Deachman: A New Year's Ottawa wish list

Happy New Year, Ottawa! May you get all you deserve in 2025

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Published Dec 31, 2024  •  4 minute read

If we're not going to fix our potholes, let's put them to good use. Photo by DARREN BROWN /Postmedia

What could be more soul-crushing than the New Year’s resolution, that annual not-so-gentle reminder of a) our miserable failings; and b) our inadequate resolve to address those shortcomings beyond perhaps a week-long window? It’s so much simpler, I’ve discovered, to spend time simply becoming more at peace with our foibles: our overweightedness, our inability to play piano or make sourdough starter; our assorted vices and crutches.

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Coming up with a list of resolutions and wishes for Ottawa, however, is manageable. The onus of solving them doesn’t rest on our individual shoulders. Some self-improvements are out of our hands entirely, while other upgrades can be shared, lightening the load for each of us.

Here, then, are some New Year’s hopes for Ottawa. Let’s come out of 2025 looking and feeling better, yeah?

Broken-down LRT at the St. Laurent Station in 2020. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia News

The end of Ottawa’s Lamentable Rail Troubles

What? That’s not what LRT stands for? Fingers crossed for the Jan. 6 opening of the Trillium line, but the Confederation line still churgles and fubbles along, occasionally having to send out the bat-signal for replacement buses. Could 2025 be the year Ottawa finally boasts an efficient rolling stock, not a laughing stock? If not, can we at least turn the spectacle into a game show or something, where, say, for every 10 minutes that the system is down, a “rider” is chosen at random and awarded $1,000? Or replace the trains with those annoying streetcar-type vehicles you have to pedal yourself? (If nothing else, it would get them off Bank Street.)

The Chief William Commanda Bridge. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia

Public spaces for the public, year-round

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More public washrooms and benches, please. And paths, bridges and staircases cleared of snow. Oh — don’t forget sidewalks that are navigable in the winter. And more beach supervision when the weather calls for it, not just in an arbitrarily set season that ignores the temperature. Ottawa gets really hot AND cold during the year; we shouldn’t have to shut down for either.

Political civility is always on the wish list for Ottawa. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press

Respect and decency regardless of your political views

Federal politics isn’t my bailiwick, and when MPs start using terms like “wacko” and “unhinged” to describe each other, I’m grateful it isn’t. If I want childishness, I’ll move to somewhere near Mar-a-Lago. How about this: every day, two MPs from different parties are randomly selected to be Parliament Hill tour guides together. A little public-facing cooperation might go some way towards cooling down the rhetoric.

Wellington Street could use a facelift. Photo by Spencer Colby /The Canadian Press

Does it HAVE to take an entire village?

Wellington Street. Make it beautiful.

A large pothole on Bay Street. Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia

Reduce speeding while doing something about the condition of our roads

Have potholes finally won the low-property-taxes-versus-municipal-services battle? Was 2024 the year we simply stopped trying? If so, let’s instead plant trees in some of them. It will help fight climate change, beautify the city and help reduce speeding without the need for seasonal flexboards.

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PSAC strikers in Ottawa in April 2023. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

Of remote interest

May 2025 be the year that the feds and their unions agree on WHATEVER work plan — hybrid or otherwise — best gets the job done with the least rancour. I’m so tired of rancour. I think we all are.

A homeless man sleeping on a park bench at Minto Park on a cold winter morning. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

A chicken in every pot, a pot in every home, a home for every person

Homelessness and lack of affordable housing are at unsustainable levels. By all means, take a look at federal immigration policies and housing-first initiatives, and determine more appropriate funding from all levels of government. But the bottom line is that there are currently too many people in Ottawa living in deplorable conditions. Let’s make changing that a priority for real this time.

Sens fans took over Elgin Street during the first game of the Stanley Cup finals against Anaheim Ducks in 2007. Photo by Ashley Fraser /The Ottawa Citizen

Break out the face paint

Remember when the Ottawa Senators made that mad dash through to the Stanley Cup finals in 2007, and almost again a decade later? Houses, businesses and vehicles were bedecked in red, black and white, and Elgin Street’s Sens Mile bustled with flags, face-paint, joy, hope and pride. The city was grinning from Orléans to Kanata.

Ottawa is so much more fun when its teams are winning. Heading into the final day of 2024, the team was clinging on to the final wild-card spot, and if it manages to maintain or improve upon that, at least 2,885 days will have passed between its last and next playoff games.

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Meanwhile, the Ottawa Charge of the PWHL, only one-fifth of the way through its 30-game regular season, is similarly scraping at the edges of the playoffs. Let’s hope that 2025 is the year both teams bring it home!

Should 2025 be the year we take action on daylight savings? Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

A prayer for the new year

May 2025 grant us all the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I’m not sure where daylight savings time fits in all this, but can we give it a whirl?

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