View Single Post
  #30  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2012, 4:46 PM
Dado's Avatar
Dado Dado is offline
National Capital Region
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 2,521
What is it with people from Kanata?

Building a better Ottawa


BY BILL MACCALLUM, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 25, 2012 8:35 AM

Re: The suburbs need to keep growing, April 24. [i.e. in response to the column above]

Randall Denley's column is right on the money.

Communities such as Orléans, Barrhaven and Kanata need to be more than bedroom communities, they need to have amenities that make them a place where people can live, work, shop and play.

My wife and I moved from Ottawa to Kanata in 1996 because of a town centre/main street vision proposed by then mayor Merle Nicholds.
The plan featured an exciting "main street" reminiscent of the 1950s, with shops restaurants, apartments etc., which would have turned Kanata from an agglomeration of small villages (Hazeldean, Glencairn, South March, etc.) into a city with a heart. Alas, along came amalgamation and the dream has subsequently been snuffed out by the core-centric City of Ottawa. [my emphasis]

A number of Kanata residents still cling to a faint hope that a champion will come along and resurrect the dream.

Bill MacCallum, Kanata

---

I was with this guy until he started off about the "core-centric" (!?) City of Ottawa snuffing out a mainstreet in Kanata. I'm sorry, no, it wasn't the nasty City of Ottawa but rather the developers who never subscribed to Mayor Nicholds' plan, along with the fact that trying to establish a mainstreet parallel to and within spitting distance of a freeway probably isn't a good plan to begin with - they could have tried Hazeldean or March/Teron or Castlefrank (continued northwards) or, God forbid, Richardson Side Road before it got chopped up.

Today, the best opportunities for a mainstreet in Kanata would be:
  • Huntmar
  • the "North-South Arterial" (before the traffic engineers get the opportunity to go to town on it)
  • Campeau Drive west of Terry Fox and especially its extension past Didsbury to Huntmar/Palladium
  • Maple Grove (Terry Fox to Huntmar)
  • Hazeldean (Carp River to Stittsville, though it may be too late for this bit of road to be salvaged)
  • Second Line extension from Terry Fox to Goulbourn Forced Road and the rail line (in the KNL South March Highlands)
  • and, one that isn't on the books but should be, an extension of Carling from March Road along the rail line to Terry Fox, also in the controversial KNL South March Highlands.
__________________
Ottawa's quasi-official motto: "It can't be done"
Ottawa's quasi-official ethos: "We have a process to follow"
Reply With Quote