“Bank Street O-Train should be top of the agenda, I’m aware it’s a very hot issue” Mayoral Candidate Ade Olumide
In an exclusive interview Ottawa Mayoral candidate Ade Olumide says “changes in the city around competence and ethics should be a ballot issue in the city municipal elections because both are lacking on the current city council.”
Ade Olumide believes “we need to expedite hearings related to city police services and misconduct hearings need to move faster. In a more transparent way. Council lacks jurisdiction to make police issue decisions, but they can pass a Municipal Act of “Accountability & Transparency” bylaw to ensure if investigations exceed 120 days, the Police Chief would have to give a reason for the extensions. The refusal to create a bylaw like this is racist and misogynistic because Council knows that black, browns, Aboriginals and white female officers are disproportionately affected by police misconduct. It’s a form of systemic racism.”
Candidate Olumide wants “more affordable housing and lower priced homes for our residents, not necessarily high priced condos.”
“Bank Street O-Train should be top of the agenda, I’m aware it’s a very hot issue. We need a holistic approach to future transit planning, we need to look at the entire system, Bank Street is a very important piece of the puzzle. Bank Street is a real problem from a traffic point of view. It takes too long to go anywhere on that corridor. I think there lots of good ideas coming forward on the Bank issue from the community and I’m pro transit. We want to increase ridership on existing lines, any idea that does this like Bank Street, is a good idea. I would want us to be a like London for our longer term vision in regards to our rail transit network, the issue is always money though. If we can get people out of their cars to O-Train stations it would be better, we need to move people around using the LRT system” says the Mayoral candidate Ade Olumide.
In regards to the existing Confederation Line 1 inquiry that is dealing with a problematic start to the service, Ade says “ it appears some mistakes were made and we all hope they are not repeated, there is a lot of blame to go around. The parallel bus service was stopped too early when Confederation Line 1 was launched with inadequate testing of the line. The intent was good but the quality of implementation was lacking and needs to be corrected going forward because rail transit is an essential service in Ottawa.”
“We need weekly budget meetings where we can make decisions and react to contractors and cost savings as issues happen in real time” says Olumide and “we should have a freeze in hiring for 4 years, it will help us become more efficient at doing existing work, and maybe look at contractors as an option” says Ade.
The Mayoral candidate says “we need to look for way to get people out of their cars, that’s a major priority. We need to encourage a free ridership program for transit user who earn less $53,000,and I have a plan to make that happen. I also believe federal workers should have a transit pass provided to them by the federal government.” The Mayoral candidate wants a “shuttle service, a 13 seater bus getting people to and from LRT stations, it could be privately operated or a 3P model that is practical and scalable.”
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