Developers, Cyclists Shape City Policy: BENN

There are about a million residents in Ottawa of whom a very small portion ride their bicycles on winter days.

An even smaller portion cycle on winter days during inclement weather. Certainly far fewer, by several orders of magnitude, of the people making their way around town on foot. Yet bike lanes continue to get closer attention to snow clearing than sidewalks.

Officially, downtown sidewalks and the winter bike-lane network get cleared once 2.5 cm of snow has fallen. Having said that, the bike lanes are scraped down to the bare green paint.

As for the sidewalks? Well, let’s just say the attention to detail is not as precise as the bike lanes. Suburban sidewalks, the ones that people walk along as they head to the bus stop? The plows are deployed only when 5 cm of snow have fallen.

For those who live on a side street, they have to trudge along the unplowed streets on their way to the bus stop and back until 7 cm have fallen. As for the standard of snow removal, on a good day, with a good plow operator, we are lucky they only leave a centimetre or two of packed snow.

Very simply put, a very vocal, but relatively small self-interest group, has convinced council and the city snow removal squad that they deserve a far greater level of service than anyone else. And when they don’t get this concierge level of service, the whining is unbearable.

Then there is the development community. Again, very small but very well connected. All they ask for is the rezoning of land here, there and everywhere. They just want the city to transfer a significant portion of the equity of the long-time homeowners to the developers. With no consideration, financial or ethical, to the homeowners.

Not to fear good residents. The city isn’t just pandering to every rezoning whim of the development industry in your neighbourhood. No, every decade or so the city will “invest” $200-million to $500-million to the benefit of the development industry at Lansdowne Park, the public site that was initially donated to the city as a recreational area. Not to worry. Those initial investments are not one-timers. No, the city gets to share in the operating losses, either directly or indirectly.

Again, no end of city support directed at a very small segment of the population.

What about the largest segment of demographic, the rank-and-file resident in Ottawa? Year after year we get a reduced quantity of fundamental services, delivered at a lower quality than in years gone by, all for an increased property-tax rate.

The inverse of proportionality. Willfully and deliberately enabled by your city council.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

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