Create A Federal Inquiry Into NCC Incompetence

The federal government needs to hold an inquiry into the National Capital Commission with an eye toward major reform, replacing it or simply abolishing it.

The last straw came late Monday afternoon. The Chaudiere Bridge restructuring was supposed to be finished in early May. Then early September. Late Monday, the NCC announced that the Chaudiere completion would be delayed again, this time until Sept. 29.

Enough is enough.

The NCC treats vital transportation in this community like it is a frill. Despite promising that two lanes would remain open during daytimes at the Champlain Bridge, workers reduced the bridge to one lane with a worker standing there with a “Slow” and “Stop” sign. People waited as long as an hour just to get to the foot of the bridge, let alone cross. Then the Crown corporation writes a pathetic press release saying that the bridge is wide open … except it is not. The span’s reconstruction was a traffic fiasco.

The Chaudiere reconstruction is late and sad. The consequences for traffic were a fiasco.

The Alexandra Bridge must be replaced. Where are the plans?

Vibrant Downtown Needs QE Drive: PATTON

The NCC has played footsie with an east-end bridge for many years to get traffic and especially dangerous trucks out of downtown. Heard anything about the bridge lately? Maybe NCC chairman Tobi Nussbaum should try to drive to the approaches of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge. The traffic is obscene. Cars are packed like sardines. Trucks must drive on sidewalks to make turns.

A west-end bridge is very necessary. Has that thought even crossed Nussbaum’s mind?

Instead, he is busy closing lanes on the Ottawa River parkway and shutting the Queen Elizabeth Driveway so that his precious cycling friends can have free run of the road. Nussbaum must think that cycling is a viable alternative to real commuting in this hostile climate. If that is the case, he is dead wrong.

Meanwhile, no need to spend much time on the city’s transportation nightmare with light rail closed for years north-south, the occasional Confederation Line and a broken bus system. That has been well-documented. But on top of that, the province has contributed to our transportation woes by closing the only somewhat working artery in town periodically, that being Highway 417.

Government in this government town has created, through its blistering incompetence, a transportation crisis.

The NCC can’t even finish what slim transportation plans it has on time. Maybe Nussbaum needs a reminder that transportation is a critical factor of production. That it is vital to the economic and social sectors of our society. That good transportation is incredibly important to our emergency services.

But with the NCC, the stupidity goes further. It is cutting off Gatineau Park to cars so that seniors can’t use the park like Nussbaum’s precious cyclists can. That’s mean.

It is repeatedly and stupidly screwing up LeBreton Flats redevelopment. If the private sector had fouled the Flats as badly as Nussbaum and company, those private executives would get their butts kicked out the door so far that they would become stars in the night sky. With luck, maybe there will be a heavenly body called NCC circling the earth in the near future.

The city and the NCC are supposed to facilitate transportation, not cock it up. Billions are being spent on transportation in this community but transportation is getting much, much, much worse.

Champlain Bridge Open Except When It’s Not

The incompetence at the NCC deserves a federal inquiry. Nussbaum should consider resigning so that a person with some expertise could run the place.

And as for the city, well, what more is there to say that hasn’t been said. If the principals on Laurier Avenue can’t get transportation moving in this city, maybe it is time for the province to appoint a board to handle these projects because the municipality most certainly can’t do it.

Ken Gray 

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