Construction in Rideau-Goulbourn and Drop-In Sessions

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Congratulations to Rideau-Goulbourn residents Sanchit and Riya Gupta on receiving the Mayor’s City Builder Award at Council on Wednesday, May 22. The Guptas established a chapter of MealCare, a non-profit organization that aims to combat food waste, in Ottawa. Working with local restaurants, university cafeterias and grocery stores, the Guptas take in surplus food, and, with the help of fellow volunteers, redirect it to shelters and soup kitchens where it is needed most.

Congratulations to Rideau-Goulbourn residents Sanchit and Riya Gupta on receiving the Mayor’s City Builder Award at Council on Wednesday, May 22. The Guptas established a chapter of MealCare, a non-profit organization that aims to combat food waste, in Ottawa. Working with local restaurants, university cafeterias and grocery stores, the Guptas take in surplus food, and, with the help of fellow volunteers, redirect it to shelters and soup kitchens where it is needed most.

In my most recent column, at the beginning of May, I highlighted the many culvert replacement projects that were scheduled to take place this summer. Many of these culvert renewals will lead directly into our roads program for 2020, such as Roger Stevens Drive and the other part of Rideau Valley Drive North. For now, though, I would like to focus on 2019 and let you know what you can expect to see under construction throughout Rideau-Goulbourn. Spoiler Alert: It is a lot.

We will begin with three major capital projects, two of which are ongoing. The McBean Street Bridge is still on schedule to re-open in December 2019. Construction will continue throughout the summer. The west side of the bridge is nearing completion following which the east side of the bridge will be dismantled, requiring another full closure of the bridge. We will continue to provide updates on this project. The Kanata South Link project continues as well with the widening of Old Richmond Road, between Hope Side Road and West Hunt Club as well as the construction of the roundabout at Hope Side Road. Finally, the intersection of Prince of Wales Drive and Bankfield Road will be under construction this summer as the City adds turning lanes in all directions. Additionally, Bankfield Road will be widened back to First Line Road and a signalized intersection will be installed at that point.

Onto road renewal, we have a number of Fall 2018 projects that were delayed due to the early winter that will get underway as soon as possible. Those include the McBean Street intersection with Goodstown Road, the Owlshead Road intersection with Munster Road, as well as portions of Dobson Lane, McCordick Road, and Third Line Road. These projects have already been awarded and will begin when half load restrictions are lifted from our roads. The list of 2019 road renewal projects in Rideau-Goulbourn include: 

  • Joy’s Road (Ottawa to Franktown)

  • Rideau Valley Drive North (Roger Stevens to Rideau Narrows)

  • Fallowfield Road (Eagleson to Huntley)

  • Barnsdale Road (Moodie to 416)

  • Barnsdale Road (Greenbank to Prince of Wales)

  • Hazeldean Road (Jinkinson to Carp)

  • McBean Street (Rail Crossing)

  • Dwyer Hill Road (Rail Crossing)

  • Manotick Main Street (Bankfield to Bridge)

  • Strachan (West of McBean)

  • Longfields Drive (Prince of Wales to Golflinks)

  • Carp Road (Hazeldean to Westbrook)

  • Mackey Road (Malakoff to Viola)

On our gravel roads, Paden Road will see its final lift in the two step rural road upgrade process between Harnett Road and Malakoff Road. Black’s Side Road will be upgraded using the same process this year and next between Ridingview Crescent and Flewellyn Road. McCordick Road, between Mackey Road and Cowell Road, will see new guiderails installed.

Some construction will also take place in a few of Rideau-Goulbourn’s many parks and also on a new one. Sarah McCarthy Park will see construction begin this month with a slated completion date of July. It will be Richmond’s newest park located on Cedarstone Drive. Keeping in Richmond, some final touches will be done on the work that took place in King’s Grant Park last year and the play structures at Richmond Lions Park will be replaced shortly. In Manotick, a collaborative effort between residents and my office has resulted in some new features being added to Gordon & Ivy Scharf Park. That work will also begin shortly.

Finally, in some less exciting but important nonetheless news, nearly $20M will be spent at our Trail Road waste facility which includes the replacement of the scale house and the capping of Stage 2 of the landfill. The landfill has a total of five stages. This is form part of a larger discussion in June as the Environment Committee begins discussing waste diversion and the Solid Waste Master Plan.

Drop-In Sessions

Our drop in sessions will be going on hiatus during the month of June due to the pending addition to my family but we will be back on schedule in July. I can imagine the stress this might cause you so, as always, feel free to contact my office anytime and we will do our best to assist. July will come before you know it and you can come visit at one of our next drop in sessions, with the first likely being held in Richmond.

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If you have any comments, questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or contact me by phone at 613-580-2491. For information on Rideau-Goulbourn issues, please visit RideauGoulbourn.ca.

Councillor For Hire: A busy day at the Trail Road landfill

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As many residents of Rideau-Goulbourn are aware, Scott is an active user of Twitter, which allows him to send out short updates about various topics no matter where he is. He faithfully shares the stories of his Councillor for Hire adventures, including tidbits of information he learns. This is always particularly interesting when he gets to work in City facilities.

Scott's latest took him out to the Trail Road Waste Facility, which is one of two landfills within the borders of Rideau-Goulbourn Ward. We've put together the story here for anyone who missed seeing his tweets.

Councillor for Hire: Trail Road Waste Facility

On January 31st, I had the opportunity to spend the day as an employee at the Trail Road Waste Facility, Ottawa’s very own landfill off of Moodie Drive. It was a cold, windy day but that doesn’t stop the garbage trucks from rolling in...

Storified by Rideau-Goulbourn· Wed, Feb 13 2013 09:53:09

At Trail Road Waste Facility working the Scale House to start the day. #CouncillorForHire http://pic.twitter.com/S5f81iSyScott Moffatt
Checking the temperature of the compost windrows at Trail Road! #CouncillorForHire http://pic.twitter.com/abd5n8YHScott Moffatt
Taking a tour of the new construction at the Trail Road Waste Facility, a building aiming for LEED Gold. . http://pic.twitter.com/XePKcr9PScott Moffatt
Putting on the second coat! #CouncillorForHire #TrailRoad http://pic.twitter.com/pGybiRT8Scott Moffatt
Spending the afternoon driving heavy equipment at #TrailRoad. #CouncillorForHire http://pic.twitter.com/eX5VMT2JScott Moffatt
Great day as a #TrailRoad employee! It's great to experience first hand what happens with our waste. #CouncillorForHireScott Moffatt
The one thing I learned more than any other today was that the staff here at #TrailRoad love their job. It is a great work environment.Scott Moffatt

Column: Working at the Trail Road Waste Facility

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Celebrating the life of Nick Newton

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a special event in honour of Nick Newton, a long time Manotick resident and endless volunteer.  This event, titled a Celebration of Life, was held at the Boys & Girls Club of Ottawa, a place that Mr. Newton helped raise over a million dollars in support.  At this event, individual after individual stood up and spoke about how much Mr. Newton touched their lives.  I had the honour of being there with Mayor Jim Watson to present Nick’s wife, Wendy, with a posthumous City Builder Award.  Nick Newton is a role model to many people and his memory and dedication to community will live on in all those he touched.

Manotick Community Meeting - March 7

During the Fall of 2012, I hosted meetings throughout Rideau-Goulbourn providing updates on various issues around the City and in our communities.  Since the Manotick Town Hall in October, a number of projects have moved forward and new issues have come forward.  Therefore, I have scheduled a meeting at the Manotick Arena on Thursday, March 7 from 7:00-9:00pm to discuss these issues and provide updates on the goings on around Manotick.  Items to be discussed include Van Vliet Extension, intersection improvements at Bridge Street & Dickinson Street along with Bridge Street & Manotick Main Street, and we’ll also provide updates on various developments throughout the village.  I’d also like to provide some information on Dickinson Square and the Requests for Expressions of Interest.  I’ll touch on this subject in my column next week as well.  More details about this meeting can be found in the Village Voice column in this very newspaper.

Councillor For Hire: Trail Road Waste Facility

On January 31st, I had the opportunity to spend the day as an employee at the Trail Road Waste Facility, Ottawa’s very own landfill off of Moodie Drive.  It was a cold, windy day but doesn’t stop the garbage trucks from rolling in.  In the morning, I worked the scale house where I did the weigh-ins for garbage trucks, residential waste, construction waste and a truck that barely had the life in the engine to make it up the ramp.  I thought he was bringing the truck to the dump but it turns out it was the contents.

I then went to check the temperatures of the leaf and yard waste compost wind rows.  As per the Ministry of the Environment, these need to be checked every day and need to be at least 55° Celsius.  While year round leaf and yard waste ends up at Orgaworld, the volume is so high during the fall and spring that this excess comes to Trail Road and is turned into compost on site.  After this, I went in to the new building currently under construction and did some painting.  It was the second of three coats, so clearly they didn’t trust to do that good of a job.

The rest of the day was spent on the landfill itself operating machinery, packing garbage, and bringing in material to provide cover at the end of the day.  At the end of each work day, all garbage is covered and at any given time, no more than a couple hundred square metres of garbage can actually be seen in plain sight.  It is a very impressive operation with plenty of jobs that keep the staff on site extremely busy and always moving.  After working with several different employees, one thing became very clear: these people love working here.  One individual told me that he feels he has the best job in the City of Ottawa.  It is a busy place with unpredictable weather, but there is a great team mentality here and that makes it a great place to work.

Having this landfill in Rideau-Goulbourn, it was a great opportunity to see how this operation works and also to see what happens with the different types of waste once they arrive on site.  Thanks to the staff and management for inviting me to spend the day at Trail Road as an employee.

Building a Liveable Ottawa 2031

Building a Liveable Ottawa 2031 is a city-wide review of land use, transportation and infrastructure policies that make up the Official Plan, Transportation Master Plan, Infrastructure Master Plan, Cycling Plan and the Pedestrian Plan, with an eye towards making Ottawa a more vibrant, healthy and sustainable city.

The focus of the review is to propose solutions to 12 current planning issues. The outcome of the review will be an updated Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan and supporting plans with policies and priorities that influence the future growth of our city for years to come.  When completed, the Plans will set the directions, policies and affordability priorities that will influence the future of the city for years to come.

City Council will approve the new Official Plan, Transportation Master Plan and supporting plans in December 2013. For rural residents, the proposed policies for Rural Lots and Villages, Mineral Resources and the Agricultural Land Evaluation may be of particular interest.  Tell what you think by completing our survey before March 1, 2013. For more information, visit ottawa.ca/liveableottawa and read the At a Glance backgrounders and the Preliminary Proposals in their entirety.

Goulbourn Museum Family Day Fun

Bring the entire clan to Goulbourn Museum on Family Day for crafting fun, games & a photo keepsake!  Pose for a family portrait at their Old-Fashioned Photo Booth with the option to don heritage costumes, stop at one of their craft stations, let the kids play in the replica village shop & enjoy light refreshments. 

The Family Day festivities take place Monday, February 18 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All ages welcome. Admission is free. The Goulbourn Museum is located at 2064 Huntley Road, just south of Stittsville, at Stanley’s Corners. For more information, please visit http://goulbournmuseum.ca/whats-happening/ or call 613-831-2393 or visit us on Facebook: facebook.com/GoulbournMuseum

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please email me at [email protected] or contact me by phone at 613-580-2491.

Kars Family Fun Day

Come out to the Kars Recreation Centre on February 16th from 10:00am to 2:00pm for the Kars Family Fun Day.  This event, organized by the Kars Recreation Association, will feature sleigh rides, skating and other fun activities such as Mad Science and Little Ray’s Reptiles.  Admission is free!

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If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please email me at [email protected] or contact me by phone at 613-580-2491.