Weekly newsletter: May 13, 2025
Hi, everyone! A belated Happy Mother’s Day!
On Friday, the police station under construction in Barrhaven reached an important milestone, with the installation of the last structural beam to “top off” the structure.
The building overall is 50 per cent complete, with building envelope and interior work beginning soon. Unfortunately, the additional foundational piling that was needed last year has delayed the operational date of the facility by a year to spring 2027.
Also of note, the coming Monday, May 19, is Victoria Day. Black bin, green bin, and yard waste will be collected on Wednesday instead of Tuesday next week.
Barrhaven Pumping Station
Upgrades to improve capacity and resiliency.
To residents in the “northwest triangle” of the ward, it’s a mysterious building some may have wanted to peek inside, but to the City, it’s an important drinking water asset.
Creatively named the Barrhaven Pumping Station, the facility at 124 Holitman Drive will receive upgrades to its security and pumping capacity over the next two years, as part of a larger overall upgrade to drinking water capacity for the southern part of Ottawa.
Mobilisation begins in the coming weeks into the summer. The overall project includes:
Addition of perimeter fencing
Addition of concrete pad for portable generator
Addition of fourth pump
Upgrades to diagnostic software, backup control, power system
To start, permanent chain-link perimeter fencing will be added around the building as a minor security enhancement. The fence will be black so it’s less visually obtrusive.
To facilitate the fence, two trees at the Holitman frontage of the property will be removed. Four new trees will be planted in Neill-Nesbitt Park as replacements — actual locations within the park to be determined.
Some residents may have noticed the utility locate flags that have been placed in the ground around the building.
A concrete pad will also be constructed as a space for a mobile generator in the event of a prolonged power outage. The pad will be located within the fenced area on the Holitman frontage and may be used for temporary equipment storage during the rest of construction.
Expected completion of the fencing and pad is the upcoming summer.
Work on the pumping infrastructure inside the building is expected to begin in the summer, with the most substantial work happening throughout 2026. Much of this work will be indoors, with some temporary equipment storage outdoors as mentioned earlier.
A new 30-million-litre/day pump will be installed inside the building alongside its three existing pumps. The new pump will not only provide extra capacity for the growth in the south, it will also add redundant pumping capacity to the pumping station near Greenboro (both pumps serve the south together).
The new pump is currently being manufactured in Germany and should arrive in Ottawa in six to eight months. The City originally considered a pump from an American manufacturer, but tariffs have made the cost of the American pump uncertain.
Upgrades will also be made to a backup pump driver, which will be powered by a mobile generator brought on site in the event of a prolonged power outage. After the upgrade is complete, a mobile generator will visit the site to test the new connection into the building and the pump driver.
On the back end, a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system will be upgraded to improve maintenance and monitoring practices.
The expected completion of all works is December 2026. Construction notices will soon be delivered to homes fronting the site. No impacts to drinking water service are expected during these works.
Water services staff and I are also considering some form of open house and community outreach upon completion of the works. If feasible, that will be coordinated closer to the completion of the works.
Community association
Gauging community interest and volunteer uptake.
The majority of Barrhaven East is one of just a few communities in the City not represented by an active community association.
The previous Barrhaven East Community Association (BECA) formally dissolved a few months ago, but some residents have expressed an interest in reviving it. BECA’s boundaries included the communities of Longfields, Davidson Heights, Chapman Mills, and Havenlea, plus smaller neighbourhoods within those areas.
Community associations operate independently of the City and rely on the kindness and time investment from volunteers, but they can play an important supporting role in community events and initiatives, plus civic engagement and advocacy.
Elsewhere in the City, community associations help organise local cleanup events (mostly through Cleaning the Capital), neighbourhood barbecues and events, oversee outdoor rinks, and help manage some of the smaller community buildings.
They have better access to municipal and third-party funding and grants to support those events and initiatives, which gives them the potential to be a valuable community asset, especially combined with the City’s updated community partner insurance policy and the upcoming overhaul of the community gardens/green initiatives strategy.
(Side note: the community gardens/green initiatives strategy can be a path towards proper maintenance/upkeep for community gateway signage.)
To be recognised by the City, a community association must include an elected board, keep meeting minutes, and hold annual general meetings. Typically, access to funding and grants improve after two years of existence.
Anyway, as these entities exist independent of the City and Council, I am hoping to gauge the level of community interest in reviving a community association for Barrhaven East, as well as people who may be interested in taking on roles within it.
It could also include discussions about setting up smaller associations more focused on specific communities rather than one large one for the ward.
For residents of Hearts Desire, please note a community association already exists in your community.
Please reach out by replying to this newsletter or emailing Wilson.Lo@ottawa.ca!
Well water testing
For residents on private wells in Hearts Desire and Rideau Glen.
Private well owners are encouraged to have their water tested seasonally, even if it looks, smells, and tastes fine.
Ottawa Public Health offers free well water testing↗ for residents across Ottawa. Residents are provided with sample bottles, which are then dropped off at a designated location and sent off to a laboratory to test for indicators of bacterial contamination (coliforms and E. coli).
OPH has designated drop-off locations↗ in Manotick (Tuesdays only) and at Centrepointe (Monday to Friday), but they are willing to host a bottle pick-up and sample drop-off in Barrhaven East semi-regularly.
Would that interest any residents? Let me know by replying to this newsletter or by emailing Wilson.Lo@ottawa.ca!
Please visit Ottawa Public Health’s website for more information about their free well water testing programme↗.
OC Transpo service cuts – more field notes
An over-reliance on numbers and data?
Two Mondays ago, the first weekday after the service cuts, I spent the morning and afternoon peak periods at Fallowfield and Tunney’s Pasture stations to see how the new bus network was performing at the two most critical points for Barrhaven transit users.
I focused on the “how,” as in consistency and reliability in departures, rather than the “what,” as in availability and level of service of the new network.
Considering it was the first day after a major change for passengers and employees, I concluded the system performance was okay that Monday. Despite a few gaps in service that day, consistency was generally good, and all trips were assigned an appropriate bus type.
A fuller read about the first Monday is in my April 29 newsletter.
However, from my own experience at OC Transpo, the first Monday of a service change is never the best representation of a new schedule cycle, so I spent some more time the rest of the first week to collect a larger data set:
Tuesday, April 29 – morning at Fallowfield
Wednesday, April 30 – afternoon at Tunney’s Pasture
Thursday, May 1 – afternoon at Fallowfield
Turns out Monday’s “okay” was as good as it got.
A note, firstly — “gap” and “delay” are used here as separate terms. Though their meanings are straightforward on their own, gap being the gap between buses and delay being how late a bus is, they don’t always correlate.
For example, if every bus on a route with a 15-minute frequency was delayed by 15 minutes, the gap between each bus is still 15 minutes (though there would be a 30-minute gap before the first delayed bus, and a zero-minute gap after the last delayed bus).
Service northbound from Fallowfield on Tuesday (April 29) morning was comparable to Monday, but the bus type assignment changed to a smaller vehicle on a few trips, resulting in more trips entering Fallowfield Station full.
There were more instances of buses arriving together, though there actually were fewer large gaps (10 minutes or more) than Monday morning.
However, if Tuesday morning’s data is sorted by route, one would see more large gaps on individual routes, which affects passengers who get on before Fallowfield Station.
Of note is the poor performance of route 74 for the second morning in a row. Although just one trip was cancelled, some of the remaining trips were delayed to the point of arriving with the next bus—to some passengers, that feels like a cancellation (I’ve repeatedly pointed this out to OC as information their data does not show).
Afternoon service from Tunney’s Pasture Wednesday (April 30) afternoon was like Tuesday morning. With all routes combined, there were three large gaps of 14, 15, and 19 minutes, all of which resulted in major platform crowding, but the real story was the individual route performance.
Routes 74 and 75 each had multiple gaps of more than 20 minutes, while the 277 had one 43-minute gap (13-minute delay).
While the data for combined departures and individual routes is important, the real concern is where their gaps coincide, especially in the afternoon. For example, somebody waiting for the 74 Limebank at Tunney’s Pasture may get crowded out of the route they need by others who only need to get to a stop along the way.
Finally, on Thursday, May 1, I spent the afternoon peak at Fallowfield. Here, the buses arriving from the north gives a rough picture of how service from Tunney’s Pasture performed, but I was mostly interested in the departures into the community from Fallowfield.
Route 70 performed the worst, with gaps of 25, 27, and 30 minutes noted for a route with a 15-minute frequency, meaning those trips were delayed by 10, 12, and 15 minutes. That’s every other trip in the two hours I was there.
Interestingly, if every trip was delayed by 10 to 15 minutes, it wouldn’t have been as big an issue, since service would still be departing regularly at the advertised frequency.
Some former co-workers indicated route 70’s problem is poor run time — the operator simply can’t safely keep up with the schedule. The few trips that did depart on time seemed to have arrived at Fallowfield on a different route.
I don’t know if there is a finer recent example of paper versus reality.
On paper, the departures are spaced out consistently, with combined departures from Fallowfield in the morning and Tunney’s Pasture in the afternoon averaging every three or four minutes.
On paper, the afternoon local portions of every route after Fallowfield operate at frequencies that aren’t worse than any other part of the network (though there’s always benefit in higher frequencies).
But the execution of the new bus network, especially at peak, was, for me, an indication there may be an over-reliance by staff on data and numbers, rather than reality.
Using route 70 Limebank, I decided to try something — comparing the travel time provided by the bus schedule to the travel time Google Maps suggests on the same route (minor differences where there are bus-only roadways).
In the bus schedule, route 70 Limebank departing Fallowfield Station at 4:00 pm on a weekday has the following run times between major stops:
Fallowfield to Costco – 13 minutes
Costco to Tartan/Jockvale – 11 minutes
Tartan/Jockvale to Marketplace – 8 minutes
Marketplace to Nepean Woods – 15 minutes
Nepean Woods to Limebank – 13 minutes
In comparison, Google Maps suggested the following driving times the afternoon of Thursday, May 8, tracing the exact same route. Note there are minor differences in the Google Maps route where there are bus-only roadways. Also note, the travel time provided by Google Maps is for a car:
Fallowfield to Costco – 13 minutes
Costco to Tartan/Jockvale – 10 minutes
Tartan/Jockvale to Marketplace – 9 minutes
Marketplace to Nepean Woods – 15 minutes
Nepean Woods to Limebank – 9 minutes
On its schedule, the 4:00 pm 70 Limebank from Fallowfield Station is given 60 minutes to complete the route, while Google Maps suggests 56 minutes for the same drive in a car.
Both the car and bus contend with 23 traffic signals (signals where the route turns right are not counted) and 15 all-way stops, so what’s the flaw? Well, to start, a bus has a lower rate of acceleration/deceleration, and it has up to 69 bus stops to service.
A bus stop typically costs a bus an average of 30 seconds compared to a car. Time loss comes from the bus’ deceleration, the stop itself, and acceleration. The average generally offsets some stops that take less time and others that take more time.
During peak hour, one can reasonably assume a route like the 70 would need to service, conservatively, half its stops, so 35 of 69. Using the 30-second average, the bus would need an extra 17 and a half minutes for bus stops alone.
That doesn’t factor in the slightly longer time it takes to accelerate from any stopped position, like traffic signals and stop signs.
The point is this exercise seems to point to a reliance on numbers and data. I would never suggest planning the timing of every individual trip by driving it, since even then, there are day-to-day variances, but an attainable schedule can only be achieved through a combination of data and real-world application.
I have shared all this with OC Transpo staff for their attention. I’ll continue to stay engaged to the issues, including more time outside where possible.
Aside from that, I’m still working with staff on restoring LDHSS school trip service on Beatrice Drive, but it’s looking more like something for September now.
That was a longer read than I originally planned for this week, but I hope it was worthwhile. Weather-wise, it’s looking like a good week!
-Wilson