Cut The Cutesy City Project Names: CRERAR
What’s the incentive for the City of Ottawa to run projects effectively when it can just do them over and over until they finally get it right?
Who cares about the additional cost to taxpayers and the fact that a one- or two-year project extends into a multi-year interruption spread over multiple iterations?
The excerpt from College Councillor Laine Johnson’s newsletter from a recent Bulldog article entitled Robertson Road is Robertson Road was disturbing because I got the feeling she was trying to misdirect the city’s inability to plan and execute projects effectively through the use of cute project names and upcoming events.
Examples in her newsletter included Reimagining Robertson Road, Village in the Greenbelt (referring to something in Bells Corners), and Robertson Road Walkstop. I’m not sure if Knoxdale-Merivale Councillor Sean Devine has named his Merivale Road do-over and it’s probably best for my health that I don’t know.
If city hall is a truly transparent organization, why not just tell taxpayers “We screwed up again. We didn’t plan properly. We didn’t vet the project, and once again we’ll be wasting your hard-earned money to redo something that should have been done right in the first place. Since we’re being open and honest, we don’t feel an apology is necessary.”
The city has enough projects in the flailing phase (not an official phase of project management), such as LRT, Lansdowne 2.) and Tewin. It does not need to add personal vanity projects aimed at getting incumbent councilors re-elected next November. If these people really want to get re-elected, it’s time for everyone around the council table to roll up their sleeves and dig into a project that impacts all residents.
For cuteness sake, let’s call it What We’re Going To Do About Our Crappy Roads.
Howard Crerar is a project manager and has worked in the software industry for three decades.
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
The very idea that the city acknowledges that many of the problems the residents and employers of the city face today are the direct result of the decisions made by the city strikes fear in the hearts and minds of those who populate city hall. Those who report to work at city hall dare not publicly question the decisions of their predecessors lest the next generation of city employees and councillors consider that a precedent for future criticism.
Much like the alcoholic who is encouraged to acknowledge that he is an alcoholic, city councillors need to acknowledge that they and their predecessors have made a number of flawed decisions. Decisions that have been set in concrete (literally in many cases) that were based on flawed and non-objective analyses. Until they do, we are destined to a live in a counter-clockwise spiral as the water goes down the drain.
Ron. You used the magic word in your response, “analysis”. Many decisions at city hall are made on a best guess basis (and I use the word best cautiously) rather than following a thorough analysis. It struck me awhile ago that this has a lot to do with councilors who feel they must achieve as much as possible within their 4-year term, in order to get re-elected; a fine example of quantity over quality.