Ottawa Needs Fewer People Driving Cars
I think the bike lobby is the problem. It’s a weird position to take I know, especially considering that “bike lobbies” don’t actually exist. But they sure as shit loom large in the minds of people in power who believe travel times are the pinnacle of human urban design. The longer we’ve lived without a car the more my belief cements that folks who advocate for change have mostly been doing it wrong.
I became the primary parent from 2020 through today. When the kid was burning through marathon three-hour naps I watched Ottawa city council meetings. I watched council committee meetings. I listened to them live on YouTube skating with the kid sleeping in the bike stroller. There was hardly a meeting I missed. Is this recommended? Would I do it all the same again? Fuck no. Civic “engagement” is important and frankly there is little of it across all levels of government. Yet, take it from me it’s understandable why people would not want anything to do with “being involved.”
Time and time again I heard the same thing from people and organizations advocating for anything that didn’t involve driving in a car. “Hi my name is… I live somewhere downtown and I bike…” This city doesn’t care about you. Period. The idea that somehow there will be a critical mass of people who want to move around in the urban core of this city with bikes will bring about change is frankly bullshit. No amount of death matters. No amount of data matters. No amount of “look at all the other cities around the world” matters in a city like Ottawa in 2024.
Sorry but not sorry. None of that matters. (No I don’t need you to explain that it does. As a starting point for policy maybe but not as a selling point).
What are we even fighting for? Scraps of space? It’s a constant pissing match about space. Scooters? A goddamn menace because there’s no space. So this program will be a pilot for the next decade. Utilize a few parking spaces here and there? My god, are you kidding? In this city? Do you even know how capitalism works? You socialist animals.
Over the past few years as I’ve watched the Canadian political landscape, simple taglines work. It isn’t something special or revolutionary. But it’s something that certain political persuasions are much better at than others. Simple storytelling matters. “Ax the tax” and “justinflation” repeated ad nauseam, work. The media talks about them. They permeat discourse on social media. They are heds and deks of how many opinion articles.
The story and frame matter. It matters who can be the most consistent. It matters to the mass of people who don’t care, don’t have time or are just jaded as to political processes at all levels. The quips matter. The commitment to the stupid slogans matters. The “moral high ground” that self-described progressive people like to take has not really proven to sway the types and quantities of people that need to be swayed. And as it comes to make changes to how people live and move in a city like Ottawa, the story and frame matters.
Its affordability stupid. Have I sat around trying to come up with pithy slogans? Yes. Do they make my brain hurt? Yes. Have I delivered one here? No. I’m not so convinced that it has to be a three-word slogan, but rather a simple, coherent message that fits into a larger story. And that message stays the focus. Car ownership makes life unaffordable. Ottawa as a whole requires car ownership to live, work and have any quality of life. The choices that brought public transit to the state it is today have been intentional. Deliberate. And intentional. The city machine is making life unaffordable because it requires households to own multiple personal vehicles.
This can not be about cars or bikes “if” you want suburbia to give a shit. It is not about roads or bike lanes. This is an economic issue, not a space or modality issue. Sure we need space. Primarily we need a properly functioning and funded public transit system because it’s the quickest way to make life affordable for everyone who lives in Ottawa. It is also the fastest way to get less people who live here to drive less. I don’t really know or care about Naven or Carp, or Manotick. People who choose to live there have implicitly accepted that car ownership is what they want. But there are huge parts of the city where people would absolutely drop one personal vehicle “if they could.” And this is where the city has to sharpen its focus. City councilors need to sharpen their focus. The simple linguistic change that needs to happen is “live without a car.” I don’t “bike.” I am not an “avid cyclist.” My family and I live without a car. I walk. We walk. We use bikes as the transportation vehicles they are. We use transit many times a week. I took our five-year old son to CHEO this past month using the 85 & 55 buses. I don’t really care about bike lanes. (I do obviously but follow me here). I want it to be safe and convenient for people to live in Ottawa without a car. I want people to be able to use whatever form of transportation device they own to be able to move around the city 12 months of the year. People who live in Ottawa deserve to be able to live without a car.
An important sidebar here is the conversation can often center people who are disabled as a cudgel. “We need bike lanes because of wheelchairs.” We can’t take away parking because of people who are disabled.” It’s all of a sudden a zero-sum game where folks with working legs and feet are bashing each other using groups and people who often have no voice and limited mobility options. I know I’m mentioning this as a sidebar but it could easily take center stage for a variety of reasons. People with disabilities are often the most precariously housed. They are the first that could benefit financially from not having to own a vehicle. I refuse though to use this segment of society as the club to bash home my point.
We live in Bay ward. The LRT is a couple years away from completion, and BRT down Carling is a faint hope still alive. Bay ward needs to set a very public BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) of getting… I dunno, 2,000, 3,000 households to be able to get rid of one car. Crazy right? Go big. Go very fucking big. How would your budget feel if you didn’t have to spend $400, $600, $800, or $1,300 bucks a month on one of the vehicles you own? Yes it doesn’t make the housing crisis go away but you may be able to breathe a bit easier every month.
The “we need bike lanes” talking point really needs to stop being the focus of folks who want the real change our city is desperate for. I think it’s safe to say Catherine McKenney lost their mayoral election because Mark Sutcliffe found his “ax the tax” slogan. “We can’t afford ¼ billion dollars on bike lanes” ran nonstop for weeks on every TV and social media channel. Bike lanes are a loser in a city like Ottawa. The tens of thousands of households in Barrhaven, Orleans, and Kanata do not give a shit about bike lanes. But they do give a shit about life being affordable. A city that is forcing more unaffordability because public transit is not regarded as the public good it is, is intentionally making life unaffordable for you - for your kids and your family.
I grew up on a farm and bought my first car a week after turning 16. We have a rambunctious five year old kid. I don’t care about your smug retorts about the myriad reasons why “you” need a car. I need people in power to make the changes NOW so that households can have reasons why they no longer need three.
Oh and here’s a fun postscript for you reading pleasure. Car ownership in 2024 “on average” is now than more than $1,380 a month. You’d think for all the talk of affordability, someone would stumble on the obvious 2 + 2 = 4 here.
