Article in Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Cumberland+councillor+pushes+Highway+expansion/7150979/story.html
Once again, Stephen Blais demonstrates a complete lack of understanding regarding the issue.
Let's understand his logic
- The City of Ottawa should pay to build a road to encourage people to relocate to Rockland and commute to Ottawa to work.
- The City of Ottawa is expanding the Park & ride, Rural Express Bus Service and increasing funding to lower transit costs in Rural Cumberland to allow more capacity for the benefit of Rockland commuters who pay no taxes for the services they use in Ottawa
- Policies of intensification and limiting sprawl apply in Ottawa, but not encouraged in Rockland... so once again, we pay for them
- His accusation of Rob Jellett rejecting the funding in 2008 is erroneous, he rejected the money because there was no benefit to the city of Ottawa.
There is only one solution - impose an infrastructure levy (ie. Toll) for all roads leading into the City of Ottawa, especially between 6AM and 9AM. Having to pay $3-$5 per day to come into Ottawa would serve the purpose of reducing traffic, encouraging public transit use (ie. Rockland's CRT bus service), raising revenue for the City (a new tax that will not impact Ottawa rate-payers) and limiting expansion and sprawl outside the city's borders.
I live in Cumberland Ward and the opinion amongst residents is almost unanimous - we do not want more traffic coming in to Ottawa from Rockland. The 174 is already a big traffic issue, we need to find solutions, not more problems.
Threaded Mode