(This is a thinly edited IRC rant I put into #NCR this week.)
Doucet became clearer to me once I realized he doesn't care if I vote for him since he's not interested in doing anything for me as a Kanata resident. Which perhaps paradoxically means he's a safe protest vote, since none of Larry, Jim, or Andy do it for me.
Suburbs are a hard problem. But since we pay taxes too, we have to be part of the solution. You can't just go around wringing your hands and saying "sprawl is evil", you have to make incentives for sprawlers to de-sprawl and you have to make sure the de-sprawlers don't lose their shirt while doing so.
Also, there are reasons why people live out here:
1) it is nicer than the city
2) it is cheaper than the city
3) it is quieter than the city
...and trying to make the rest of the city into a Glebe clone isn't going to solve ANY of those problems.
The Glebe is unique:
- it is close to the city
- but it isn't super dense
...basically it is a suburb that was pre-sprawl sprawl that Ottawa expanded to envelope.
The problem I have with Doucett's transit plan is that it is masquarading as two plans. A line that does commuter rail from Kanata into the core is not going to serve local on/off traffic down Carling. It is a one-or-the-other. I mean, look at how frickin' long it takes the 85 to go from downtown to Bayshore (or maybe I'm dating myself with that comment? does teh 85 still do that run?) whereas an express from kanata lakes is 60 minutes.
Or was, anyways.
I don't want to know how long it is from Morgan's Grant, it is something I've never had to do.
Bottom line, Doucett's look-how-great-the-Glebe-is campaign doesn't sell out here in Kanata. But it looks like it doesn't sell in most places, so, like I said earlier, it makes him a safe protest vote.
...and heck, if he does pull an NDP victory: he can't be any worse than Larry was, since I doubt council will listen to him, either.
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