Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Mikeed]

When talking about the greenbelt you have to consider that the surrounding municipalities fought it leading the NCC to outright buy all the land instead of doing it through zoning. This reduced the scope. The NCC is not a munciaplaity and the Feds have no jurisdiction except for purchasing and being landowners.

Then Nepean and other townships immediately started developing right alongside the boundaries. These townships had just lost a lot of land to annexation with Ottawa and what is a town without development? Nothing. An organization will do what makes them more relevant first and foremost, which for a township is to develop.

I also contest the notion that the greenbelt is a failure if development jumps it or that the planners somehow didn't foresee this eventuality.

Are we better with it? YES by miles. It has allowed us more control in our development, provided greenspace and federal institutional space, and fostered the suburbs into being more of their own cities.

Anyone thinking that development could have stayed within the greenbelt is ludicrous. FFS Barrie is satellite city to Toronto and is an hour away. Better toll the 400 instead of widening it to a 10-lane superhighway.

The options are: continuous sprawl or controlled sprawl.

It is not binary success or failure but a balance of better or worse.

[Gat-Train]

The greenbelt is necessary, both to combat the urban heat island effect and also in allowing groundwater recharge.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by roger1818

While I disagree with Greber's ideas, he didn't have the advantage of hindsight. It may seem obvious today, but back then we had no idea about global warming or sustainability issues.

I think the big factor Greber didn't forecast was Ottawa becoming a tech hub. Without that, I suspect Ottawa-Gatineau's CMA population would still be under 800,000.



That would certainly have been one solution, though you don't necessarily want to toll tourists visiting Ottawa. Another option would have been to put the entire National Capital Region under an independent district (including areas outside of the Greenbelt) and then limit the development to within the Greenbelt. Unfortunately that ship sailed long ago.

You would think with Ottawa's lumber industry still there he could have foreseen that and add onto most governments he delt with rejected his ideas so he should have him rethink his plans. Did he even bother to try something else with Ottawa, nope all he wanted was a legacy project and to hell what Ottawans think. Even if he knew ahead 50 years I'm very sure he still would have went ahead with his idea anyway just take a look at how the feds behave as proof with the ncc

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

When talking about the greenbelt you have to consider that the surrounding municipalities fought it leading the NCC to outright buy all the land instead of doing it through zoning. This reduced the scope. The NCC is not a munciaplaity and the Feds have no jurisdiction except for purchasing and being landowners.

Then Nepean and other townships immediately started developing right alongside the boundaries. These townships had just lost a lot of land to annexation with Ottawa and what is a town without development? Nothing. An organization will do what makes them more relevant first and foremost, which for a township is to develop.

I also contest the notion that the greenbelt is a failure if development jumps it or that the planners somehow didn't foresee this eventuality.

Are we better with it? YES by miles. It has allowed us more control in our development, provided greenspace and federal institutional space, and fostered the suburbs into being more of their own cities.

Anyone thinking that development could have stayed within the greenbelt is ludicrous. FFS Barrie is satellite city to Toronto and is an hour away. Better toll the 400 instead of widening it to a 10-lane superhighway.

The options are: continuous sprawl or controlled sprawl.

It is not binary success or failure but a balance of better or worse.

For what Greber intended for the greenbelt it was a failure , it was meant to stop sprawl and it backfired. All the greenbelt does now is increase transportation time and costs in Ottawa that city taxpayers have to pay for and it also increases more pollution due to longer commute times.

[JohnnyRenton]

Originally Posted by roger1818

While I disagree with Greber's ideas, he didn't have the advantage of hindsight. It may seem obvious today, but back then we had no idea about global warming or sustainability issues.

I think the big factor Greber didn't forecast was Ottawa becoming a tech hub. Without that, I suspect Ottawa-Gatineau's CMA population would still be under 800,000.

Totally agree on both points. Cities were different back then. The grime and history of the height of industrialization made them a different place to live. Modernism offered something bright, new, and optimistic. It might seem obvious now, but that is only because it took half a century for the Greber vision to fail, and for alternatives to emerge. Not only is the approach to building cities different today than it was in the 1950's, its also different than it was in the 80's and even into the 90's. Greber's plans may have been bad in the long term, but it's easy to understand why they were popular at the time.

The high tech industry is something that doesn't get enough attention in the region. Consider just the Kanata North high tech park. It currently employs around 20,000 high tech workers, and around 10,000 support and service staff. Contrast that with central Gatineau, which employs somewhere between 32,000 - 38,000 (probably closer to the lower end but accurate counts are hard to find). It is not at all out of the question that one 5-10 year period of strong tech growth and investment could push that hub up to the second largest employment centre in the NCR. That one hub alone has a huge impact on the region and to bring it back to the topic of the thread, it probably deserves more attention when it comes to a sustainable transit and growth strategy than it is currently getting.

[JohnnyRenton]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

For the record:

Gord Downie
Logdriver • Draveur
Tundra
Amik • Beaver
Eh-Train

These are my top 5 names from the list of train names. Even though naming trains is bit of a waste of time and resources, it's also rather fun.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRenton

Totally agree on both points. Cities were different back then. The grime and history of the height of industrialization made them a different place to live. Modernism offered something bright, new, and optimistic. It might seem obvious now, but that is only because it took half a century for the Greber vision to fail, and for alternatives to emerge. Not only is the approach to building cities different today than it was in the 1950's, its also different than it was in the 80's and even into the 90's. Greber's plans may have been bad in the long term, but it's easy to understand why they were popular at the time.

The high tech industry is something that doesn't get enough attention in the region. Consider just the Kanata North high tech park. It currently employs around 20,000 high tech workers, and around 10,000 support and service staff. Contrast that with central Gatineau, which employs somewhere between 32,000 - 38,000 (probably closer to the lower end but accurate counts are hard to find). It is not at all out of the question that one 5-10 year period of strong tech growth and investment could push that hub up to the second largest employment centre in the NCR. That one hub alone has a huge impact on the region and to bring it back to the topic of the thread, it probably deserves more attention when it comes to a sustainable transit and growth strategy than it is currently getting.

It was only popular with the federal government and still
is. everyone else fought those ideas which is why the Greber plan was never done fully.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

Are we better with it? YES by miles. It has allowed us more control in our development, provided greenspace and federal institutional space, and fostered the suburbs into being more of their own cities.

Please. The suburbs of Ottawa are really no different than suburbs elsewhere. They don't have any character as "their own cities".

Originally Posted by Mikeed

Anyone thinking that development could have stayed within the greenbelt is ludicrous. FFS Barrie is satellite city to Toronto and is an hour away. Better toll the 400 instead of widening it to a 10-lane superhighway.

Very different context. Toronto's Greenbelt is newer. Barrie actually was an independent town with its own distinct economy. And it's over 100 km away. Barrie is only now getting suburbanized because the GTA has grown to > 6 million and because regular GO service is facilitating commutes to Toronto.

Originally Posted by Mikeed

The options are: continuous sprawl or controlled sprawl.

It is not binary success or failure but a balance of better or worse.

It is indeed not binary. I fail to see why continuous sprawl can't be controlled. This is just a function of planning.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

The greenbelt is necessary, both to combat the urban heat island effect and also in allowing groundwater recharge.

The Greenbelt has compounded both of those problems, actually, by inducing energy-inefficient transport in the region and inducing sprawl outside the Greenbelt.

Greenbelts work against cities being dense and compact. Greenbelts are dumb urban planning policy.

Protect sensitive ecological areas, not pointless and arbitrary lines on a map drawn to satisfy outmoded 1920s ideas of what constitutes good planning

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

and fostered the suburbs into being more of their own cities.

It absolutely did no such thing. Ottawa's suburbs are no better (or worse) at being "their own cities" than the suburbs of any other Canadian city of a half-million or more in population.

The options are: continuous sprawl or controlled sprawl.

Yup. And the Brownbelt has done nothing to control sprawl.

And now we have to build out a transit system to low-density subusbrs, with multiple kilometres of revenue-less trackage and BRT-age crossing a pointless expanse of fields, just to satisfy a green fetish.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

That would certainly have been one solution, though you don't necessarily want to toll tourists visiting Ottawa. Another option would have been to put the entire National Capital Region under an independent district (including areas outside of the Greenbelt) and then limit the development to within the Greenbelt. Unfortunately that ship sailed long ago.

Tolling tourists is really not a problem. They do it all over the world. Do tourists get exemption from congestion charges in London, UK or bridge tolls in New York? Tourists are the least likely to mind a $5 congestion charge because they are probably paying it once (on entry).

I do agree that the NCR should have been made an independent entity (say a federal territory). But provincial politics are what they are in Canada.....

[daud]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The Greenbelt has compounded both of those problems, actually, by inducing energy-inefficient transport in the region and inducing sprawl outside the Greenbelt.

Greenbelts work against cities being dense and compact. Greenbelts are dumb urban planning policy.

Protect sensitive ecological areas, not pointless and arbitrary lines on a map drawn to satisfy outmoded 1920s ideas of what constitutes good planning

could not agree more. I drive through the greenbelt every day and think to myself all the extra gas each car uses, all the extra cost to bring city services that much further. The effective footprint of the city is just that much bigger. The density is much lower outside the greenbelt, displacing even more land. The greenbelt is a toy for human activity in a natural setting, not any sort of ecological preserve of benefit to nature and animals with notable exceptions like Mer Bleue and the Riparian zones and maybe one or 2 other areas.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

You would think with Ottawa's lumber industry still there he could have foreseen that and add onto most governments he delt with rejected his ideas so he should have him rethink his plans. Did he even bother to try something else with Ottawa, nope all he wanted was a legacy project and to hell what Ottawans think. Even if he knew ahead 50 years I'm very sure he still would have went ahead with his idea anyway just take a look at how the feds behave as proof with the ncc

I think you need to do some research on these accusations. There have been numerous thesis on the the Gerber plan and there's no way Gerber is coming to Canada to do a grand plan oin the capital at the urging of MacKenzie King without widespread support from policy makers.

On the balance the Greber plan successful transformed Ottawa into a beautiful and highly livable city from a chaotic industrial town.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/capital_plan/

[Mikeed]

Barrie and Newmarket has always been commuter communities to the greater GTA.

The echo chamber of this forum some times never ceases to surprise me.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

I think you need to do some research on these accusations. There have been numerous thesis on the the Gerber plan and there's no way Gerber is coming to Canada to do a grand plan oin the capital at the urging of MacKenzie King without widespread support from policy makers.

On the balance the Greber plan successful transformed Ottawa into a beautiful and highly livable city from a chaotic industrial town.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/capital_plan/

Your first paragraph is exactly what I just said they were all from the federal government where the support was
The city of Ottawa was against the plan and look how many billions on transit has to be spent to improve the transit system because of it. Sprawl leapfrogged the greenbelt because if the queensway which was part of the greber plan. So plan has created bigger problems and didn't solve anything.

Your second paragraph is just an opinion which I disagree with. All the greber plan did was make the city far more dependent on the federal government for employment. I'm glad the tech sector came when it did but it could have been much closer to downtown if it wasn't for the greber plan.

[Ottawaresident]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

Your first paragraph is exactly what I just said they were all from the federal government where the support was
The city of Ottawa was against the plan and look how many billions on transit has to be spent to improve the transit system because of it. Sprawl leapfrogged the greenbelt because if the queensway which was part of the greber plan. So plan has created bigger problems and didn't solve anything.

Barrhaven never got a freeway and combined with Riverside South has 100000 people today.

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by daud

could not agree more. I drive through the greenbelt every day and think to myself all the extra gas each car uses, all the extra cost to bring city services that much further. The effective footprint of the city is just that much bigger. The density is much lower outside the greenbelt, displacing even more land. The greenbelt is a toy for human activity in a natural setting, not any sort of ecological preserve of benefit to nature and animals with notable exceptions like Mer Bleue and the Riparian zones and maybe one or 2 other areas.

Ironically, I live downtown and commute to a suburb, so I'm not one that can complain, BUT, I do love this infographic love a good scrolling infographic...

For those who contest that living in Orleans or Kanata is cheaper:


https://lifehacker.com/the-true-cost-of-commuting-you-could-buy-a-house-price-5855550

[Ottawaresident]

Why do people drive so much? And why are Ottawa city planners so incompetent?

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Ottawaresident

Barrhaven never got a freeway and combined with Riverside South has 100000 people today.

I specifically mentioned the queensway because most of the traffic in ottawa is east and west travel

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

Ironically, I live downtown and commute to a suburb, so I'm not one that can complain, BUT, I do love this infographic love a good scrolling infographic...

For those who contest that living in Orleans or Kanata is cheaper:


https://lifehacker.com/the-true-cost-of-commuting-you-could-buy-a-house-price-5855550

good post, I wish everyone looks at it and see how stupid living in suburbs that are far from where people work is