Ice storm update #3

I love our community! Over the past couple of days, I have travelled back and forth across College Ward, knocking on doors to check how people are doing, following up on safety concerns, and helping to get people warm food and shelter. Check out the photos below!

Dear Neighbour,

And I'm very thankful for the amazing generosity from individuals, businesses, and organizations that we've seen this week.

Just today, Scotty's Corner Diner and FreshCo in Bells Corners teamed up to supply hot soup and buns to residents who visited Bell Arena. And the Ottawa Food Bank and The Mission provided hot meals to the Harmer House seniors residence.

At the same time, managers at IKEA came in on their own time to make 400 hot meals to distribute at Pinecrest Rec Centre and Howard Darwin Arena.

I was grateful to be joined by Mayor Sutcliffe and Councillors Tierney, Dudas, Devine, and Leiper to help distribute food and to perform wellness checks in affected neighbourhoods.

My other big job for the past two days has been to communicate with Hydro Ottawa and let them know how urgently we've needed clearer, up to date information and action.

I truly appreciate the efforts of Hydro workers, who have been out 24 hours/day to restore power - they are all heroes.

Just a reminder that this holiday weekend, please monitor my social media for more updates:

Laine Johnson (@laine_johnson1) / Twitter

Laine Johnson - College Ward | Ottawa ON | Facebook

Warm regards,
Laine

Update from Hydro Ottawa

Hydro Ottawa expects that power will be restored to all customers by end of day, Saturday, April 8. Please note, this situation remains dynamic and fluid.

While the outage map is constantly updated, the estimated times for restoration have proven to be a challenge. In a number of cases yesterday, as restoration work was completed and power was restored, the circuit failed again, resulting in additional efforts on the part of the crews and missed timelines.

Given the damage to the tree canopy and the impact on our infrastructure, this is not an unusual circumstance.

Saturday will focus on any residual outage clean-up, and transition to individual homes and businesses, including those with damage to their personal electrical equipment which may require Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) permitting and additional work.

In some cases, the storm may have caused damage to resident’s home electrical equipment, such as the meter mast and wires connecting directly to the house. If this is the case, then you may need to make repairs (with a qualified electrical contractor) to the equipment before Hydro Ottawa is able to reconnect power.

City facilities available for power, washrooms, warmth

The City of Ottawa is opening the following facilities for the public's use to charge devices, use washrooms, or simply keep warm. Here are some in or close to Ward 8:

Pinecrest Recreation Centre until 8pm
Meridian Theatre at Centrepointe
Nepean Sportsplex
Howard Darwin Centennial Arena until 8pm
J.A. Dulude Arena
Bell Centennial Arena, 50 Cassidy Rd.

Pictures from our neighbourhoods

Serving soup at Bell arena

Crestview youth helping to clear brush from the road

Looking at a storm-damaged tree

Ikea staff donating their time and food for residents

The IKEA team with me, Mayor Sutcliffe, and Councillors Tierney, Dudas, Devine, and Leiper. I'm so grateful for everyone's support.

Thank you Autoedge for providing coffee and a warm place to recharge devices

Scott from Scotty's!

Todd from FreshCo!

Mayor Sutcliffe and I checking on Rossland Ave residents

Latest posts

Motion to improve road safety

Today, the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee unanimously approved my motion to improve road safety across Ottawa. Here's my motion:

WHEREAS speeding continues to be one of the most significant road‑safety concerns raised by residents across the City of Ottawa, particularly in residential neighbourhoods and school zones where vulnerable road users, including children, are at heightened risk; and

WHEREAS recent City data has shown a substantial increase in speeding in school zones, with compliance dropping from 87 percent to 41 percent within a 12‑week period following the removal of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras, and high‑end speeding increasing from 0.3 percent to over 4 percent during the same period; and

Whereas speed data is an important input in understanding risk related to more serious collisions; and

WHEREAS the city’s current approach to collecting speed data is limited and does not provide a full picture of speeds across the roadway network, and

WHEREAS other jurisdictions across Canada and internationally are increasingly incorporating innovative, technology‑enabled, and data‑driven approaches—including, predictive analytics, and AI‑supported monitoring systems—to inform their road safety programs; and

WHEREAS the City of Ottawa is currently undertaking work to update the Road Safety Action Plan, which will guide the road safety priorities for the next term of Council; and

WHEREAS this work presents an opportunity to modernize and strengthen the inputs used to make informed data-driven decisions about road safety;

THERFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff, through the update to the City’s Road Safety Action Plan, leverage advanced data analytics, predictive modelling, and AI‑supported technologies, where appropriate, to enhance the City’s ability to identify, monitor, and respond to speeding trends and inform road safety priorities

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT staff consider speed management as a focus area when developing the Road Safety Action Plan that will be presented to Council in 2027.

Progress Report: Year Three

Read the Year Three Progress Report

Dear Neighbours,

I am pleased to provide you with the College Ward Annual
Progress Report, showing the work that we did in 2025. I work hard every day to represent you on the
issues that are important to our neighbourhoods.

I hope this Progress Report is informative of the projects we
took on last year, and that it demonstrates my continuing
transparency and accountability to you. There is still more
always to do, and I list some future areas of interest.

Warm regards,
Laine

Out of Service: Ottawa’s Transit Problem

The news this week wasn’t good. Thousands of bus trips cancelled again in February. LRT down to one train for the foreseeable future. When it comes to Ottawa’s public transit, it seems there’s never good news.

Even the announcement of progress on the LRT East project was met with cynicism, given that the trains that Line 1 uses continue to have “spalling” issues with the wheel assembly.

When will it end? And what am I – one of the members of OC Transpo’s governance body – going to do about it?

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.

I have residents who are suffering immeasurably from a lack of service. Algonquin College students have the biggest uptake of the U-pass of all of Ottawa’s post-secondary institutions, but they can’t get to and from classes reliably. Bells Corners’ routes were cut during the pandemic, and the subsequent elimination of the 200 series through the New Ways to Bus changes have completely isolated that community from transit.