It's Jamie
sjamieit.bsky.social
It's Jamie
@sjamieit.bsky.social
Municipal issues, data, transportation, history, yelling at drivers. Serious ideas, unserious person. Lots of original content. Pretend journalist. 🚲👶🌳

Centretown, Ottawa, Ontario
Ontario property assessments haven't been done since 2016 and it's getting ridiculous. Suburban homes are paying much lower property taxes than they should be.

Annual property taxes:
↙️ $8575 | $6360 ↘️
November 9, 2025 at 12:09 AM
I just heard a sidewalk plow go past my house. 😐
November 8, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by It's Jamie
You would think the mayor was being ironic here when he says that we can't acquiesce to demands of wealthy sports owners, right before he says we need to be careful we don't lose the other wealthy sports owners in the same stadium 🤣🤣

#Ottawa #Lansdowne2.0
November 7, 2025 at 8:51 PM
The city finally released updated traffic collision data today! I haven't even had a chance to look at it yet. But why is 2023 missing?

open.ottawa.ca/datasets/ott...
October 31, 2025 at 3:28 AM
"Why do very wealthy multi-national business owners in Kanata support Lansdowne 2.0"

Uhh... because they're very wealthy.
October 29, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Huge police presence in the Glebe this morning, outside the Cameroon Embassy and staged elsewhere around the neighbourhood. The police had a drone flying around as well and there were traffic barriers ready to close off the street.
October 27, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by It's Jamie
Financially productive land isn't just found in downtown #OttCity.

Transit can act as a wealth accelerator and increases the productivity of nearby properties. Here
@strongtownsottawa.ca
shows how today's highest productive land still remains generally aligned with 1929 streetcar routes.
October 25, 2025 at 6:40 PM
The math on Lansdowne 2.0 is all lies and gimmicks.

Like, $6 million from raising the hotel tax. That doesn't actually have anything to do with Lansdowne.

Say we raised property taxes 2% and just said it all goes to Lansdowne 2.0, is that Lansdowne 2.0 paying for itself? Of course not. 🧵
Hitting go on Lansdowne 2.0: Key details from the city's final report | CBC News
The final reports about updating Ottawa's Lansdowne Park have been made public. Here's what they say about the cost, the financing, the contractors and more.
www.cbc.ca
October 23, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Drivers like this are the reason people get run over in crosswalks.
October 20, 2025 at 3:37 PM
The city's doing a traffic count on a Percy Street while the road is still closed on Google Maps. I'm sure that's going to give accurate numbers /s
October 15, 2025 at 1:01 PM
On my way home tonight, I must have been holding up traffic so badly on this 30km/h, single file, local street, that this pickup driver decided to ride my ass, yell things at me, and try to run me off the road.

He said "you're not a car!" I guess to him that means I can't use the road or something.
October 15, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Finally.

Please, somebody buy this eyesore and tear it down.

www.realtor.ca/real-estate/...
October 15, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Yuck.
October 12, 2025 at 7:05 PM
I head again today from Ottawa By-law, they're no longer accepting reports for illegal driveway expansions or hardscaping or front yard parking. Apparently there are only 4 officers for these zoning issues and there are far too many reports than they can keep up with. They need more resources.
October 11, 2025 at 2:14 AM
The RCMP officer got in contact with the driver of the truck this morning. The officer told me that the driver said he thought he had given me enough room when passing. 🤨
October 10, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Close-passed by a transport truck this morning, which by the way, isn't even allowed to use this road (NCC Driveway - no commercial vehicles).
October 9, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Does anyone actually prefer the signalized crossing on Bay Street at Gladstone over the stop sign and PXO at Somerset?

I've spent over 3 minutes waiting at this intersection before. It seems most people prefer to just look both ways and cross against the light.
October 9, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Community Benefits Charges go to Council today. The proposal is to reduce them from 4% of land value to 2% (or 1% near transit.)

This is a tax on renters and new homebuyers, and also a tax on density, as it only kicks in at 5 storeys - sprawl pays no CBCs.

Tax the things you want to DISCOURAGE.
170 Slater, the collapsed parking garage being redeveloped into 538 residential units.

Community Benefits Charge (CBC): ~$600,000
Development Charges (DC): ~$13,000,000

Of those DCs, about $3-million goes exclusively towards suburban arterial roads. Those should be eliminated long before the CBCs.
October 8, 2025 at 12:34 PM
I'd love to see Ottawa give more local control to smaller regions of the city. An amalgamated city where every policy and decision needs to apply to rural, suburban, and urban areas equally simply does not work.
This video is a long time coming.

People always ask me: what makes Montreal so ambitious on urbanism? (At least for bikes and pedestrians.)

I've been thinking through this and asking Montrealers, and in this video I want to cover *part* of the answer.
The Secret of Montreal’s Urbanism Success
YouTube video by Oh The Urbanity!
youtu.be
October 7, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Had to hold my tongue here.

Why do they always park on the sidewalk?
October 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
The City needs to dedicate way more resources to this problem. The fact that they can't keep up with reports is not a good sign.
October 5, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Someone should be locked up for this.

Somerset Street at Bay Street.
October 4, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Hey @ctvnewsottawa.bsky.social @tedraymond.bsky.social. This is a pretty big deal. Less than two years ago staff said they can't keep up with front yard parking violations and limited enforcement to post 2007, pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.a...

Now they're not enforcing it at all.
An email I received today from Ottawa By-law:

"Management has just announced a pause on all further enforcement for driveway and walkway widenings, including those on the City Right of Way, while the City discusses how to navigate the large influx of reported issues around the City."
October 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
From councilor David Hill's recent post.

You can't build a $380,000,000 road with just $558,000 in DCs (not to mention the Greenbank Realignment only makes up 8.7% of that DC, so it's actually only like $49,000)

Downtown developments that do not require new roads are paying for this road project.
October 4, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Update on this, the city has put the whole intersection on a timer. Sensors still don't work, beg buttons are disconnected, it just cycles for every direction.

I can't believe it took them all week to address this situation.
"Reopened" Percy Street. Sidewalks still blocked off, vehicle sensors didn't work, several cars running the red light, honking at each other, honking at cyclists, traffic backed up down the block.

"Doesn't qualify for traffic calming."
October 3, 2025 at 10:09 PM