Christine has been pushing city hall for three years to make her street a higher priority for sidewalk plowing, but without success.
“It’s a real struggle to get to school. Normally I wouldn’t do what I did (Tuesday) because the snow is just too heavy,” she said. But this time she figured it was light enough to handle.
"Once I have to take the train, I'm going to have to get off at the Rideau Centre, go downstairs, wait for the train, hope the train isn't packed, hope the train shows up when it's supposed to show up, get on the train, go four blocks, get off the train, go all the way upstairs and then walk to my office," she said.
"It's going to add 10 or 15 minutes at least to a one way trip."
A pop-up bike lane closed two lanes of traffic, one in each direction, from Moodie Drive south of Robertson Road and north of Seyton Drive from 10- 4 Sunday. The makeshift bike lane was created out of pylons as a way for frustrated cyclists to prove a point to the city.
“The pylons are a temporary barrier to create a safe space on the road for people to bike,” said organizer Trevor Haché, vice president of the Healthy Transportation Coalition.
Des résidents du quartier Bells Corners à Ottawa tentent de rendre leur quartier plus sécuritaire et d'y encourager l'utilisation de transports actifs. La Coalition pour les transports sains d'Ottawa a donc aménagé une voie cycliste temporaire sur la promenade Moodie, dimanche.
De 10 h à 16 h, entre la route Robertson et la promenade Seyton, deux voies de circulation aux véhicules motorisés ont été temporairement fermées, une de chaque côté de la promenade Moodie.
Residents in Bells Corners installed makeshift bike lanes out of pylons Sunday to demand safer cycling infrastructure and lower speeds on roads in their community.
Cyclists and pedestrians say they're frustrated with the conditions on Moodie Drive south of Robertson Road and north of Seyton Drive, which is where the pop-up lanes went up Sunday morning.
A downtown councillor who wants more affordable housing near the city's LRT and bus rapid transit stations has told staff to start looking for land already owned by government.
While funding many of those types of housing projects often depends on other levels of government, the hardest part can be finding a place to build.
"We need to do everything we can in our power, and the Governments need to do everything they can in their power to make sure that our city is equitable and inclusive," said Trevor Haché, Vice-President of Healthy Transportation Coalition. He added, "if the city is building this massive light rail project, we need to ensure it's not just the wealthy that can afford to live next to it."
State-of-the-art transit systems like the one Ottawa's planning tend to drive up the value of real estate nearby, and drive people with low incomes out of those neighbourhoods, said Trevor Haché of the Healthy Transportation Coalition.
"We know that there's a tremendous shortage of deeply affordable housing in Ottawa," Haché said. He encouraged councillors to think creatively about how to solve that problem.
