2018 Ottawa Municipal Election

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I was surprised by Menard's win. I thought he was too far left to have broad appeal. Those silver spoon socialists in the Glebe can still surprise ...

He was elected with 28% of the vote in a crowded field.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by phil235

That said, there is hope that he will at least be a strong voice on transit. His free transit idea is a non-starter, but if he can get better funding/service improvements on the urban routes that drive all-day ridership, that will be something.

It has been an uphill struggle getting any of the central councillors to concede that there are issues with transit service in the inner city. They have tended to defensively suggest things are just fine for most of the past term, have tended to take OCTranspo's side on issues, and when they have come up with ideas for service changes, they have generally been bad ones.

Until the fall service changes and the ensuing eruption, I'm not sure I ever heard one transit-related peep out of McKenney.

[danishh]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Was it even a blip in the campaign? Ottawans are inured to high taxes. Although I could see complaints if the additional money goes into things other than basic infrastructure.

I think there was good coverage of this issue on CBC radio at least. A lot of councillor candidates brought up the 2% cap as a problem especially in relation to the policing budget. Policing salaries have been growing faster than 2%, so the size of the force was being constrained absent reallocations from other programs.

[ars]

Originally Posted by daud

Was disappointed to see Michael Qaqish go. Despite what a few people complained about, he was very active and very responsive to the community. While I don't know to what degree he influenced certain decisions, on his watch, we saw LRT approval extended into the community with the help of developers and he pushed up the bank and leitrim intersection construction to next year. He seemed to work a few files that involved getting developers to pitch in to speed up transportation projects.

He was a regular at all the community events and served Ward 22 well.

Carole Anne Meehan will be interesting to watch. She's lived in the community for a long time, has a very good background in civic issues being a broadcaster and news personality for so long. She also is talking transportation which is the major issue in ward 22. My only concern with her is that she may not be fully cognizant of just how many hours these councillors put in. So we'll see what happens but we were lucky in our ward as we had 3 really good candidates to choose from (Qaqish, Meehan, Singh)

Qaqish was not a bad councillor, I think Carole Anne Meehan's name recognition along with the reports of Qaqish's excessive spending compared to other councillors really played against him.

The biggest reason he lost was probably Harpreet Singh though, Singh ate away a lot of his voter base.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

It has been an uphill struggle getting any of the central councillors to concede that there are issues with transit service in the inner city. They have tended to defensively suggest things are just fine for most of the past term, have tended to take OCTranspo's side on issues, and when they have come up with ideas for service changes, they have generally been bad ones.

Until the fall service changes and the ensuing eruption, I'm not sure I ever heard one transit-related peep out of McKenney.

Very true. Menard made transit a key plank of his platform, and he certainly played the role of critic, so unless we see a complete about-face, he should be an improvement.

[ars]

Originally Posted by phil235

Yep, he definitely ran with the strongest anti-development rhetoric of the bunch. His most prominent recent accomplishment was leading the ultra- NIMBY protest of the new playing field at Immaculata High School, and getting more restrictions on the use of that field than any other field in the the city (which will almost certainly get overturned in court after we all pay a bunch of legal fees to defend them).

He was pretty much the worst option for Capital ward in terms of smart growth and intensification. I expect four years of him opposing every major development application, refusing to compromise, and then blaming suburban councillors when they get approved.

That said, there is hope that he will at least be a strong voice on transit. His free transit idea is a non-starter, but if he can get better funding/service improvements on the urban routes that drive all-day ridership, that will be something.

I went to school with the guy, probably one of the most intolerable individuals I've ever met and a hardcore ideologue. Him opposing every major dev application is 100% guaranteed.

[daud]

Originally Posted by ars

I went to school with the guy, probably one of the most intolerable individual I've ever met and a hardcore ideologue. Him opposing every major dev application is 100% guaranteed.

Went to school with Jeff Leiper for grades 8-10 before my family moved into the city (he was in Orleans). Remember him being on the right side of the bell curve as it relates to grade point average. I'm pretty sure he was the dungeons and dragons type, maybe a bit argumentative but not a bad guy.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by ars

I went to school with the guy, probably one of the most intolerable individual I've ever met and a hardcore ideologue. Him opposing every major dev application is 100% guaranteed.

Sigh.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by ars

I went to school with the guy, probably one of the most intolerable individual I've ever met and a hardcore ideologue. Him opposing every major dev application is 100% guaranteed.

He talks a lot about increasing density and curbing sprawl. If that's the ideology he's willing to hardcore fight for that's great, I guess.

[danishh]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

He talks a lot about increasing density and curbing sprawl. If that's the ideology he's willing to hardcore fight for that's great, I guess.

he's all for density and curbing sprawl, just not in his backyard.

[ars]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

He talks a lot about increasing density and curbing sprawl. If that's the ideology he's willing to hardcore fight for that's great, I guess.

Well yes, that would be great, except he contradicts his own position by supporting NIMBY positions in the Capital Ward.

There needs to be compromises when it comes to running the city, and if Shawn is the same as he was when I met him a decade ago, getting him to compromise on anything will be next to impossible.

Originally Posted by danishh

he's all for density and curbing sprawl, just not in his backyard.

Exactly

[shawkr]

Originally Posted by danishh

he's all for density and curbing sprawl, just not in his backyard.

There were NIMBYer candidates in Capital Ward. Christine McCallister, who finished second, struck me as very protectionist. And Jide Afolabai proposed maybe the NIMBYest thing ever: a counter-variance petition, whereby you can get variances permanently quashed if you collect a certain number of signatures.

Menard ran a good campaign, and made his presence felt. I didn't really hear or see much of Chernushenko.

[J.OT13]

Menard's free transit promise is ridiculous. Bank's current service is unreliable. Free transit isn't going to help.

Not only do you need money to fund the current service, but you would have to increase the service significantly to handle the thousands who would want to switch. We would need hundreds of new buses, dozens of new trains and about a thousand new drivers.

That said, I do think transit fare should go down a good 20%.

Otherwise, I agree with a lot of you; he'll probably be a Doucet figure who passionately opposes everything that lands on his desk and all those projects will end up being approved as is. At least Chernushenko worked with the developer and City staff to improve the proposal before voting to approve an imperfect, yet better than what it could have been, project.

[m0nkyman]

I've worked with Shawn on urban issues in community associations. He's smart enough to know when to compromise.

[lrt's friend]

We need to go distant based fares. This will provide the desired fare reduction for those who are making shorter trips in the central part of the city. In the longer-term and with wise investment on improved service, should increase ridership on those central routes. For many, we have priced shorter trips out of the market to the benefit of such services as Uber and the like.


When are we going to see some out of the box thinking on improving transit service? Ottawa has become so stagnant with regards to experimentation. We have seemed to have put all our eggs in the Confederation Line basket, while we know that most people still will need to use the buses. We cannot continue this way when the Confederation Line will not be completed for at least 10 years. How do we make overall trips faster and more reliable? We all know that neighbourhood bus service is the weak link.

All our plans are budget based and the customer is no longer the focus. At least, this is the way that it seems.

[CityTech]

Uber/Lyft has made a huge difference in urban areas. It's often under $10 to make a short trip within the urban area (say from Centretown to Westboro), and if you don't already own a monthly pass, and you're talking about a $10 trip that will take maybe 10 minutes versus a $3 trip that will take 30 minutes... quite a few people are going to do the former.

On the other hand, the rise of Uber/Lyft could have lead to an increase in transit use, to some extent, as the advent of ridesharing has made it a lot easier to live without a car. In the pre-Uber era, even if you had good bus service to get to work, there were a huge number of little things in life that were difficult to do without a car--grocery shopping, evening/late night trips to friends houses, taking your cat to the vet, getting to a medical appointment that is a little awkward to get to by transit, etc. So the car-free population might be bigger which means that there will be some occasional transit use for situations where OC Transpo is superior to Uber/Lyft (say trips mostly along the Transitway trunk at peak periods).

I'm car-free. Whenever I'm going somewhere, I consider how easy it would be to take the bus, and decide whether to take OC Transpo or Uber/Lyft accordingly. In the absence of the latter, I would have just bought a car by now and would probably never take the bus ever.

[lrt's friend]

Of course, Uber/Lyft does add to urban congestion in the long run.

[Marshsparrow]

Jeff is a solid councillor, took nothing for granted and campaigned hard and the results show what citizens feel of his skills - very solid!

[shawkr]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Of course, Uber/Lyft does add to urban congestion in the long run.

I think that's an empirical question. Their presence will induce some non-car-owners to substitute ride-share for transit. But they will also induce some car-owners (or would-be car-owners) to forgo private car-ownership entirely and instead use a mix of ride-share and transit. The net effect is ambiguous. Same applies to car-sharing programs like VrtuCar.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by daud

Went to school with Jeff Leiper for grades 8-10 before my family moved into the city (he was in Orleans). Remember him being on the right side of the bell curve as it relates to grade point average. I'm pretty sure he was the dungeons and dragons type, maybe a bit argumentative but not a bad guy.

I don't think I've ever even seen a D&D set, even though it's kinda my demographic, but this makes me even warmer towards fellow SSP poster Jeff Leiper.