Hey everyone,
Kind of quiet here, so I thought I’d ask a question that’s been on my mind for a while:
What would make Ottawa better, in your view? Big or small.
For me, it would be to improve the walkability. I walk, jog, cycle, motorbike, and drive, all fairly frequently. It drives me wild how long it takes (mid winter or bad weather) from the time I press a crosswalk button, to the time the lights change. I’d love to see that improved.
On the subject of walkability, it would be great if there were more mixed use, like corner shops mixed into residential neighborhoods. Too many neighborhoods are just rows of houses and are totally cut off from any sort of services.
Yeah, I agree. For some strange reason, the idea has become politicized.
The urban and heck suburban design of this city is atrocious. If you were trying to design for people to be a siloed and car centric as possible while maximizing city costs to deliver services… well you nailed it.
The mini parks in Hintonburg are pretty great, along with the almost-main-street that goes through the neighbourhood.
But we were seeing more and more drug paraphernalia in them before we left. ☹️
I’m a firm believer that cornerstones shouldn’t be allowed to sell only chips and pop. They should be forced to be mini grocery stores and abolish the giant Loblaws stores and Walmart’s. They are not needed. Smaller stores scattered everywhere would be better imo.
Yeah I’m lucky enough to live near a proper corner shop with groceries but so much of Ottawa expects you to drive for basic necessities.