Derrick Simpson

Four Candidates. One Big Problem. COMING THIS FRIDAY 'WHO'S GOING TO FIX TRANSIT?' a new special where I sit down with Ottawa's Mayoral Candidates on how they plan to fix the transit system. Premiering October 16th on Rogers TV and YouTube 🚏🚍 #ottawa #cndpoli #publictransit

Spoke with the Ottawa Citizen about the perceived lack of parking downtown. “It’s more valuable to provide housing than it is to have surface level parking lots,” he said. “We can have buildings; we can have houses; we can have restaurants; we can have parks.” ottawacitizen.com/public-servi...

Shocked. Shocked, I say. How could this have happened? The water main there under O'Connor Street is only 123 years old (1903). Practically brand new! /s I'm sure the city was hoping to kick that can down the road for at least another decade. It's not even on the planned 5 year construction map.

Why do I have the feeling that I’m about to become a GIF?

"Sean Devine publicly supported the introduction of a congestion tax. This is part of his War On Cars strategy."

The Ottawa Urbanism Book Club will be meeting at Sunnyside Public Library at 6:15pm on September 28 to discuss Walkable City by Jeff Speck. One of the best and most accessible urbanism books I've ever read. No RSVP required, and reading is optional.

The Centretown Community Association is disappointed by the lack of consultation and true solutions included in Ottawa’s return to office traffic plan. Ottawa’s RTO traffic plan will lead to more traffic congestion, more road safety concerns, and more unreliable public transit in Centretown.

The Ottawa Urbanism Book Club’s social meet up and book swap is happening tonight at the Bank and Waverley Street Seats. Starts at 6:30, and there will be a lot of free books being given away. Bringing a book or RSVPing is not required!

The Ottawa Urbanism Book Club is hosting a social meet up and book swap this Tuesday, August 18 at 6:30 pm at the Bank and Waverley Street Seats. Already had people let me know they’re bringing a big selection of architecture and urbanism books to give away. Bringing a book is not required!

Ottawa is so cooked on return to office. We spent an hour and 10 minutes in traffic for what’s a 12 minute drive outside of rush hour. Makes me sad that OC Transpo has gotten so much worse, and people are not being allowed to work from home more often. God help all of us in September.

Point #3 in Sutcliffe's 48 point plan to improve traffic flow: "Ensure pathways, multi-use pathways (MUPs), and cycling infrastructure (including bike lanes) are well maintained, swept and not unnecessarily impacted by nearby construction." Um, shouldn't the city be doing all those things already?

Where was this energy at council last week? $20 million of the $30 million RTO plan is going to expanding a suburban park and ride. No additional service for major downtown routes like the 6, 7, and 14. No significant urban bus priority measures like bus lanes.

Went to the beach in a very car dependent area in Southern Ontario and a person that joined us spent 30 minutes looking for parking. All the parking was free. If parking was priced based on demand, finding parking would be easy!

I can’t recommend The Years of Lyndon Johnson book series by Robert Caro highly enough. Just finished the 2nd book and so far it’s shaping up to be even better than The Power Broker. The best piece of media I’ve ever read on the extent some people will go to acquire power.

The next Ottawa Urbanism Book Club will be July 27 at 6:15pm at Sunnyside Public Library. We’ll be discussing Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City by Jorge Almazán. Reading is optional and RSVP is not required.

I mostly like Ottawa’s E-Scooter system, but I can’t stop thinking about how much better bike share would be. Makes me sad that Ottawa is showing no real urgency in setting up a bike share program. Most major Canadian cities have bike share, we should too!

Finally visited the Chinatown Street Seats early this morning and man it’s nice. Best part is definitely the ping pong table, the shade is a nice touch too.

“Bike Share Toronto is an impressive success story: a public policy that for a relative pittance has blossomed into a substantial way to move people around Ontario’s biggest city in a way that doesn’t add to car congestion or require billion-dollar decades-long construction projects.”

We're honored to be recognized by an organization doing such important work such as @ecologyottawa.bsky.social ! This couldn't have been done without all of the members who helped out along the way. None of this is a one person job! Thank you to all of our wonderful members!

I spoke with CBC about parking in Centretown, why we need to build more housing downtown, and why we need to price parking based on supply and demand. www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...

CBC had a great episode about parking in downtown! We need to give people good alternatives to driving so that we can get people to where they need to go. Parking is some of the worst land usage we can have in the downtown core of the city. www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...

Such an amazing turnout last night at our monthly meeting! Great conversations about next steps for bus lanes on Bank Street, the upcoming election, and our future advocacy! If you're looking to join in on the fun, check out our next events at luma.com/STO We look forward to seeing you there!

Disappointment at council today. Council just passed a motion from Councillor Menard for the Bank Street bus lane study which will restrict bus lanes even further from staff's proposed 3 hours to 2 hours. This means we will get no data about how parking affects bus flow in the area.

After 30+ people showed up to the Public Works commission last week in support of expanding bus lanes on Bank Street, City Council has now passed a motion to reduce the scope of the bus lanes even further This motion was passed with absolutely no debate Passed without a single question

Here’s my issue: this is obvious that it makes sense: there’s zero reasons to not implement this. Why does it take grassroots orgs, deputations, endless discussions, debates and reviews to implement good policy, make decisive leadership decisions. We are buried in bureaucracy for the sake of 1/

We have sent a letter out with our 4 key asks for the upcoming Bus Lanes on Bank Street report coming to PWIC on March 30th. You can read the asks here : strongtownsottawa.ca/2026/03/24/o... The letter is also attached in the post. Want to delegate? strongtownsottawa.ca/2026/03/23/f...

Thank you to the @natashabaldin.bsky.social at the Citizen for covering such an important issue! We need reliable transit not only to get people to and from work, but at all times of day! Students at Carleton, mothers picking up groceries, kids getting to the movies ottawacitizen.com/news/bus-lan...

The current plan calls for changes not to take effect for more than a year from now (Summer 2027) This is unacceptable when we are facing a severe bus shortage and bus reliability crisis. Any bus wasted sitting in traffic means a bus cancelled elsewhere in the network.

City staff has released the agenda for the PWIC March 30th meeting, where Bank Street Bus Lanes will be discussed (item 5.2). Please consider signing up to delegate in favour of expanding bus lanes further. On-street parking is extremely underused here and is standing in the way of real progress.

Spoke with CTV Ottawa about the need for bus lanes on Bank Street. “We really think that considering the transit crisis right now in Ottawa, that bus lanes are a really great way to speed up transit and to reduce costs,” www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

The Centretown Community Association has sent a letter suggesting changes and improvements to the Bank Street Transit Study. As the busiest bus corridor in Ottawa, Bank street needs to prioritize moving people over cars.

An amazing member of ours put together this graphic that really encapsulates perfectly the situation on Bank Street. There is only so much space available, and we must use it as efficiently as possible. Parking isn't that. Please sign up to delegate on March 30th in favour of bus lanes!

Apologies, just wanted to correct a small thing. The second figure, 25, is not how the owners got there, but actually what the owners THINK that customers primarily use to get to their stores. So again just showing that owners heavily overestimate how many customers drive.

The Glebe BIA had a report done about the area. We think this image perfectly encapsulates the reason for hesitancy by the business owners to get rid of parking. While 86% of the respondents who come to shop said they get there by means other than driving, 94% of the owners said they drove.

One thing I feel ought to be discussed more is the fact that basically all rural and suburban places in the US are subsidized by cities. They resent cities. They insult cities. They elect politicians who abuse cities. But none of them could survive without cities.

Thanks to Mary Huang from the Centretown Community Association for coming to Finance Committee today, to voice support for the city’s acquisition of the hotel at O’Connor and Gladstone for family transitional housing.

This is amazing news. As someone who lives in Centretown, I’m happy to say “yes in my backyard!”

This is a very clever bit of writing from @robattrell.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy on the evolution of suburbs really in North America through the post-war period, and how they can be made better.

The agenda for February's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee is up and still no Bank Street bus lanes. It was supposed to be on the agenda for this meeting, but has been delayed yet again. This "pilot project" has been in the works for over 4 years, and is now over a year behind schedule.

This is bad, but then you realize that most cancellations likely happened at peak times and it starts to look really really bad. Peak time cancellations on the busiest routes means more unhappy riders, more traffic, and less fare revenue for an already broke system. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Has “Board of Trade” met “Ottawa public transit”?

At Planning Committee yesterday, we voted unanimously to replace a road that was originally going to connect Preston to Lebreton Flats with a pedestrian and cycling bridge. This is a win for active transportation and for traffic management in Little Italy. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Shoutout to @stephanieplante.bsky.social for speaking out on unfair transit reliability issues downtown. Thank you for stating your commitment to bus-only lanes and transit priority signals. Let’s speed up the 6, 7 and more urban routes! cc: @arieltroster.com @shawnmenard.bsky.social

It was wonderful seeing everyone who came out to the social last night! Look out for our next monthly meeting on the 12th which will focus on the zoning bylaw and infill! Info available on our website events section! strongtownsottawa.ca#Events

We don’t talk enough about how slowly the City of Ottawa moves to help residents. The Bank Street Transit Study was first proposed in 2021, and its implementation has been delayed again. The worst part? The study’s proposal includes just 2 hours of combined bus lanes a day!

We are building the first-ever standalone public bathroom facility in downtown Ottawa. It’s about damn time. Public toilets are a basic human need. Because when you gotta go, you gotta go … www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Thank you, Ottawa Citizen, for publishing my op-ed today on the financial crisis that municipalities across the country are facing due to aging infrastructure. To read the story, please visit the Ottawa Citizen web site and look for the Opinion section. @OttawaCitizen.com

Next Ottawa Urbanism Book Club on January 26 will discuss Ottawology by @tonyadavidson.bsky.social We meet at 6:15pm at Sunnyside Public Library. All are welcome and reading is optional!

@giopetti.bsky.social knocks it out of the park with his second documentary “The Train to Nowhere”. Was proud to talk to him and play a small part in the making of this great video. youtu.be/wLD0L63QgxU?...

I didn’t write this and only came across it recently, but it sums up well why I stopped posting on social media so much. It’s nice being able to walk around Ottawa and other cities and just enjoy them for what they are.