iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Laine Johnson @lainejohnson.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Reposted by John

Some excerpts from my piece about the state of Ottawa's public transit. Read it in the images or at www.college-ward.ca/out_of_servi... Since 2022, I’ve been wrestling with myself over a feeling of powerlessness about OC Transpo, in conflict with my ability as a decision maker to affect change.

Image of the text of an essay outlining problems and solutions to Ottawa's transit issues, page 1. The full text can be found on the CollegeWard website.

Image of the text of an essay outlining problems and solutions to Ottawa's transit issues, page 2. The full text can be found on the CollegeWard website.

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John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

The market needs increased investment in housing and mental health supports.

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Reposted by John

Urban Truth Collective @urbantruth.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

If we don’t build housing to solve homelessness, we don’t really want to solve homelessness. #UrbanTruth

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Reposted by John

Derrick Simpson @derricksimpson.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

This is bad, but then you realize that most cancellations likely happened at peak times and it starts to look really really bad. Peak time cancellations on the busiest routes means more unhappy riders, more traffic, and less fare revenue for an already broke system. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

ctvnews.ca

These were the most cancelled OC Transpo bus routes in January

Two bus routes that serve downtown Ottawa and a route that runs between Blair Station and Tunney’s Pasture had the highest percentage of bus trip cancellations in January, as OC Transpo dealt with a b...

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John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The train being held has resulted in the train overcrowding to the point of turning people away at Bayview and Pimisi. A knock-on effect of the axle issues and decreased trains in service.

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Reposted by John

bikeview.ca @bikeviewca.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Lansdowne disaster will result in injury or death for a pedestrian or cyclist. A thread of traffic of heavy equipment. A driver almost rear ending someone, then honking at them, then not looking for pedestrians to the right @shawnmenard.bsky.social @mayormarksutcliffe.bsky.social

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Lethby: “Homelessness is an inability to leverage social relationships into housing.”

McKelvie highlights Build Canada Homes as having $1 billion set aside for supportive housing.

Clarkson: “We need a sense of urgency because these are peoples’ lives … just start”

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Clarkson says that we do an enormous disservice to people experiencing homelessness by saying that they can only be successful in supportive housing. Since 2017 they’ve successfully housed 3500 people.

The Calgary drop-in emphasized learning about individuals needs and working alongside them, not for them to help them achieve their housing or other goals. They stopped thinking of shelter as a service and instead looking at shelter as a place to access other services.

Clarkson started at the Calgary drop-in centre in 2017, they started looking at who are the people we are serving. They realized that they averaged 900 stays a night, with 450 people who had been in the shelter for longer than a year. The shelter had moved from being temporary to being permanent.

Lethby: “We’ve lost the human nature of social work.” … “if we have a lower number we think that’s better” Lethby says when talking about affordable housing we don’t talk about the largest provider of affordable housing: families.

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1. 60% of the youth in the shelter were not from St Catherine’s but instead the surrounding area. 2. Youth were in school up until they were homeless. This lead to the Youth Reconnect program, working with teachers to identify youth who may be at risk of loosing their housing.

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Lethby speaks about moving from one shelter to another larger shelter and found they were running into the same capacity issues and ultimately needed to decrease demand. RAFT realized their assumptions were untrue.

Mayor Sutcliffe ends his opening remarks saying that he thinks we are getting closer and closer to ending not just youth homelessness but ending all homelessness in Ottawa.

Mayor Sutcliffe shares some opening remarks and recognizes his colleagues Clr Troster and Clr Plante in the audience. He notes that homelessness is not unique to Ottawa and solving the crisis involves data as well as compassion. He emphasizes the importance of turning words into action.

Attending the Alliance to End Homelessness event about Lessons in Emergency Shelter Transformation with Sandra Clarkson, Micheal Lethby, and Jennifer McKelvie tonight. Will share quotes and takeaways in this thread.

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In an Acquisition Update provided to council we learn the total cost of the Boundary Road waste management site was $95 million with an additional $1 million for taxes and land transfer costs.

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Sutcliffe on taxes: “Our tax increases have averaged about 3% per year, the lowest of any major city in the country”

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Sutcliffe on homelessness: “We have dramatically increased capacity so this winter fortunately we’re not running out of space to support vulnerable residents”

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Sutcliffe: “In a few months we’ll be considering a new bylaw to protect religious and cultural spaces, hospitals, schools, retirement centres. From protests that harass residents.”

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Sutcliffe: “We’re continuing to work towards uploading the LRT to the provincial government”

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Sutcliffe on transit: “I know it’s been very difficult … but the system will get better and better in the weeks and months ahead, it will get more reliable” #ottpoli

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Sutcliffe: “We’ve made significant progress on all these priorities”

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John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Mayor Sutcliffe’s opening remarks to council about residents’ priorities in 2022: Building Affordable Housing Fixing Public Transit Improving Transportation Throughout the City

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This is the same portion of the track where the train broke down 11 days ago

John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Absolutely, I also don’t that Alstom has provided us with a quality train by any means but I think those issues go back to the procurement process. If the money was there I would love to see the Spirits repurposed as streetcars and upgrade the LRT track to a heavy metro.

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John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Alstom has a track record of providing high quality trains around the globe. RTG has *gestures vaguely* . I’m not sure the fault lies with Alstom.

John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Alstom has been clear since the beginning that the track does not meet the standards for the train. The city had the opportunity to terminate our maintenance agreement with RTG in 2023, during THIS term of council, and chose to continue with RTG.

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John @johnhiemstra.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

This would be an incredible step towards making Ottawa feel like a real city and not four suburbs in a trench coat

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Reposted by John

Better Transit Ottawa @bettertransitottawa.ca · 16/01/2026

Last week, there were days where 41% of scheduled trips were missing from the roads OC Transpo is now cutting some trips to be more honest, but we're still seeing a significant number of delays and cancellations — and there aren’t enough buses on order to fill the gap. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Even with the reduced schedule, at 8:45 AM today:

90 scheduled trips weren't running
40 trips were cancelled entirely

OC Transpo desperately needs more
buses and the current order schedule
will not be enough

We are asking OC Transpo to:
- Order more high-capacity buses to properly expand and replace our aging fleet
- Increase funding for transit priority measures on corridors such as Bank St, Carling Ave, and Baseline Rd to use our limited buses as efficiently as possible
- Hire and retain additional mechanics with improved pay and working conditions in order to keep our existing buses in service

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My train and the subsequent westbound trains were held at Parliament until the Lyon platform was available.

Service at Pimisi is on track 2 as well but since it’s a center running platform it isn’t having as large of an impact.

There’s a stranded train in the tunnel and passengers need to switch onto the shuttle train.

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Announcement at Lyon only mentioned those two stations. Sat still in the tunnel between Lyon and Pimisi right now. Will update as we pass through Pimisi.

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All service at Bayview and Lyon is on track 2.