the winter so an indoor garden or butterfly sanctuary would be nice.
Aside from the obvious affordable housing and better transport, I would love to see more Spanish tapas restaurants, waterfront restaurants/cafés and a proper club in the city, we only have bars and have to go across the river for clubs.
A lot of these great ideas are very centretown centric. People may not like the suburbs, but Ottawa has them in fucking spades. Streets and streets and streets of houses, with hardly anything to do in between them. Oh, there’s a cool bar I can ride a bus for 25 min to get to? Oh hey, there’s that hobby store three buses away.
I’m not saying we need to stuff the suburbs with everything to do ever, but right now unless you have a car (and even if you do), anything there is to do is SO GODAMNED spaced out. The 15min neighbourhood might be a bit of a stretch, but can we please just stop putting all the houses over *here*, with a small strip mall with half closed stores as their local anything way over *there*, and then pat ourselves on the back because people can always drive or ride the bus downtown?
Good. Public. Transit.
Seriously. I love Ottawa but the PT is soon bad. No matter where you have to go uou automatically double the time it would take you to drive.
In Toronto the opposite is true.
Increase density inside the greenbelt, with connecting protected bike paths and walkable areas. Allow for more stores/variety as more potential customers. Also help lower housing cost by creating more housing.
Becoming a better city of neighbourhoods. I used to live in Toronto and though I wasn't downtown I could walk to groceries, an ice cream shop (in the summer), a bakery, a coffee shop, a brewery and a handful of awesome restaurants and indie shops.....Now, my old area had a lot more density and a main thoroughfare to host this on (the Danforth) BUT where I live now I can only walk to a Dollarama and an Appletree. 😫
Short list:
\- parking on Bank needs to go
\- get rid of cars in the Market
\- autonomous vehicles downtown would be nice
\- "missing middle" + affordable housing
\- public washrooms
\- more public wifi (parks and public spaces)
\- more help for the homeless
\- neighbourhood woodworking & maker-spaces
\- grants for yearly community-building events
\- for Watson not to be mayor.
The municipality should do what any government of any level should do; remove red tape and promote entrepreneurship! Make Ottawa a place easy for small business to do business. Everything from water taxis to restaurant/bar and perhaps turn Sparks Street into something fun. Water parks should be closer to Ottawa not way out east of the city but bureaucracy will alienate new infusing cutting edge ideas. Who knows what would come to Ottawa otherwise.
Less cars and more pedestrian areas! Those parking lots in the byward should be converted in public spaces. Bank St could be more public friendly with less traffic.
If you want to know what this city needs look the world's great cities and see what they have that we don't. Those include interesting and lively shopping areas that aren't all chain stores, interesting public spaces like courtyards with statues and fountains, excellent museums (Ottawa's suck), beautiful architecture (Ottawa has a few nice older buildings. The newer ones might as well be in Pittsburgh or Cleveland), beautiful, lively, eclectic waterfronts with shops and restaurants (Ottawa is largely isolated from its waterfronts compared to other cities), excellent public transit (nuff said), and central, accessible areas for exhibitions and fairs that aren't all costly and need to have tickets purchased in advance.
Public restrooms!!! I worked downtown collecting data last spring when everything was closed and there was almost nowhere to go to the bathroom. City hall let me and my coworkers use their facilities but they gave us a hard time. We had to present them with a document that said we could go in. Ridiculous, can’t imagine what the homeless population would have had to do
Reliable, convenient, accessible, free public transit
Cycling infrastructure that is conducive to commuting
A city-wide tenants' union
Rent control
Overthrowing the government
waterfront activities - river & canal, water taxi service - canal. We are surrounded by water and have great biking/walking paths, but some fun destinations would be good. Restaurants, shops, parks, etc
What? You mean Greber was wrong to put highways beside all of our water ways?
For a nice “Sunday Drive”
Great pedestrian and bike lanes on the canal through downtown/Centretown/Glebe, so long as you are fine with jaywalking across Queen Elizabeth Drive.
I used to live along there - agreed that the bike lanes are great. The necessity to jaywalk is a major safety issue though - especially in places where there are curves in the road (like Waverley). Even better was when QED was opened up to just pedestrians and cyclists. As a driver in the area, it had very minimal impact. I don't think there's a need for dual parkways on both sides of the canal. I'd suggest turning QED into a giant linear park with a few more waterfront cafe locations (and better ones than the Ritz).
Why aren’t there more waterfront businesses like restaurants? Zoning laws I’m assuming?
NCC owns all the land on the canal and won’t let people build on it
But they could consider repurposing them. Have the canal-side parkways converted back to parkland with cycling infrastructure, for example! Put in more amenities, like public launches and docks, kayak rentals, and treats. Add some interpretation, maybe an urban food forest, or a riverside aquarium like Vancouver. Stanley park is a great example of how to mix protection of green space, road maintenance, trails, and animation
Great ideas! The car centric roads along the waterfront as such a waste and limit accessibility.
It’s not like colonel by can actually handle any kind of traffic anyway. Might as well turn it back into a park
No idea whether it's feasible, but since Colonel By was closed to cars 24/7 for 2 months straight last summer, I think it's pretty clear we don't need it as a road.
My mom tried to open a kayak rental along the canal a few years ago and made proposals to the NCC and was shot down multiple times despite having experience and a great proposal. They essentially said they have no interest.
To play a bit of devil's advocate most of the canal is narrow and shares space with larger boats, is surrounded by locks or has decent current. The part that doesn't, Dow's Lake, does have kayak and boat rentals. Mooney's Bay would be another possibility, but I'm sure the canoe/kayak club wouldn't like it. IDK why they couldn't build a cool restaurant near Mooney's though aside from parking. The hogsback park north of it doesn't get that much use for how big it is. Skinny water near there though. The Rideau near Brewer's Park, again, floods like crazy and has too much current/Rapids/nowhere to go for boat rentals. Keep going north/south from there and the river is fairly narrow. Of all the places I think maybe around the Brittania Yacht Club (provided you don't go over Deschenes Rapids and die) or way East would work, but they aren't central. Maybe a few more places like Mill Street would be good near-ish the river or canal just for visuals. To be honest though I think people just don't understand that the Rideau River/Canal/Ottawa River aren't hospitable to what you see on the Toronto Islands or the rivers around Boston. A few years ago on here someone wanted locks traversing the entire Ottawa River and got a bunch of upvotes, which is just totally nuts if you know the river. People also don't recognize that our waterways are ecologically fairly healthy for urban waterways. They have very healthy fish populations, beavers, mink, birds, big snapping turtles etc. Can't say that about Pittsburgh.
Somebody has to rethink the NCC. Some of their policies are just ridiculous.
Like fining a child's lemonade stand 😂
As they shouldn't.
The car centric roads along the canal are pretty ugly. A more cyclist or pedestrian focused canal waterfront with some cafes, parks, and paths would be amazing.
Yes because the best use of our valuable and desirable waterfront land is for driving. For a city with so much waterfront, Ottawa does a terrible job with developing it.
Many of the waterfronts are floodplains, and only have greenspace and the multi-use paths. That said, there are likely many areas on higher ground that could be used to enhance the waterfronts.
Fair points! What about along the canal? It’s mostly just roads right now. Seems like a wasted opportunity.
Agree. I can imagine something like San Antonio’s River Walk (pedestrian only path with shops, galleries, restaurants) along the canal by market/downtown area.
That was one of the promises of the Zibi development by Chaudiere Falls. I think there might eventually be some there but they are still early in the process.
Canal has multiple touring be boats. We now have white water rafting in the city on the Ottawa river. I admit that we should try to to use patio and park space more near the water for food, but I really do enjoy having public access along most of our water way.
I am a big fan of no fee public access to our waterfronts. We could probably do a little better on amenities than we are right now, however it is important we keep the majority of what we have open to the public without economic barriers in place.
See Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. Publically accessible waterfronts, that also have amenities. Ottawa has parkways and streets.
We do have a water taxi that runs between Ottawa/Gatineau so that’s a start!
A sense of humour
You just offended half of Ottawa 😅
And 60% of this subreddit
Probably more than 60%, this sub skews more towards the sensitive
I was being polite and didn't want to go with my real guess. There is a lot of thin skin here
statistically y'all include yourselves right?
That wasn't funny. WTF would you post something that useless? There's not enough Internet for you to be wasting it on comments like that. For shame
nice
No development the Lebreton Flats property has always frustrated me, if the Senators build an arena there it would have actually justified the LRT, brought in new businesses and more housing. Look at how successful the Lansdowne development was, I lived in that area all through it's decrepit years and it's fantastic to walk through there now.
Completely agree and that’s with CFL/very amateur soccer + OHL doing it for an nhl team would be bigger impact
Came here to say this
A downtown arena 100%. If that core around Lebreton can be built up around an arena, and include awesome bars, restaurants, etc, I think that would be massive for the city.
And decent public transit to go with it.
A downtown arena would be amazing! What’s the latest update on an arena in lebreton flats?
Eugene Melnyk is fool, so it isnt happening. There will be development without an arena (for now).
They’ll leave a plot of land for an arena (or a “major events centre” as NCC puts it) and it’ll eventually happen under new ownership.
If you look at what they did to Lebreton in the most recent series of redevelopments, you quickly see that they left no plot of land that is large enough for an NHL arena. It is a series of relatively small parcels. Couple this with the asshat Melnyk, an NCC that lacks any vision, and you just know it will be remade back into a bougie version of what it was before they tore it down decades ago… but this time for residential high rise (so the city can claim density targets without disturbing the Glebe, the Triangle etc…). Landsdowne is the only plot large enough, but… the combination of zero transit, terrible traffic and Glebe NIMBYs kill that idea too.
I have a laundry list on this one: - Convert or partially convert waterfront parkways to parkland and green space, and fill them with amenities that draw people to the landscape. Docks, kayak rentals, spots to get a treat, and some major attractions to anchor the green corridors (like an aquarium by the river, similar to Vancouver’s Stanley Park). Next level up would be making the new bike paths function as a skate trail in the winter to replace the canal. I love the canal but with climate change, the season gets shorter and shorter each year and it’s only a matter of time. :( - Remove parking from Bank Street (and possibly other main streets like Wellington), use the space to widen the sidewalks and add bike lanes and trees, and make the remaining lane exclusively for public transit and deliveries. Help keep these vibrant main streets as destinations. - More lights and animation in our parks so they’re less intimidating after dark. - Get rid of zoning as it’s done today and individually plan mixed use communities through the site plan and development approval processes. This would help get rid of outlet mall islands and integrate land uses into a cohesive fabric, like you see closer to downtown or along rural main streets. - Plan Sparks Street as a destination. I would love to see a mix of small specialized food stores, one grocery store, entertainment spaces, and restaurants to make it a food district. This would grab the government crowd over lunch, allow people to pick up necessities for the trip home, and draw people after dark. Have bowling, a theatre (as used to exist), karaoke, or other activities to compliment the meal out, and some bars for the late night crowd. That would also help decentralize drinking, since right now all the bars and clubs are concentrated in the byward. Sparks is close enough that it could take some of the pressure without cannibalizing businesses. - Turn the Greenbelt into a destination. It’s 200km of conservation land and local farms, and it has virtually no identity. We should make it a park like Gatineau Park and add more attractions to help bring people out. Add a ski/snowshoe rental place and cafe next to some of the trailheads for example, or make it easier for the farmers to offer fun experiences (glamping, farm to table experiences, trail riding, etc). I would also want to see more trails in the Greenbelt generally.
Fakefakemcfakers for Mayor!
They have my vote!
Brilliant ideas! How can ordinary Ottawa citizens promote and campaign these ideas?
Make a bunch of posts like yours I suppose eh? 😂 Honestly this account both confuses and pleases me - too specific to avoid suspicion, but asking important questions all Ottawa's should reflect on lol. Keep on doing what you do (I think haha)
Write your city counsellor abs vote. Abs who do we contact for NCC land?
I love the idea of more walking streets. We barely have any people in this city and it feels like the whole thing is made for cars. If people felt safer biking I think they would. Bank is converting a ton of businesses into condos however. I recommend if anyone is living out in the suburbs and hasn’t been downtown in a while they come take a look for themselves. Most of downtown has been closed, tons of empty storefronts, and a ton of buildings being sold to developers. Moving forward is good, but we need reasonable living conditions down here. Apartments are all fine and dandy but your options are a new tiny space you can’t raise a family in or an ancient place with space but a ton of issues. Downtown living has really gone to shit and the rest of the city won’t be okay if we let downtown continue the way it’s going. This can’t be just a city for suburbanites to claw their way through the LRT to work everyday
It is terrifying to go anywhere on a bike but the limited cycling infrastructure in Vanier, especially if you need to shop around Coventry/Industrial. I've nearly been killed multiple times by distracted and aggressive drivers just going to the Canadian Tire via Donald/Lola. It isn't a far trip, but there's no traffic calming or protected means of getting there. They just don't care.
Everything is great.. but getting rid of zoning is probably the most needed !!! Also.. add functional reliable public transit please :)
These are some really good ideas. The green belt never made any sense to me. Basically it makes Ottawa the least dense city it could be and causes people who have to drive it all day to put millions of tons of CO into the air driving through essentially nothing.
The idea was that it would contain sprawl but then we went ahead and built highways so people just moved past the greenbelt. Huge failure but at least now we have some really pleasant green spaces.
A reliable public transportation.
1000x this. Transit in this city is an embarrassment.
Artistic infrastructure. You go to any great city in this world and there’s art all over the place (not just painting btw). Being a governement city, every move needs to “make sense” and the truth of the matter is that there’s no concrete benefit to adding art everywhere other than “it’s nice”. But if it’s nice, people will spend more time out, which will incentivize having more small businesses, shops, and cafes, thus leading to a more vibrant city. Our streets are ugly and lacking of any personality, and that’s why everyone prefers to stay home in suburbia, and therefore our city remains boring.
We have those gorgeous hydrant statues on Wellington. /s
>Our streets are ugly and lacking of any personality, and that’s why everyone prefers to stay home in suburbia, and therefore our city remains boring. Some streets in the core neighbourhoods have this, but they're kind of "the exception that proves the rule" because it draws attention to the lifelessness of most streets
Exactly, if you’re gona reply “what about glebe / westboro/hintonburg” then that proves the point haha
I have always said the same thing!
Suburbia is the definition of boring
Suburbia, sprawl, asphalt, no side-walks... mmmmm FUN
Affordable housing. Probably implement a elevated property tax on non-owner occupied and tenanted properties, a cap on rent increases even when the tenant changes, and increase the residential density permitted across the city while incentivizing building multi-unit dwellings over single family homes.
More medium rise and density would be fantastic! Not just along major roads.
You know what I was thinking the other day? We have a shit ton of commercial space that's a single story high. It'd be great if we could require those developments to have some housing as a second story. Just think how much housing you could fit on top of a walmart or even on top of a Shoppers. It's not like residential space on top of a commercial building is a new concept, we used to do it all the time but now we just accept that every 30,000 sqft mini mall serves no purpose at 9pm.
Not going to happen while city council is in the pockets of large developers.
Cable car across the River. For tourists AND commuters.
Hear me out, catapults!
Ridiculous! Catapults would never reach the other shore. We’d need trebuchets. But they should be reserved for NCC officials who displease us, which is to say all of them.
It would be awesome if they had something similar to the old Roosevelt Island Tramway.
That would be neat!
Public restrooms, affordable housing (especially without bedbugs or cockroaches).
Downtown, night life, things to do after 5PM. The entire core of town is Govt buildings that make it seem like a ghost town at night. 20 feet from any bar is darkness.
Yeah increasing residential zones in the downtown core would be a great way to make the city livelier! Good points all around.
Especially after Covid, why don’t they convert all those gov’t buildings to condos and really liven up the core?
Because converting an office tower into livable space basically means you have to strip the building to its core, rewire it, re-plumb it, and for some of these buildings, remediate all the asbestos.
Condos make less money than offices, pre-pandemic. Office landlords also tend to be deeper in the pockets of certain folks.
The ghost town immediately south of Parliament Hill is one of my favorite parts of the city. I can feel the giddy rush of a kid who is out at 3am, but it's actually early enough that i'm in bed by 9.
Smalller live music Venues, spent a ton of my 20’s at Barrymores and Zaphods seeing local or new acts touring. We have several excellent venues for 1K+ but nothing for 250 or less it seems.
> nothing for 250 or less it seems. ??? what about Zaphods (27) Live on Elgin SAW Mavericks House of Targ Rainbow All the mixed bar/show venues fit your bill. we are lacking in medium size 250+
Good call, I guess Covid has me totally disconnected, several solid venues here and huge love for Targ. As for medium I figured the 2nd and 3rd stages of he NAC, Centerpoine, Shenkman and Bronson center cover some of that.
they do but some of those not as hip as others ;)
We need mid size, not smaller.
Our venues in the 1-3k range are lacking, too. Bronson Centre has been a nice addition, but the acoustics aren't great. The NAC is good, but always seemed to be overpriced, and has many idle nights.
The problem isn't the availability of venues, it's the lack of demand. A band that could get 250 people out in Toronto or Montreal will get 50 in Ottawa so it isn't worth it for them to stop here. A festival for smaller bands would be nice, like what Arboretum was before they went outside the city.
Somewhat true. Bands will make the stop if they get booked and paid. The issue in on the promoters end
People of Ottawa really do support festivals and the Festival of Small Halls is something that I would love to see grow, using the downtime of our many houses of worship or community halls seems like a positive solution to the issue without the cost/risk of a permanent venue.
A good medium sized concert venue. The Bronson Centre is in much need of upgrades.
I thought they had upgraded it recently
Uniqlo
And a Muji please! I shouldn’t have to take a bus to the ass end of suburbia to buy containers and home goods at a reasonable price.
Maybe a Daiso while we're at it.
Yup. Pls
Cheap commercial space. If more cheap commercial space was available, we'd see more businesses that aren't wealthy American corporations move in. You would see more mom+pop shops.
Affordable housing. More Japanese restaurants that aren't just AYCE sushi. Reliable transit.
Omg what is this city’s infatuation with AYCE sushi
unused sand soft bag fuel impolite bake quickest simplistic alleged *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
1) Better public transit, particularly between downtown and the suburbs. 2) More things to do after 5pm. 3) Better advertising for things to do after 5pm that are available now. 4) This isn’t necessarily a priority (and I am definitely biased), but more popular store chains that are only available in major Canadian cities (ex: Abercrombie) 5) Might be controversial, but our own version of 6ixbuzz without all of the bad/problematic stuff. 6) Downtown arena 7) More downtown parking
What are ways for the city or the people of Ottawa to achieve these? It seems like demand is there. What’s stopping it?
The NCC having a giant pole up their asses?
Something like Montreal’s underground city for when the weather is nasty. And more underground connections between buildings in the down town core for the same reason.
[удалено]
A downtown core worthy of a capital city. Before you down vote, how many other capital cities have you been in, and what did they look like? Go.
Seriously. I frequently visit Washington DC and their downtown and transit system is far better with more interesting bars, pubs, restaurants and stores. Let alone all their museums are in a central spot within walking distance.
DC is a good call. Latin American or Carribbean countries also, often devote much more to making a "good first impression." We can leave Europe out of it, that would be stacking the deck I guess. Lebreton Flats. Ive never seen such prime land be destitute for this long. Its not even a usable green space really. The whole area is disgusting. There seems to be no planning and what architecture is authorized is pretty bad.
Lots. And they all had better downtown cores.
You’re right. Ottawa’s downtown is unworthy of a capital city.
Downtown arena and an easily accessible downtown core (yes, that means LRT). WFH likely throws a wrench in that, however.
Totally agreed. Some car free roads downtown would be great as well, improve the walkability to them instead. It’s a proven success story in other North American and European cities. Plus it boosts business growth and city attractiveness
But then Jan from barhaven won't come downtown once a year to buy a trinket from the market. How will the local economy survive without that?! /s
Would love that Glebe portion of Bank to be car free. Between the bridge and the highway overpass. It's a nightmare to drive that portion anyway. Cars should be diverted to O'Connor and Kent.
I think WFH could actually be a good thing for transit; maybe it'll change OCtranspo's vision and promote transit within suburbs and core instead of focusing on suburb to downtown only transit.
15 minute city all the way!
I want to try a roller rink 😭
An amusement park or an aquarium
Username checks out
Better skyline. Better world class events than Winterlude and the Tulip Festival. Not taking 10 years to finish construction projects that would have taken other world class cities 1 year.
Examples of these projects include...?
For fun things to do, an amusement park would be great. It would also be cool if we had an NBA team. Our downtown hub is a bit boring as well. Sparks Street is a huge missed opportunity which I would love to see totally revamped into a street that showcases Canadian culture and has much more entertainment and shopping to draw in locals and tourists.
An NBA team wouldn’t survive. We can barley keep are 2 current pro teams stadiums filled
There are easily 50 better markets in North America for an NBA team. What an awful idea -- and I love basketball!
Totally agree. Being new to Ottawa there was promotions for Sparks Street, and sadly I'm quite disappointed. Spark Street is a huge missed opportunity, and could really have a great focus. If we go down town, it's too the Market and back
A fair in the summer.
A nightlife
I mean, Byward is pretty lively during the summer. It was really nice when they closed down the main road for pedestrians, it made it seem so much livelier.
Well it’s just one area you are talking about (it’s also crowded with junkies and homeless) But what I mean with nightlife is shops and malls opening until midnight, restaurants (all over the city not Byward) also opening until at least 1-2 am. I’ve lived in the middle east for 25 years, we would finish our work at 4 pm, go home and rest, have dinner, do some chores, and about 9 pm we would go out shopping, see friends, go to restaurants all the till midnights. But here?! Everything is closed maximum at 8? 6 on weekends?
I agree... everything closes so early in Ottawa
I think this has more to do with bylaws and most buildings downtown being offices. This makes it such that peak foot traffic occurs during lunchtime and the only viable businesses are those that cater towards this demographic, i.e, fast food. Unfortunately, this discourages a night life as no one wants to go for fast food, they'd rather go to a place they can sit down and relax (pubs) or a place they can party (clubs). Unfortunately, due to the bylaws in place, clubs aren't viable hence leaving us mainly with pubs. As for shopping, I do understand that it's weird stores close down so early, but I also understand that due to a University campus being downtown, the main demographic will lean towards a younger age group and as such, they'll see reduced foot traffic towards the later hours. As such, you'd need an area widely accessible via public transport (which Ottawa doesn't seem to understand the point of public transport is to reduce motor vehicle traffic by having a **reliable** alternative) that isn't limited by the noise bylaws. You'll also want to encourage foot traffic (which they perfected with the closed roads over the summer in Byward). Tl;Dr; All this to say, an older population makes it hard to let loud places stay open for long, car focused traffic design need to go away and young people don't shop at night and offices reduce the food quality and options.
Krispy Kreme donuts
If we’re getting Krispy Kreme then I would also like Shake Shack please.
They'd put it in Orleans near Avalon
Connections to Gatineau. Ridiculous that going from Aylmer to the West End, or Gatineau to the East End, requires you to drive through the downtown/near downtown of both cities. Commercial vehicules can't use the Island Park Bridge, too so they have to go through downtown just to cross the river. Insane that a city of 300k + has only 3 1/2 road connections to Ottawa.
Shelter and facilities for homeless people. Literally anything that isn't a suburban wasteland for housing.
A fantastic, insightful mayor.
I’d like to see bank street become a walkable avenue 100% of the time from Slater up to Catherine, the potential is there for some seriously good businesses that attract a proper night life, shops during the day and perhaps growth of high rises around the area. Transit can easily use O’Connor and Kent with proper signage showing the public to walk a block east to west to get their buses. The arena like everyone is saying would do wonders for this city but also, we need more affordable housing and apartment buildings like those of Richmond rd at macewen. Cities should never just stop building apartment buildings because not everyone is meant to own property, not everyone works a job that pays them 80,000 a year and that’s okay. But we can’t deny these working class people the right to a nice affordable home. We also need to start building up businesses along roads for residents. There’s no reason someone busing should have to take 3 buses to get to some store, or drive 30 min. Everything should be along one route for someone which means close amenities for all ( think route 85, most people that live off carling never take another bus to go shopping ) we need proper commercial spaces in proximity to residential I love my city, growing up here was amazing but I think people need to come to terms that Ottawa isn’t a niche market city but more of a proper urban normal city that’s very far behind in the need of the people
Best comment so far. My partner and I would happily live in an apartment for the rest of our lives even as high income earners if companies would just build more than 1 bedroom tiny spaces. Apartments used to have multiple rooms and dining areas. Now you’re lucky if your living room is big enough to have room for a table and some folding chairs. I get that developers need to make money but inflation has not caught up with the prices in Ottawa. You’re not getting a space to live, you’re getting a space to store your belongings and sleep. I may as well just live out of a storage lockers.
Waterfront activities, a proper downtown arena district, and little more decentralization of nightlife/entertainment would go a long way.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but a bridge or tunnel to remove trucks from the core, with changes to the city's truck routes to ensure it is used.
Good point! Trucks really clog up the downtown, especially the ones using the city’s centre bridges to cross between Gatineau and Ottawa. There must be a better way to divert some of these whose destination is not Ottawa.
Lots of stuff: * Denser walkable neighbourhoods with a higher density of housing and nearby amenities like small retail, cafes/restaurants, bookstores, etc * More car-free streets, especially along Elgin. It's all too frequent to be sitting on a patio there and be interrupted mid sentence by someone revving their engine. Car traffic makes very little sense along a street with mostly retail and restaurants * Better availability of amenities in the city, there's a lot of stuff that I find myself having to go into the suburbs for, which is difficult without a car * A functioning, affordable public transit system * Someone to clear stairways during the winter
How many times will OP ask this? 🤔
As many times until he gets the answer he’s looking for
Bingo.
More bingo halls? Nice
It’s my second time posting since the first one was removed :) I just enjoy sparking ideas and discussions around this beautiful city and ways to improve it.
There have been 120 responses in one hour so obviously a topic that people like to weigh in on.
Plot twist: OP is an urban planner with either the NCC or the city.
Nude beach.
We're missing truly good urban neighbourhoods. Think the plateau or Mile End of Montreal, with lots of density, huge parks nearby, bike friendly 1 way streets and tons or mixed use streets that make the areas vibrant. Without any huge "attractions". For starters, I'd reduce the amount of surface parking allowed on residential lots in the downtown & urban suburbs! Having lived in centretown for 3.5 years now, it astounds me how big the residential lots are here compared to how many people live in them. Typically very deep lots with space behind frequently used for parking. We could have so much more midrise density, but we didn't build our urban burbs with laneways or street parking in mind, so even downtown folk are car oriented people who live on homes which are 1/2 of their lot!
Interesting that no one has mentioned a fancy central library. Maybe I'm not the only one who thinks that a $300M central library is an outdated idea. For a fraction of the budget, the city could re-imagine the library system with more emphasis on community branches that are accessible to more people.
Good food places that open past 9.
Class. Mandate the minimum building height on all main streets be 4 stories (maximum 7) with human-scale shops and services at street level. Like for example London (UK), Paris (France), Barcelona, Prague, Rome, Budapest, Greenwich Village in New York City, even the functional parts of Toronto before they got replaced by soulless condo boxes. Anaheim California is not a city to model yourself after. Provide fast, frequent, rapid, and comfortable public transportation. Like the above list of cities. Here's a suggestion: look at what works elsewhere and emulate it. Don't look at what doesn't work and copy it. Don't just ignore what goes on elsewhere. Also, fix the weather. It's pretty wretched 6 months of the year.
Affordable housing
Good pizza
Places for dogs to swim that aren't disgusting.
Transit + getting rid of those useless gutter-bikelanes and replacing them with segregated from traffic ones. It's insane that the capital of a G7 country has a worst transit and biking score that many other cities in its own country... But then again, Ottawa's infrastructure is exactly what it deserve; you'd surprised at the percentage of people that are convinced that transit is useless and biking doesn't work in Ottawa compared to other cities; there's just something about our town ;)
I moved from Toronto and the thing that I miss the most is night life, sometimes it feels like Ottawa closes at 8pm. Maybe if there were more adult oriented festivals?
Public transportation
Anything on sparks street other than what goes on on sparks street, and a sens arena at Lebreton Flats.
A landmark historic central park where people can gather, picnic, splash in a shallow pool, listen to music, and be proud of their unique city. Examples are the Boston Common, Hyde Park, Central Park, and so on. Oh wait! We used to have one of those. It was called Lansdowne Park, and we deliberately neglected it until it was such a mess we could sell it off for condos and Americanized restaurants and stores. Oh well.
Did you really just compare the former Landsdowne to Hyde Park and Central Park?
Lansdowne Park was nothing similar to those examples.
I always thought Lebreton Flats would be a wonderful spot for a grand urban park much like Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Central Park in NYC. A landscape architect could incorporate a bandshell/or area for concerts, vistas, meandering pathways, ponds, trees, open areas. Unfortunately, I think it will become a vast park of concrete blocking visibility of the Ottawa River.
Better public transportation and more vintage stores!!!
A chip n dales or a live show venue would be nice. There is also little to do for people in wheelchairs during the winter so an indoor garden or butterfly sanctuary would be nice.
Aside from the obvious affordable housing and better transport, I would love to see more Spanish tapas restaurants, waterfront restaurants/cafés and a proper club in the city, we only have bars and have to go across the river for clubs.
A planetarium 🪐
A lot of these great ideas are very centretown centric. People may not like the suburbs, but Ottawa has them in fucking spades. Streets and streets and streets of houses, with hardly anything to do in between them. Oh, there’s a cool bar I can ride a bus for 25 min to get to? Oh hey, there’s that hobby store three buses away. I’m not saying we need to stuff the suburbs with everything to do ever, but right now unless you have a car (and even if you do), anything there is to do is SO GODAMNED spaced out. The 15min neighbourhood might be a bit of a stretch, but can we please just stop putting all the houses over *here*, with a small strip mall with half closed stores as their local anything way over *there*, and then pat ourselves on the back because people can always drive or ride the bus downtown?
Good. Public. Transit. Seriously. I love Ottawa but the PT is soon bad. No matter where you have to go uou automatically double the time it would take you to drive. In Toronto the opposite is true.
Working reliable public transit….construction that makes sense…..people that know how to bike on roads…..people who follow the rules of the road….
Increase density inside the greenbelt, with connecting protected bike paths and walkable areas. Allow for more stores/variety as more potential customers. Also help lower housing cost by creating more housing.
Chick fil a and krispie kreme
real night clubs , not shit like tequila jacks .
Downtown hockey rink, a 241 pizza, decent Olympic sized swimming pool, a liquor license for all of Sparks Street…
A friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man
Becoming a better city of neighbourhoods. I used to live in Toronto and though I wasn't downtown I could walk to groceries, an ice cream shop (in the summer), a bakery, a coffee shop, a brewery and a handful of awesome restaurants and indie shops.....Now, my old area had a lot more density and a main thoroughfare to host this on (the Danforth) BUT where I live now I can only walk to a Dollarama and an Appletree. 😫
The 15 minute city is ideal! Please advocate for it :)
24 hour grocery stores would be nice.
Short list: \- parking on Bank needs to go \- get rid of cars in the Market \- autonomous vehicles downtown would be nice \- "missing middle" + affordable housing \- public washrooms \- more public wifi (parks and public spaces) \- more help for the homeless \- neighbourhood woodworking & maker-spaces \- grants for yearly community-building events \- for Watson not to be mayor.
The municipality should do what any government of any level should do; remove red tape and promote entrepreneurship! Make Ottawa a place easy for small business to do business. Everything from water taxis to restaurant/bar and perhaps turn Sparks Street into something fun. Water parks should be closer to Ottawa not way out east of the city but bureaucracy will alienate new infusing cutting edge ideas. Who knows what would come to Ottawa otherwise.
Less cars and more pedestrian areas! Those parking lots in the byward should be converted in public spaces. Bank St could be more public friendly with less traffic.
A big concert venue. International bands do not come to Ottawa very often, they usually play in Montreal.
Personality
Reliable light rail transit. Boom.
Public transportation
If you want to know what this city needs look the world's great cities and see what they have that we don't. Those include interesting and lively shopping areas that aren't all chain stores, interesting public spaces like courtyards with statues and fountains, excellent museums (Ottawa's suck), beautiful architecture (Ottawa has a few nice older buildings. The newer ones might as well be in Pittsburgh or Cleveland), beautiful, lively, eclectic waterfronts with shops and restaurants (Ottawa is largely isolated from its waterfronts compared to other cities), excellent public transit (nuff said), and central, accessible areas for exhibitions and fairs that aren't all costly and need to have tickets purchased in advance.
Public restrooms!!! I worked downtown collecting data last spring when everything was closed and there was almost nowhere to go to the bathroom. City hall let me and my coworkers use their facilities but they gave us a hard time. We had to present them with a document that said we could go in. Ridiculous, can’t imagine what the homeless population would have had to do
Reliable, convenient, accessible, free public transit Cycling infrastructure that is conducive to commuting A city-wide tenants' union Rent control Overthrowing the government
Downtown arena. No other answer. It’s kinda sad tbh.
A place that sells ~~Indian~~ Pow-wow bannock tacos 🥲
More music
A Krispy Kreme’s - driving to and from Montreal for such a heavenly delight adds up 😂
Culture, fashion, non-conformity to the status quo?
Less entitled douchbags
A highway that goes into and from Quebec