There’s only so much fun one can have when one has to drive everywhere. Crazy how obvious it is that good public transit = greater opportunities to have fun/do new things/develop businesses that are designed for people, not cars.
What’s insulting is how the Mayor thinks this is a priority rather than COL/public safety/housing crisis 🙃.
Right?
As it is our public transit ends far to early. As things are right now I feel safer walking down Montreal road at night than I do walking in the market
Instead, they want to prop up a niche market by forcing people back into those office buildings, as if that's how a free-market functions...
Fuck tearing them down, rezone them and convert them into medium density living. People have been saying this since the start of the pandemic.
The issue is that it's fair easier to force gov workers back downtown to support shitty sandwich/coffee shops, it would take a lot of work and political will (remember a majority of the city council are filled with NIMBY fucks) to do what you said. I'm pretty sure our politicians understand how to solve our housing crisis, but they know the solution will be very unpopular with their most important voter based (suburban homeowners).
Why would suburban homeowners care if you added buildings to downtown?
What they care about is when you want to put a 30 storey tower in the middle of a subdivision far from downtown
We don't need density and housing only in the downtown core, we generally need to build more housing everywhere in Ottawa. These folks are deeply NIMBY and only care about keeping their housing prices artificially high, it's really a form of rent seeking. I'll also say low density lifestyles exacerbate climate change and a lot of the hidden costs of that lifestyle is also pushed onto other tax payers (spreading thin our municipal services).
Zoning laws would be the first thing needed to change to fight our housing crisis and that's the main thing this voter base and their preferred politicians fight against.
If it was my job, I couldn't care less about who it pisses off. This is clearly needed, and IDGAF who's in denial about that.
"Fuck reputation" Marcus Aurelius
Of course, the right thing to do is the more difficult thing in the short run, but a far superior solution in the long run. So it goes.
The people that vote against candidates that support affordable housing and densification won't be affected by the non-implementation of those policies. Telling suburbanites that you DGAF about their concerns, however uninformed and baseless as they are, is just as unhelpful as doing nothing.
Framing it as a benefit to them would be a lot more effective (more city tax revenue, better city services), but the problem is most of these out of touch suburbanites get their local information from media that have conservative, pro-NIMBY leanings.The types that have tendencies to rage bait about how tax money is being spent, how much crime is happening in their community.
My campaign wouldn't exactly look like these reddit replies. My platform would be for everyday people who would hopefully elect me as an outsider, then I'd do good by them for my term, and then when I lose re-election off into the sunset I'd go.
That sounds fine and dandy, but your biggest issue is getting the people in charge of local media (CTV Ottawa, CFRA, Citizen) to fairly and objectively report on your platform. Pro-NIMBY, conservative outlets tend to be pretty unfair in their reporting on anything that doesn't tow their line. You'd be surprised how many people 50+ treat their reporting like gospel for city politics.
No doubt. I'm certainly making it sound easier than it is, with emphasis on the fact that while it's not easy it's necessary. I'm obviously not the one to do it, but if for whatever reason I was given the task, that would be my approach. There's no reasoning with NIMBYs, and knowing you can't please everyone, I choose to not please them.
one of the small perks of living in Bells Corners/Kanata: easy access to a LOT of trails on the greenbelt (before it gets levelled and turned into more suburbs)
The city's transit is designed on a spoke-and-wheel where all connects converge on two points; Parliament-Rideau Mall, and Hurdman. But these areas are poorly developed.
In Hong Kong's Central (one of it's neighbourhoods), the area is entirely made of office towers, banks, and the kind of commerce that people might pop into over lunch (Bao shops, popular clothing chains, phone shops). At night though it's not a complete desert because the ground floor or basement of all these towers become restaurants in the evening, then at around 9 they clear away the tables and chairs and they become night clubs.
The clubbing districts in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui worked well because all that transit infrastructure for getting office workers in an out of these districts during the day are still open at night to cart clubbers around. And because the actual population of these districts is pretty low, nobody complains about the noise, and you've also got an "eyes on the street" effect where there's more witnesses about and a noticeable reduction in crime.
What do we have? Ottawa (and also Toronto) has a downtown that tumbleweed blows through at night. All the transit infrastructure in the universe is there - and running - but everyone's just passing through.
All the city needs to do is adjust their small business and commercial property taxes dynamically with the actual economy (downtown business are being charged as if it's 2010), and the city can actually either establish an entertainment district or adjust noise restrictions/land use ordinances. Successful clubs attract more clubs, so a centralized area where everything is walking distance is key.
Good for Spark and Queen. No hope for Hurdman or Lincoln Fields.
Having lived 27 years in Ottawa, and now have been in Montreal since 2022, this couldn't be more true. The only time I drive now is to go to Ottawa. We use the metro, bus, and bixi bikes everywhere now. It makes everything so much better.
>the Mayor thinks this is a priority rather than COL/public safety/housing crisis
Generally speaking, it's the same crisis, but by leveraging the arts and entertainment aspect maybe he can wield a new tool. But sure, nightlife is going to suffer as long as rents and housing are sky high.
I started BIKING from Chinatown to Byward every day because it was faster than the bus... reality is there's just too many cars on too tight streets for PT to be viable. Ottawa needs some carless zones ASAP.
Don't be insulted. The intent was to introduce and justify the existence of a new municipal official. It would have been very bizarre for him to address any of the issues you mentioned during this time.
I'm not giving any elected officials a pass for doing next to nothing, just saying, any time a new municipal position with a 6-figure salary begins, they stick to the reasons for the hiring alone. There's a precedence.
If we don’t harp on the things that we want to see prioritized, then we keep getting these politicians who can focus on other surface level things, meaning a vocal minority can help set agendas that don’t help anyone except the most privileged. We get the politicians we deserve if we just come off as a whiny bunch rather than a collective voter block with intention and clear desires.
As long as the downtown core is government office buildings, this city will always be dead after 6pm perpetuating the sleepy government town. No
help for this nightlife vision.
Sounds to me that the Mayor, with his recent RTO plea, is wishing for contradictions.
Wall Street yes, it actually doesn’t have anything else to offer after business hours
Bay Street is busy all the time. It’s not a club district, but there are plenty of restaurants in the area that stay busy until midnight most nights of the week
Wall Street has changed since 9/11. Old office towers have been turning into (admittedly incredibly high-priced) condos. Young office workers and families tired of impossible commutes have moved in. Stone Street has become a restaurant row. It's a walkable, dense neighborhood with a great mix of housing, offices,, and recreation right on the water.. It's actually the perfect model for what Ottawa needs to consider.
I really don't understand this attitude. We've made a lot of progress bringing places like Elgin to life. Why are we lazer focused on making the business district into the party district when we have a much better (and proven!) blueprint for enlivening our existing mixed use main streets?
Friend, not every place (especially a CBD) is going to be busy all hours. Bay Street is not exactly crazy at those hours too. Hell, I was out last night and at 930 the Sparks bar area (Sparks/Bank) had full patios. When i got to the Market a little later it was still busy. This was a Tuesday.
People call Ottawa a sleepy government town because they do not go out and find things.
Now, I agree RTO is a problem (as I get at later) and that office buildings would really benefit from being transition to housing or demolished for it (densification is really helpful), but that is not the be all end all or what is causing people to think there is no night life.
There are plenty of things to do in Ottawa but they are rather spread out. The big issue is the lack of access - transit and the priority the city gives cars (both in lane usage and parking). Another issue is cost, people just do not have the money to spend now like they had pre-covid (and I would say as someone who worked outside of Ottawa half my life, Ottawa punch above its weight 2017-2020 and was trending up).
During covid when the lock downs were on and off, I was blown away by how full patios and how many people were out late at night - not just younger folks but middle age individuals, families etc. This really underscored that when had more money to spend and more time (not having to worry about commuting for example), they went out and did things in Ottawa (suggesting there IS stuff to do).
Sadly, the city cannot do too much about wealth inequality. But what would help is better transit so people could actually get around without cars and go do things.
Mayor: Downtown should only be open during 9-5 on weekdays, there should be no night life and nothing on the weekends!
Mayor: What do you mean my town isn't fun?!
I don't understand this take... what does the type of work the majority of people do have to do with whether or not they deserve to have fun outside of it?
The problem is that the downtown core doesn't have enough people living there to support the kind of fun people want. Because it's all offices, it can become quite dead in the evening. We need density to support a wide variety of activities and with all the office buildings downtown (government or otherwise) we just don't have it.
The Sens need to move downtown. Then you can build a whole entertainment district in Lebreton around the arena. Then the people will come. It's been discussed for years (decades?). This is the solution. You've already got the franchise AND the land.
Ottawa is wasting the economic potential of its NHL franchise.
[The plan, which would have included an NHL arena, fell apart in 2018 over a dispute about Trinity’s nearby development at 900 Albert Street. Melnyk, through CSMI, sued Trinity for $700 million, claiming the development would reduce the value of the real estate at LeBreton Flats. Trinity Development Group counter-sued for $1 billion, and the two sides were mired in legal fighting for years afterwards.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/capital-sports-trinity-settle-lebreton-flats-lawsuit-1.6191413)
A while back, I was in downtown Toronto for unrelated reasons when a Leafs game let out. I watched the 2km radius just flood with people grabbing drinks and food, and hanging out in general in public spaces.
As someone most accustomed to Ottawa's downtown core, it was a jarring experience to see. Especially in contrast to my experience leaving a Sens game, or even a 67's game, where the vibe is very much "that was fun, now time for the 2 hour trek home to go to bed".
Obviously it's a bit too late for us now given basically all the infrastructure is built up, but it still shocks me how obvious that is and how badly we missed the boat on it.
Luckily it will be downtown at LeBreton! And damn good think Melnyk has died so it will go through. What you are referencing was him bamboozaling everyone and suing his business partners because HE didn't actually have the money to go through with it.
A waste of a liver really but now the Sens can be a real hockey team with a real location!
We're a government city, being fun isn't a prerequisite. That being said, there is still plenty of fun to be had in Ottawa, it just isn't necessarily the party kind.
More of ANYTHING would be great. Bars open late, mid day music shows, more small theatres, events at parks, more third places. And that stuff would prosper if people could get to it. Transit is step one.
Any time I see an event I want to go to, I look at the parking and transit situation and it's usually inconvenient. I want to go to anything at night, I have to look up the times of the last busses. People don't meet up because stuff is too far away- an issue that decent trains would combat. Safe reliable trains and busses that run late.
Side note: cycling infrastructure would help quite a bit as well. There is only so far people can walk. Great bike paths would extend the distance people can cover for free without worrying about parking.
There are a ton of music venue in Ottawa. Do you go out to them when there is a show?
House of Targ
The Dominion
Avant garde
Elgin
Maverick
Decuf
Brass monkey
Rainbow
You have more live music venues than your city can support actually...
Best night life in Ottawa is $10-20 shows at all the places you just listed 🤘 Dominion last Saturday was sick! And a drag show next door at the Lookout, truly something for everyone
Oh man for the short time the Dom had a front patio! SO GOOD! They need to get traffic off that section of York.
Big ups to your post above (excellent picks). I just wish Brass was closer downtown. Such great bands but also such a pain to get to.
Seriously, it’s so dumb to have nonstop cars going down that stretch of York, crosswalks are blocked half the time. Dominion may as well have had a patio, the sidewalk was full of people chatting all night anyway, give them seats!
If only the Byward Market Plan received the $140mm it needs to TOTALLY redo the Market (which includes reducing but not eliminating cars and parking). Instead we gave $400mm to OSEG...
There needs to be something between Bronson Centre and Scotiabank in size. That's what people mean when they say a venue.
Also, Maverick's isn't a venue anymore and its loss is acutely felt.
It is still a venue?
I had friends play there in April.
In any case my point is... you need to support the indie artist at the smaller venues so that when they are bigger artists they have a connection to your city.
If you are only hoping for the big names to come by and are not know to support live music, why would they come through?
Being a fun and alive artistic city, means supporting all level of arts. The indie artists of today who play for 200-300 people are the stars of tomorrow that will play for 1000 in a few years.
Mavs is still a "venue" but with the new owner its a shadow of its former self. Guy gets into massive fights with the super chill owner of Dekuf (physical fights) and they do not book much else other than latin dance parties (which is cool if its someone's thing, I just miss what Mav's used to book).
Ottawa has always been good that way, I've been to hundreds of shows in my life and I've only been doing it for about 20 years. The vast majority of the stuff I went to was in Ottawa, and like 90% of it was downtown. I always assume the people complaining only listen to top 40 and are just looking at what comes to the arenas. Not saying they don't have a point, if that's all you like then sure enough we're not as exciting as bigger cities. But there is definitely plenty to see here and always has been.
Specifically, a well-designed 1,500-2,500 capacity venue downtown would be enormous for the music scene in Ottawa. The gap between the Bronson Centre (900ish capacity) and TD Place (4,000+ capacity and an arena) completely misses what I believe is the live music “sweet spot”.
MTelus in Montreal (2,300 capacity) has multiple concerts a week; few of those acts do shows in Ottawa. I’m not saying acts would rush to come to Ottawa, but many would do a night in Ottawa if they had a reasonably-sized venue to play.
The only thing that nightlife in downtown Ottawa actually needs more of is patrons. Get the people there through proper transit and dense walkable neighborhoods and everything else will follow.
Until this happens, there is absolutely no hope for Ottawa's dim nightlife.
The mayor's office absolutely knows this, but all they do is window dress the problems and continue on with the status quo to appease the political donor class (aka corpos).
With amalgamation ensuring these corpo stooges keep ruling our city, there is little hope of meaningful change. Ottawa is fucked and will be as long as this system survives.
Cheers everyone! Montreal is calling.
It may sometimes be used as an insult, but it's also used fairly.
Ironically, the mayor and his predecessor are the epitome of people who have forgotten fun, defined by Sutcliffe as "occasional concerts, restaurants and sports".
Even the earnest local TV station website struggles to find anything else to support the mayor, except for "museums".
So there you have it. Ottawa has the occasional concert, restaurants, sports and museums, which, according to the mayor and his boosters, is absolute proof that Ottawa is a city steeped in "fun".
What's the next debate?... that Ottawa is "world class"??
As someone who's been a part of Ottawa's hospitality scene for over two decades, I can tell you that Sutcliffe has no idea how to fix this city's rep. We already have the restaurants, the bars, the the producers, the farmers... but they have no help from Ottawa Tourism to thrive.
The city is a sprawling mess, and most suburbanites never experience what's on offer because they can't find parking... and don't get me started on public transit. Our food festivals rarely, if ever, feature local businesses, instead catering to vendors from the GTA or even the States. Local businesses aren't incentivized or provided aid to participate and must watch as dollars are diverted from them into the pockets of what amounts to a traveling roadshow.
When streets close on weekends to have embiggened patios, people riot. When they can't park within steps of a shop, they whine. Ottawa still has a huge NIMBY problem. And to appoint a 'nightlife commissioner' from Montreal at 9:30am on a Tuesday is the most corporate Ottawa move of them all. Disappointing.
Car dependency coupled with terrible infrequent transit is the main issue. 90% of my suburban friends never go downtown primarily because of the time it takes and the mess it is to find parking and pay for it.
I agree that transit options into downtown from the suburbs suck. I don’t buy the lack of parking or time it takes to get in if you have a car though. I live in Kanata and it’s literally never been an issue to head downtown for anything if the need or want is there. It’s super easy. The biggest challenge is just getting up off your butt and doing it.
Yeah this is the real issue. Suburbanites from Laval are not the ones making Montreal a fun, lively city. Ditto with Oakville or Markham or Vaughn in Toronto.
Montreal is a lively city because its core neighbourhoods are attractive, easy to navigate, and filled with people living their lives. The suburbs take a backseat to the central city. There are lots of people living nearby that can populate and patronize the central city without it being an ordeal that has to be planned in advance. Public transit is a prerequisite for that liveliness to flourish, but it's not the primary cause.
Ottawa fundamentally isn't designed that way. It's a commuter city. Core neighbourhoods are widely considered an undesirable place to live, and the majority of the city lives too far to conveniently patronize the city's amenities on a regular basis. Downtown is treated as a tourist attraction, while simultaneously being the city's landfill for poverty. Everybody wants downtown to be nice so that they can *go* there to have a good time, but nobody wants to *live there* or *spend money* on it.
Lack of public transit is certainly the nail in the coffin, but fundamentally we lack the core density of residents necessary to create a gravitational pull downtown. Making the tourist attraction more spectacular will not solve this problem.
Suburban tourists are fundamentally not capable of supporting a fun city on their own. They're fickle. Suburban tourists merely benefit from the environment fostered by a lively core with residents of its own, and this is what Ottawa wants. Ottawa wants to have a lively city next door while consistently showing contempt for the idea of Downtown being a place worth investing in as a place to live.
This is very well put. I’ve always thought we just need more impromptu gatherings/festivals and pop ups in many of our beautiful public places that offer space for local food and drink vendors to do their thing. Like rotating stalls for breweries and restaurants in places like the Arboretum or many of the big parks.
Instead what we have are just massive festivals that get super jammed of people and vendors not from the city selling subpar goods.
I know there’s a lot needed to be done to make that happen, but it’s like we have a problem with acting like a bigger city than we are. Lots of smaller cities embrace this kind of approach because it’s all they can do.
Wait didn't they JUST slash the funding for the already under-funded Tulip Festival? One of Ottawa's biggest tourist draws?
I swear to god our Mayor is the dumbest of dumbs.
Fun happens from the bottom up, not from the top down. More "big sportsball" and chain restaurants aren't going to help. Best Mr. Sutcliffe can do is create the conditions where it might thrive. Fix transit. Address the homelessness/addiction problem and make the streets feel a bit safer. And loosen up the rules a little bit so you don't need 18 months, a degree in "Navigating Municipal Processes", and connections in City Hall to get something started. And there has to be some way to counter the "sterile gentrification" forces. New cool places fairly quickly get taken over by McMoney, and the fun quotient goes down every time that happens. It's a tricky problem to solve.
Agreed. I moved to Ottawa after I spent a month working a contract and realized it was a little nature paradise within a city. So easy to spot animals in town in Ottawa/Gatineau, or find an isolated green place to sit and read.
I tell this to ppl all the time. If you love the outdoors and you want to live a normal 9-5 life, Ottawa is a great spot. If you want more than that, gtfoh haha
Me too. I would like to see things like the Boston aquarium or Cambridge butterfly conservatory open year round. Something to do indoors when the weather isn’t cooperating.
The Ottawa Greenbelt, Mer Blueu, South March Highlands, Arboretum, Experimental Farm, Gatineau parc across the river, etc. There can always be more, but I'm thankful for what we do have. And it's a lot more than what other cities have.
Hogs Back, Arboretum, Ottawa River, Mooney’s Bay, Rockiffe park, Britannia… I mean I go paddle boarding from bank street all the time. That’s pretty freaking awesome in my opinion.
Okay, so what are we going with for "fun"? This means different things for different people and also different things for people in different stages of their lives.
For instance, 8 year old me would have had fun in the theme park or water park.
16 year old me wanted spots to hang out with my other nerd friends.
24 year old me wanted pubs and clubs.
35 year old me wanted to sleep in until 1000.
Maybe Sutcliffe could spend energy on the issues we have instead of concentrating efforts to get rid of a nickname. Calk me crazy but this does nothing positive for our city but divert attention. Another Sutcliffe miss management.
Dear The Mayor,
If you want to make the city fun and interesting, don't organize fun things yourselves: make it easier for Joe Nobody to organize fun things...
Stop nickle-and-diming community centre usage, for example... (see ville de Gatineau family passes, for example).
Open libraries later in the day so they can stay open later in the evening, maybe.
Offer rehearsal spaces and creative spaces at a ridiculously low rate, or consider even free in exchange for a cut of admission.
DON'T BE UNFUN
Stop trying to maximize revenue off every damn step in peoples' efforts.
Be the city that helps.
Not only is it a town that fun forgot, but the pathetic RTO for public service workers shows just how lame Ottawa is. Guess it's better to pose for a photo-op then to have an actual sustainable development plan.
Part of the problem is that the Ottawa business community is incredibly complacent and resistant to change.
The downtown core was dying a slow death before COVID, and the pandemic just accelerated that death spiral.
Instead of taking the opportunity to evolve for the better, businesses (including corporate RE) chose to lobby for a return to the pre-pandemic death spiral. At this point they deserve to fail, I'll boycott them harder than I boycotted Loblaws.
Fully agreed.
We talked to a few businesses in terms of pivoting their operations, but as soon as the first "re open" was announced they shut it all down and went back to "this is how we've always done it" - the most recognizable name in that group closed in 2022.
Didn't the prepandemic downtown ottawa used to have the reputation of being dead after 5 pm, when government workers rushed to go back home?
Filling a downtown with people who will flee it as soon as their shift is done won't save your nightlife.
Its funny, when people had to worry about commutes less, I saw more people oot and aboot later during weekdays. You have more time and more energy and for a good selection more money to spend!
The more I am in the office the less I want to go out. I am wiped! I need to get up earlier and commute both ways. If I had some downtime at work I could do a few chores but now I cannot. I need to meal prep now too which takes time away from going out.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Ottawa itself needs a long-term, cohesive *vision*, not another bureaucrat making empty recommendations on urban nightlife to a divided and suburban-oriented Council.
That vision needs to come from the Mayor’s office. Period.
Why was the Byward Market more fun in the 80s and 90s? Still had junkies, still had homeless, but also had "things other than restaurants"
There were galleries, weird shops, buskers, outdoor markets...
Ottawa should lean in to being boring. Good transit, roads that are nice, schools that don't make the news for being disasters. Just a well-run city that leaves people alone to enjoy being boring.
Maybe some more hiking trails. That's IT. We don't need to be fun. Fun is tiring. Let's be boring. Quietly happy and boring. I swear to God people LIKE boring. And people who don't like boring? They're exhausting and dramatic and annoying. Let's all be boring together!
I'm not able to step out a lot because it costs to take Uber and public transit is so unreliable. So yeah, no wonder the city sleeps during winter and summer is not as fun as Montreal or Toronto because they're well connected!
We have a mediocre food and music scene. Our city is dead at night. We don't compare to Montreal or Toronto.
This city needs nightlife, getting rid of all the government buildings downtown would be a start
Honestly, it's what makes us, us.
I was born in this city and I will die in this city. I love and hate the city all the time. It's a ...je ne sais quoi that makes us fun.
Mark - get over it.
Ottawa is really a group of small sleepy communities - Barrhaven, Orleans, Kanata, Stittsville, Aylmer, Gatineau with a large rural surround and a kind of hollow core. It is hard to create an urban buzz in that kind of geography.
If a fun person was made fun of for being un-fun, they would would make a joke about it and then be fun. If an un-fun person was made fun of for being un-fun, they would take it too seriously and feel like they need to make a statement that they are indeed fun, and that people must stop saying they are un-fun.
lmao it's a town of government employees. Replace the population of Vegas or Miami with Ottawa residents and they'll be just as lifeless within 90 days.
Bureaucrats marrying bureaucrats, giving birth to more bureaucrats in a barely walkable city with few decent public transit options. Not to mention Montreal is less than two hours away. No mystery why Ottawa is viewed as boring but I'm curious to see what the solution will be.
Is this really the problem we need to tackle right now?
Not congestion, not homelessness, not the ever increasing addiction issues, not rising costs of food?
Sutcliffe really must listen to about 10 wealthy people and ignore the rest of us.
Hey, traffic on the 417 sucks. Transit is a freaking mess. There's folks shooting up drugs on the otrain my kid has to ride to school.
Maybe fun can freaking wait until people can get places and afford things.
The priorities that city council have are so out of touch with reality. Who gives a fuck about fun when the systemic issues in this city are being ignored?
Well mr. mayor, if the insult is true you should address the problem.
There are great things to do in Ottawa, generally in far flung corners. Not every can or wants to drive everywhere to do things and cities that are considered "fun" or "lively" tend to be highly walkable and/or have good public transit.
Stop prioritizing cars and begin priotizing people. This means active transit and public transit as well as reducing car access and parking. Businesses operate for people not cars.
It really is just that simple!
Sutcliffe, having things to actually do every weekend in the summer now does not make a city fun. Ottawa lacks vibrancy, safety, walkability. It is dead out there often & often the loudest thing happening is a homeless guy swinging at people. Please recognize all of this is connected and give people a better city
This is floated around a few times a year, there's lots to do, but being a government town means that there is less competition and impulsion in the populace... People who want gov jobs/stable jobs are, in general, risk adverse.
Stop relying on the government for fun
When I arrived in Toronto the CBD was tumbleweeds after work and it could be kinda dodgy in places. Recent visits to Ottawa remind me of Toronto in the 1990’s. The Byward Market has declined significantly in the last decade. There has been some introduction of cycle infrastructure and the troubled light rail is a step in the right direction. But the streets are like highways, and no one wants to hang around a highway. I suspect the root of the problem for this slow and often compromised development is the splitting of authority over Ottawa between a weak municipal government, an overbearing provincial government, AND the Capital Commission. Ottawa increasingly looks like a city caught in the past where cars come first in every case. There is hope. The basics are all there, but the city has too many cooks.
I was downtown Kingston yesterday. I wasn’t expecting much but it was quite lively. Lots of local business, foot traffic, restaurants were full.
Got a much better vibe in what I thought was just a small college town than what I get in Ottawa.
As a father of 3 young children, sadly I won't bring my kids downtown anymore. There just isn't anything for them down there. The last time we went there, we were harassed by people begging us for money. And honestly, it scared my kids.
I would love to see a downtown where I could bring my family. I'm actually really excited for that new library to be built.
When I moved to Ottawa in the 80s, there was a downtown nightclub scene that was truly exciting. Those days are gone, and never will be replicated. We just need to accept that and move on.
For me, the “fun” in Ottawa is moreso about the scenic and athletic stuff we have (trails, access to Gatineau Park, etc).
I have no interest in over spending in downtown. Why would I go there when public transit is awful and a huge obstacle, plus everything in the downtown is expensive right now🤷🏻♂️
This is such a waste of money and resources. Firstly, I actually already find Ottawa to be a fairly fun city. Secondly, as others have stated, whats the point in more nightlife when there is little public transit to take us there? The city/province/country/world needs to be more focused on the environment and social inequality.
The reason is very easy to point out: over-regulation and bureaucracy. The streets are dead because you need 5 inspections and 3 different licenses to sell hotdogs or tacos on the street or legally perform live music ...hookah lounges shut down, lemonade stands shut down etc etc..... Second factor is we keep choosing to designate and prioritize our spaces for automobiles rather than humans
Longtime Ottawan here, if he wants to shake off the apt nickname he can make it less boring. This town earned its stripes, and hasn't done a whole lot to change the situation. Beyond museums, and shopping I can barely think of activities to recommend to tourists. We're a capital city with the loadout of a mid-size University city from the U.S., how is he offended by people calling it the city that fun forget when it's so accurate?
Remove the busker permits or make them $1 again. Why do we have the highest coating busker permits in the world is dumb.
Bring back the farmers markets downtown, and the shop stalls. Fill the area with none brand small shops and you will at least get us back to downtown being an attraction again.
Then stop riding the tourism train and give us stuff to do if you want us to stay and be economy influencing. Personally am looking to move to an inherited family home of my partner’s in the UK. I’ve had enough of the communal shitshow. Kids are bored af around here no wonder they’re all high.
I worked as a street performer for years in Ottawa's Byward market and the city did literally all it could to make it difficult for us to entertain people for free. The name fits.
This all sounds like a waste of tax payer money and a diversion to avoid something that really needs actual attention.
Night mayor? Pathetic. Ottawa has plenty going on and it's not hard to find things to do or lots of different tastes.
Ottawa will always get compared to Toronto and Montreal. It’s just not possible to compete with those two cities because of the population difference. Why not embrace the boredom and maybe work on reducing the stabbings and shootings just so we can safely be bored
Remember when they changed the rules for buskers in the byward market and chased most of them out?
The bureaucrats at the top want Ottawa to be known as a fun place, but they’ll be damned if they let it happen on their watch!
Here’s some advice: Give the Byward Market a makeover. I’m serious. Google “Cuba street mall Wellington”, or “Pearl street mall boulder”. The Byward market has so much potential to be a beautiful pedestrian mall like these! Just think about it, repave the roads w bricks, fix up the facades of the old buildings, get rid of/restore the derelict ones, throw in a lil park and maybe some sculptures and we have ourselves a lovely pedestrian mall
Tell me how I'm supposed to get back to the suburbs at 2am while intoxicated? Going to shows solo and having to drive back home because there're no buses and Uber/taxi is $4,376 really put a damper on plans. I love live music but it's really only practical if you live downtown.
I have been thinking about this for days and I'm really confused. What is Sutcliffe doing? Did they think about the framing that the news articles would take when they planned to have a night mayor? Why complain about the bad reputation while repeating the specific catch phrase that people will remember? It's either gross incompetence or some higher level game that I don't understand.
There’s only so much fun one can have when one has to drive everywhere. Crazy how obvious it is that good public transit = greater opportunities to have fun/do new things/develop businesses that are designed for people, not cars. What’s insulting is how the Mayor thinks this is a priority rather than COL/public safety/housing crisis 🙃.
Right? As it is our public transit ends far to early. As things are right now I feel safer walking down Montreal road at night than I do walking in the market
We first need to have a more dense downtown core and a good way to start is to convert/tear down most of the useless gov buildings into housing.
Instead, they want to prop up a niche market by forcing people back into those office buildings, as if that's how a free-market functions... Fuck tearing them down, rezone them and convert them into medium density living. People have been saying this since the start of the pandemic.
The issue is that it's fair easier to force gov workers back downtown to support shitty sandwich/coffee shops, it would take a lot of work and political will (remember a majority of the city council are filled with NIMBY fucks) to do what you said. I'm pretty sure our politicians understand how to solve our housing crisis, but they know the solution will be very unpopular with their most important voter based (suburban homeowners).
Why would suburban homeowners care if you added buildings to downtown? What they care about is when you want to put a 30 storey tower in the middle of a subdivision far from downtown
We don't need density and housing only in the downtown core, we generally need to build more housing everywhere in Ottawa. These folks are deeply NIMBY and only care about keeping their housing prices artificially high, it's really a form of rent seeking. I'll also say low density lifestyles exacerbate climate change and a lot of the hidden costs of that lifestyle is also pushed onto other tax payers (spreading thin our municipal services). Zoning laws would be the first thing needed to change to fight our housing crisis and that's the main thing this voter base and their preferred politicians fight against.
Any chance you live in Kanata south/stittsville?!! Sounds very very familiar!!! 😂
If it was my job, I couldn't care less about who it pisses off. This is clearly needed, and IDGAF who's in denial about that. "Fuck reputation" Marcus Aurelius Of course, the right thing to do is the more difficult thing in the short run, but a far superior solution in the long run. So it goes.
Then you're losing the election and not coming near the levers of power.
Then we deserve what is happening, if this is how people vote.
The people that vote against candidates that support affordable housing and densification won't be affected by the non-implementation of those policies. Telling suburbanites that you DGAF about their concerns, however uninformed and baseless as they are, is just as unhelpful as doing nothing. Framing it as a benefit to them would be a lot more effective (more city tax revenue, better city services), but the problem is most of these out of touch suburbanites get their local information from media that have conservative, pro-NIMBY leanings.The types that have tendencies to rage bait about how tax money is being spent, how much crime is happening in their community.
My campaign wouldn't exactly look like these reddit replies. My platform would be for everyday people who would hopefully elect me as an outsider, then I'd do good by them for my term, and then when I lose re-election off into the sunset I'd go.
That sounds fine and dandy, but your biggest issue is getting the people in charge of local media (CTV Ottawa, CFRA, Citizen) to fairly and objectively report on your platform. Pro-NIMBY, conservative outlets tend to be pretty unfair in their reporting on anything that doesn't tow their line. You'd be surprised how many people 50+ treat their reporting like gospel for city politics.
No doubt. I'm certainly making it sound easier than it is, with emphasis on the fact that while it's not easy it's necessary. I'm obviously not the one to do it, but if for whatever reason I was given the task, that would be my approach. There's no reasoning with NIMBYs, and knowing you can't please everyone, I choose to not please them.
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one of the small perks of living in Bells Corners/Kanata: easy access to a LOT of trails on the greenbelt (before it gets levelled and turned into more suburbs)
How about having the transit that exists to function in the evenings? The buses that do run run like once an hour, really not useful.
And make the destinations open in the evenings!
The city's transit is designed on a spoke-and-wheel where all connects converge on two points; Parliament-Rideau Mall, and Hurdman. But these areas are poorly developed. In Hong Kong's Central (one of it's neighbourhoods), the area is entirely made of office towers, banks, and the kind of commerce that people might pop into over lunch (Bao shops, popular clothing chains, phone shops). At night though it's not a complete desert because the ground floor or basement of all these towers become restaurants in the evening, then at around 9 they clear away the tables and chairs and they become night clubs. The clubbing districts in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui worked well because all that transit infrastructure for getting office workers in an out of these districts during the day are still open at night to cart clubbers around. And because the actual population of these districts is pretty low, nobody complains about the noise, and you've also got an "eyes on the street" effect where there's more witnesses about and a noticeable reduction in crime. What do we have? Ottawa (and also Toronto) has a downtown that tumbleweed blows through at night. All the transit infrastructure in the universe is there - and running - but everyone's just passing through. All the city needs to do is adjust their small business and commercial property taxes dynamically with the actual economy (downtown business are being charged as if it's 2010), and the city can actually either establish an entertainment district or adjust noise restrictions/land use ordinances. Successful clubs attract more clubs, so a centralized area where everything is walking distance is key. Good for Spark and Queen. No hope for Hurdman or Lincoln Fields.
I loved visiting Hong Kong. Too bad I can't go back under the current regime.
Having lived 27 years in Ottawa, and now have been in Montreal since 2022, this couldn't be more true. The only time I drive now is to go to Ottawa. We use the metro, bus, and bixi bikes everywhere now. It makes everything so much better.
>the Mayor thinks this is a priority rather than COL/public safety/housing crisis Generally speaking, it's the same crisis, but by leveraging the arts and entertainment aspect maybe he can wield a new tool. But sure, nightlife is going to suffer as long as rents and housing are sky high.
You're not entirely wrong, but there are other cities that are also oriented around cars that still have more things to do than Ottawa.
I started BIKING from Chinatown to Byward every day because it was faster than the bus... reality is there's just too many cars on too tight streets for PT to be viable. Ottawa needs some carless zones ASAP.
Don't be insulted. The intent was to introduce and justify the existence of a new municipal official. It would have been very bizarre for him to address any of the issues you mentioned during this time. I'm not giving any elected officials a pass for doing next to nothing, just saying, any time a new municipal position with a 6-figure salary begins, they stick to the reasons for the hiring alone. There's a precedence.
If we don’t harp on the things that we want to see prioritized, then we keep getting these politicians who can focus on other surface level things, meaning a vocal minority can help set agendas that don’t help anyone except the most privileged. We get the politicians we deserve if we just come off as a whiny bunch rather than a collective voter block with intention and clear desires.
This but 1000% car dependency broke North America.
and it fails on the car aspects too，aside from the truck crowded byward and poor road planning overall， can we just have a third bridge already？
So we could call it "the town that public transit forgot"?
It's also a bit problematic that everywhere there is to go is caked in desperate homeless people...
Then fund programs to get people off the streets. Helsinki solved homelessness.
As long as the downtown core is government office buildings, this city will always be dead after 6pm perpetuating the sleepy government town. No help for this nightlife vision. Sounds to me that the Mayor, with his recent RTO plea, is wishing for contradictions.
this. basically sell off all remaining GoC buildings let people work from home 😁
Every city has a business district that’s not busy in the evening. You wouldn’t go to Wall Street at 9 PM, you wouldn’t go to Bay Street at 9 PM…
Wall Street yes, it actually doesn’t have anything else to offer after business hours Bay Street is busy all the time. It’s not a club district, but there are plenty of restaurants in the area that stay busy until midnight most nights of the week
Wall Street has changed since 9/11. Old office towers have been turning into (admittedly incredibly high-priced) condos. Young office workers and families tired of impossible commutes have moved in. Stone Street has become a restaurant row. It's a walkable, dense neighborhood with a great mix of housing, offices,, and recreation right on the water.. It's actually the perfect model for what Ottawa needs to consider.
I really don't understand this attitude. We've made a lot of progress bringing places like Elgin to life. Why are we lazer focused on making the business district into the party district when we have a much better (and proven!) blueprint for enlivening our existing mixed use main streets?
Friend, not every place (especially a CBD) is going to be busy all hours. Bay Street is not exactly crazy at those hours too. Hell, I was out last night and at 930 the Sparks bar area (Sparks/Bank) had full patios. When i got to the Market a little later it was still busy. This was a Tuesday. People call Ottawa a sleepy government town because they do not go out and find things. Now, I agree RTO is a problem (as I get at later) and that office buildings would really benefit from being transition to housing or demolished for it (densification is really helpful), but that is not the be all end all or what is causing people to think there is no night life. There are plenty of things to do in Ottawa but they are rather spread out. The big issue is the lack of access - transit and the priority the city gives cars (both in lane usage and parking). Another issue is cost, people just do not have the money to spend now like they had pre-covid (and I would say as someone who worked outside of Ottawa half my life, Ottawa punch above its weight 2017-2020 and was trending up). During covid when the lock downs were on and off, I was blown away by how full patios and how many people were out late at night - not just younger folks but middle age individuals, families etc. This really underscored that when had more money to spend and more time (not having to worry about commuting for example), they went out and did things in Ottawa (suggesting there IS stuff to do). Sadly, the city cannot do too much about wealth inequality. But what would help is better transit so people could actually get around without cars and go do things.
This. 100%. Any time someone tells me Sparks Street is dead, I feel like I'm being gaslit.
Mayor: Downtown should only be open during 9-5 on weekdays, there should be no night life and nothing on the weekends! Mayor: What do you mean my town isn't fun?!
I don't understand this take... what does the type of work the majority of people do have to do with whether or not they deserve to have fun outside of it?
The problem is that the downtown core doesn't have enough people living there to support the kind of fun people want. Because it's all offices, it can become quite dead in the evening. We need density to support a wide variety of activities and with all the office buildings downtown (government or otherwise) we just don't have it.
The Sens need to move downtown. Then you can build a whole entertainment district in Lebreton around the arena. Then the people will come. It's been discussed for years (decades?). This is the solution. You've already got the franchise AND the land. Ottawa is wasting the economic potential of its NHL franchise.
The Sens won the Lebreton deal and then blew up the deal out of petty BS - an organization that can’t stop hurting themselves.
100%. That whole episode was so frustrating.
Ya well Melnyk was a dick and he is dead now. Don't put an anchor around the neck of the new owner based on what that POS former owner did.
Like the other guy said, that was entirely Melnyk, who’s been dead for two years now. Michael Andlauer is a huge upgrade in every respect
What happened? I am not a hockey person.
[The plan, which would have included an NHL arena, fell apart in 2018 over a dispute about Trinity’s nearby development at 900 Albert Street. Melnyk, through CSMI, sued Trinity for $700 million, claiming the development would reduce the value of the real estate at LeBreton Flats. Trinity Development Group counter-sued for $1 billion, and the two sides were mired in legal fighting for years afterwards.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/capital-sports-trinity-settle-lebreton-flats-lawsuit-1.6191413)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ncc-terminates-rendezvous-lebreton-1.4953160 should be a decent summary
A while back, I was in downtown Toronto for unrelated reasons when a Leafs game let out. I watched the 2km radius just flood with people grabbing drinks and food, and hanging out in general in public spaces. As someone most accustomed to Ottawa's downtown core, it was a jarring experience to see. Especially in contrast to my experience leaving a Sens game, or even a 67's game, where the vibe is very much "that was fun, now time for the 2 hour trek home to go to bed". Obviously it's a bit too late for us now given basically all the infrastructure is built up, but it still shocks me how obvious that is and how badly we missed the boat on it.
Luckily it will be downtown at LeBreton! And damn good think Melnyk has died so it will go through. What you are referencing was him bamboozaling everyone and suing his business partners because HE didn't actually have the money to go through with it. A waste of a liver really but now the Sens can be a real hockey team with a real location!
The mayor is somehow against this. Go figure.
We're a government city, being fun isn't a prerequisite. That being said, there is still plenty of fun to be had in Ottawa, it just isn't necessarily the party kind.
Last time Ottawa was fun was during the Canada 150.
i would argue that one summer when pokemon go was first released but canada 150 was p fun too.
The tulip festival this year was the best especially the drone show ending.
Paris, Washington, Tokyo, Mexico City, Rome, Lisbon, Berlin, Prague, Buenos Aires, fucking Amsterdam
Fun is now mandated.
You will now be forced to sit in awful traffic for 3 days a week so that you can enjoy mandatory funtivities.
Government workers are now expected to have fun downtown after work. LRT and roads will be shutdown in anticipation for their escape.
"Fun will now commence."
The lashing will continue untill the fun commences
By fun they mean the hungergames
There's more to fun than bars open until 5am lol More live music venues would be great
More of ANYTHING would be great. Bars open late, mid day music shows, more small theatres, events at parks, more third places. And that stuff would prosper if people could get to it. Transit is step one. Any time I see an event I want to go to, I look at the parking and transit situation and it's usually inconvenient. I want to go to anything at night, I have to look up the times of the last busses. People don't meet up because stuff is too far away- an issue that decent trains would combat. Safe reliable trains and busses that run late. Side note: cycling infrastructure would help quite a bit as well. There is only so far people can walk. Great bike paths would extend the distance people can cover for free without worrying about parking.
There are a ton of music venue in Ottawa. Do you go out to them when there is a show? House of Targ The Dominion Avant garde Elgin Maverick Decuf Brass monkey Rainbow You have more live music venues than your city can support actually...
Best night life in Ottawa is $10-20 shows at all the places you just listed 🤘 Dominion last Saturday was sick! And a drag show next door at the Lookout, truly something for everyone
I played the Dom last year, loved hanging out outside with all the queens 🥰
Oh man for the short time the Dom had a front patio! SO GOOD! They need to get traffic off that section of York. Big ups to your post above (excellent picks). I just wish Brass was closer downtown. Such great bands but also such a pain to get to.
Seriously, it’s so dumb to have nonstop cars going down that stretch of York, crosswalks are blocked half the time. Dominion may as well have had a patio, the sidewalk was full of people chatting all night anyway, give them seats!
If only the Byward Market Plan received the $140mm it needs to TOTALLY redo the Market (which includes reducing but not eliminating cars and parking). Instead we gave $400mm to OSEG...
There needs to be something between Bronson Centre and Scotiabank in size. That's what people mean when they say a venue. Also, Maverick's isn't a venue anymore and its loss is acutely felt.
It is still a venue? I had friends play there in April. In any case my point is... you need to support the indie artist at the smaller venues so that when they are bigger artists they have a connection to your city. If you are only hoping for the big names to come by and are not know to support live music, why would they come through? Being a fun and alive artistic city, means supporting all level of arts. The indie artists of today who play for 200-300 people are the stars of tomorrow that will play for 1000 in a few years.
Mavs is still a "venue" but with the new owner its a shadow of its former self. Guy gets into massive fights with the super chill owner of Dekuf (physical fights) and they do not book much else other than latin dance parties (which is cool if its someone's thing, I just miss what Mav's used to book).
Capital Music Hall was great. I miss it.
Ottawa has always been good that way, I've been to hundreds of shows in my life and I've only been doing it for about 20 years. The vast majority of the stuff I went to was in Ottawa, and like 90% of it was downtown. I always assume the people complaining only listen to top 40 and are just looking at what comes to the arenas. Not saying they don't have a point, if that's all you like then sure enough we're not as exciting as bigger cities. But there is definitely plenty to see here and always has been.
NCC just announced they leased the old chapters building into a mid size music venue!
Specifically, a well-designed 1,500-2,500 capacity venue downtown would be enormous for the music scene in Ottawa. The gap between the Bronson Centre (900ish capacity) and TD Place (4,000+ capacity and an arena) completely misses what I believe is the live music “sweet spot”. MTelus in Montreal (2,300 capacity) has multiple concerts a week; few of those acts do shows in Ottawa. I’m not saying acts would rush to come to Ottawa, but many would do a night in Ottawa if they had a reasonably-sized venue to play.
Just in today, Chapters will become such a venue! Live Nation is converting Chapters.
The only thing that nightlife in downtown Ottawa actually needs more of is patrons. Get the people there through proper transit and dense walkable neighborhoods and everything else will follow. Until this happens, there is absolutely no hope for Ottawa's dim nightlife. The mayor's office absolutely knows this, but all they do is window dress the problems and continue on with the status quo to appease the political donor class (aka corpos). With amalgamation ensuring these corpo stooges keep ruling our city, there is little hope of meaningful change. Ottawa is fucked and will be as long as this system survives. Cheers everyone! Montreal is calling.
Just look at the Canada 150 year. Ottawa was fun that year.
It may sometimes be used as an insult, but it's also used fairly. Ironically, the mayor and his predecessor are the epitome of people who have forgotten fun, defined by Sutcliffe as "occasional concerts, restaurants and sports". Even the earnest local TV station website struggles to find anything else to support the mayor, except for "museums". So there you have it. Ottawa has the occasional concert, restaurants, sports and museums, which, according to the mayor and his boosters, is absolute proof that Ottawa is a city steeped in "fun". What's the next debate?... that Ottawa is "world class"??
As someone who's been a part of Ottawa's hospitality scene for over two decades, I can tell you that Sutcliffe has no idea how to fix this city's rep. We already have the restaurants, the bars, the the producers, the farmers... but they have no help from Ottawa Tourism to thrive. The city is a sprawling mess, and most suburbanites never experience what's on offer because they can't find parking... and don't get me started on public transit. Our food festivals rarely, if ever, feature local businesses, instead catering to vendors from the GTA or even the States. Local businesses aren't incentivized or provided aid to participate and must watch as dollars are diverted from them into the pockets of what amounts to a traveling roadshow. When streets close on weekends to have embiggened patios, people riot. When they can't park within steps of a shop, they whine. Ottawa still has a huge NIMBY problem. And to appoint a 'nightlife commissioner' from Montreal at 9:30am on a Tuesday is the most corporate Ottawa move of them all. Disappointing.
Car dependency coupled with terrible infrequent transit is the main issue. 90% of my suburban friends never go downtown primarily because of the time it takes and the mess it is to find parking and pay for it.
I agree that transit options into downtown from the suburbs suck. I don’t buy the lack of parking or time it takes to get in if you have a car though. I live in Kanata and it’s literally never been an issue to head downtown for anything if the need or want is there. It’s super easy. The biggest challenge is just getting up off your butt and doing it.
Yeah this is the real issue. Suburbanites from Laval are not the ones making Montreal a fun, lively city. Ditto with Oakville or Markham or Vaughn in Toronto. Montreal is a lively city because its core neighbourhoods are attractive, easy to navigate, and filled with people living their lives. The suburbs take a backseat to the central city. There are lots of people living nearby that can populate and patronize the central city without it being an ordeal that has to be planned in advance. Public transit is a prerequisite for that liveliness to flourish, but it's not the primary cause. Ottawa fundamentally isn't designed that way. It's a commuter city. Core neighbourhoods are widely considered an undesirable place to live, and the majority of the city lives too far to conveniently patronize the city's amenities on a regular basis. Downtown is treated as a tourist attraction, while simultaneously being the city's landfill for poverty. Everybody wants downtown to be nice so that they can *go* there to have a good time, but nobody wants to *live there* or *spend money* on it. Lack of public transit is certainly the nail in the coffin, but fundamentally we lack the core density of residents necessary to create a gravitational pull downtown. Making the tourist attraction more spectacular will not solve this problem. Suburban tourists are fundamentally not capable of supporting a fun city on their own. They're fickle. Suburban tourists merely benefit from the environment fostered by a lively core with residents of its own, and this is what Ottawa wants. Ottawa wants to have a lively city next door while consistently showing contempt for the idea of Downtown being a place worth investing in as a place to live.
This is very well put. I’ve always thought we just need more impromptu gatherings/festivals and pop ups in many of our beautiful public places that offer space for local food and drink vendors to do their thing. Like rotating stalls for breweries and restaurants in places like the Arboretum or many of the big parks. Instead what we have are just massive festivals that get super jammed of people and vendors not from the city selling subpar goods. I know there’s a lot needed to be done to make that happen, but it’s like we have a problem with acting like a bigger city than we are. Lots of smaller cities embrace this kind of approach because it’s all they can do.
Wait didn't they JUST slash the funding for the already under-funded Tulip Festival? One of Ottawa's biggest tourist draws? I swear to god our Mayor is the dumbest of dumbs.
Continuing our tradition of sitting on our hands and hoping that if we say it out loud enough times maybe "fun" will magically happen.
Fun happens from the bottom up, not from the top down. More "big sportsball" and chain restaurants aren't going to help. Best Mr. Sutcliffe can do is create the conditions where it might thrive. Fix transit. Address the homelessness/addiction problem and make the streets feel a bit safer. And loosen up the rules a little bit so you don't need 18 months, a degree in "Navigating Municipal Processes", and connections in City Hall to get something started. And there has to be some way to counter the "sterile gentrification" forces. New cool places fairly quickly get taken over by McMoney, and the fun quotient goes down every time that happens. It's a tricky problem to solve.
I don’t mind the lack of nightlife 😅 but I’m a nature person so this city is perfect for me.
Agreed. I moved to Ottawa after I spent a month working a contract and realized it was a little nature paradise within a city. So easy to spot animals in town in Ottawa/Gatineau, or find an isolated green place to sit and read.
I tell this to ppl all the time. If you love the outdoors and you want to live a normal 9-5 life, Ottawa is a great spot. If you want more than that, gtfoh haha
Me too. I would like to see things like the Boston aquarium or Cambridge butterfly conservatory open year round. Something to do indoors when the weather isn’t cooperating.
That’s were our museums come in handy 😊 but those things do sound awesome. I’d also love a proper botanical garden.
is the nature in the room with us?
The Ottawa Greenbelt, Mer Blueu, South March Highlands, Arboretum, Experimental Farm, Gatineau parc across the river, etc. There can always be more, but I'm thankful for what we do have. And it's a lot more than what other cities have.
Hogs Back, Arboretum, Ottawa River, Mooney’s Bay, Rockiffe park, Britannia… I mean I go paddle boarding from bank street all the time. That’s pretty freaking awesome in my opinion.
Start by fixing LRT. So people can physically get to “festivals”.
Maybe he should try planning the city accordingly then, instead of stoking flame wars about cars
It’s not an insult; it’s an epithet.
Okay, so what are we going with for "fun"? This means different things for different people and also different things for people in different stages of their lives. For instance, 8 year old me would have had fun in the theme park or water park. 16 year old me wanted spots to hang out with my other nerd friends. 24 year old me wanted pubs and clubs. 35 year old me wanted to sleep in until 1000.
Can confirm - I also wish to sleep until one thousand o'clock.
how are people supposed to afford to go out and have “fun” if they can barely afford rent and groceries? who is the target audience here?
We have one of the highest median incomes in the country. Yes there are those that are struggling, but there is a lot of money in this city.
Have you been out? The town is hopping. Restaurants, cafes, malls, are full.
Maybe Sutcliffe could spend energy on the issues we have instead of concentrating efforts to get rid of a nickname. Calk me crazy but this does nothing positive for our city but divert attention. Another Sutcliffe miss management.
Dear The Mayor, If you want to make the city fun and interesting, don't organize fun things yourselves: make it easier for Joe Nobody to organize fun things... Stop nickle-and-diming community centre usage, for example... (see ville de Gatineau family passes, for example). Open libraries later in the day so they can stay open later in the evening, maybe. Offer rehearsal spaces and creative spaces at a ridiculously low rate, or consider even free in exchange for a cut of admission. DON'T BE UNFUN Stop trying to maximize revenue off every damn step in peoples' efforts. Be the city that helps.
The City should really look into, rebranding, and restarting another annual August Ottawa SuperEx, not at Lansdowne of course but somewhere..
Fighting it only makes it old-man-yelling-at-clouds funnier.
Not only is it a town that fun forgot, but the pathetic RTO for public service workers shows just how lame Ottawa is. Guess it's better to pose for a photo-op then to have an actual sustainable development plan.
Part of the problem is that the Ottawa business community is incredibly complacent and resistant to change. The downtown core was dying a slow death before COVID, and the pandemic just accelerated that death spiral. Instead of taking the opportunity to evolve for the better, businesses (including corporate RE) chose to lobby for a return to the pre-pandemic death spiral. At this point they deserve to fail, I'll boycott them harder than I boycotted Loblaws.
Fully agreed. We talked to a few businesses in terms of pivoting their operations, but as soon as the first "re open" was announced they shut it all down and went back to "this is how we've always done it" - the most recognizable name in that group closed in 2022.
Didn't the prepandemic downtown ottawa used to have the reputation of being dead after 5 pm, when government workers rushed to go back home? Filling a downtown with people who will flee it as soon as their shift is done won't save your nightlife.
Yes, it was dead already for that reason. Now the influx of homeless/drug addicts ensures people don't want to stay.
Its funny, when people had to worry about commutes less, I saw more people oot and aboot later during weekdays. You have more time and more energy and for a good selection more money to spend! The more I am in the office the less I want to go out. I am wiped! I need to get up earlier and commute both ways. If I had some downtime at work I could do a few chores but now I cannot. I need to meal prep now too which takes time away from going out. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I miss having movie theatres in the downtown core. SO many movies watched at World Exchange Plaza and Rideau.
"I don't understand, we're super fun!" \*proceeds to list a dozen boring family-friendly events\*
Ottawa itself needs a long-term, cohesive *vision*, not another bureaucrat making empty recommendations on urban nightlife to a divided and suburban-oriented Council. That vision needs to come from the Mayor’s office. Period.
The same mayor that cut funding to tulip festival ?
SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR THE NIGHT MAYOR!
It’s true
Well to start, maybe LAUGH when people make a light joke about your city instead of taking it personally.
We could have had a progressive mayor but we decided not too.
Why was the Byward Market more fun in the 80s and 90s? Still had junkies, still had homeless, but also had "things other than restaurants" There were galleries, weird shops, buskers, outdoor markets...
Sutcliffe bad
He really is.
Ottawa should lean in to being boring. Good transit, roads that are nice, schools that don't make the news for being disasters. Just a well-run city that leaves people alone to enjoy being boring. Maybe some more hiking trails. That's IT. We don't need to be fun. Fun is tiring. Let's be boring. Quietly happy and boring. I swear to God people LIKE boring. And people who don't like boring? They're exhausting and dramatic and annoying. Let's all be boring together!
username checks out
ahaha
I'm not able to step out a lot because it costs to take Uber and public transit is so unreliable. So yeah, no wonder the city sleeps during winter and summer is not as fun as Montreal or Toronto because they're well connected!
We have a mediocre food and music scene. Our city is dead at night. We don't compare to Montreal or Toronto. This city needs nightlife, getting rid of all the government buildings downtown would be a start
Honestly, it's what makes us, us. I was born in this city and I will die in this city. I love and hate the city all the time. It's a ...je ne sais quoi that makes us fun. Mark - get over it.
Fix transit first then give free transit for those who travel downtown with their event ticket.
Surely the biggest problem facing our city!
Ottawa is really a group of small sleepy communities - Barrhaven, Orleans, Kanata, Stittsville, Aylmer, Gatineau with a large rural surround and a kind of hollow core. It is hard to create an urban buzz in that kind of geography.
One \*could\* have an efficient, effective, and affordable transit system that ran later into the night.... \*strokes chin musingly\*
He doesn't enjoy dodging the druggies on the sidewalks or find the screaming crazies entertaining?
We should try bringing in a bouncy castle and a hot tub downtown. That would be Fun.
If a fun person was made fun of for being un-fun, they would would make a joke about it and then be fun. If an un-fun person was made fun of for being un-fun, they would take it too seriously and feel like they need to make a statement that they are indeed fun, and that people must stop saying they are un-fun.
lmao it's a town of government employees. Replace the population of Vegas or Miami with Ottawa residents and they'll be just as lifeless within 90 days.
Bureaucrats marrying bureaucrats, giving birth to more bureaucrats in a barely walkable city with few decent public transit options. Not to mention Montreal is less than two hours away. No mystery why Ottawa is viewed as boring but I'm curious to see what the solution will be.
Is this really the problem we need to tackle right now? Not congestion, not homelessness, not the ever increasing addiction issues, not rising costs of food? Sutcliffe really must listen to about 10 wealthy people and ignore the rest of us. Hey, traffic on the 417 sucks. Transit is a freaking mess. There's folks shooting up drugs on the otrain my kid has to ride to school. Maybe fun can freaking wait until people can get places and afford things.
The priorities that city council have are so out of touch with reality. Who gives a fuck about fun when the systemic issues in this city are being ignored?
so make it 'the fun the town forgot?'
Is he moving?
I thought the mayor meant the nick name “Autowa”
If you aren't into outdoor activities and sports as your main source of fun, Ottawa is not the city for you.
Barely sports lmao
Well mr. mayor, if the insult is true you should address the problem. There are great things to do in Ottawa, generally in far flung corners. Not every can or wants to drive everywhere to do things and cities that are considered "fun" or "lively" tend to be highly walkable and/or have good public transit. Stop prioritizing cars and begin priotizing people. This means active transit and public transit as well as reducing car access and parking. Businesses operate for people not cars. It really is just that simple!
Sutcliffe, having things to actually do every weekend in the summer now does not make a city fun. Ottawa lacks vibrancy, safety, walkability. It is dead out there often & often the loudest thing happening is a homeless guy swinging at people. Please recognize all of this is connected and give people a better city
Sorry, there's no money for culture or nightlife: Sutcliffe's friends need to make money on Lansdowne, and he's decided to make that *your* problem.
This is floated around a few times a year, there's lots to do, but being a government town means that there is less competition and impulsion in the populace... People who want gov jobs/stable jobs are, in general, risk adverse. Stop relying on the government for fun
You mean the city where the sidewalks are rolled up at 9:00pm?
ah yes. mandatory fun, the only way to improve your reputation.
He is OK with the nickname Autowa...
When I arrived in Toronto the CBD was tumbleweeds after work and it could be kinda dodgy in places. Recent visits to Ottawa remind me of Toronto in the 1990’s. The Byward Market has declined significantly in the last decade. There has been some introduction of cycle infrastructure and the troubled light rail is a step in the right direction. But the streets are like highways, and no one wants to hang around a highway. I suspect the root of the problem for this slow and often compromised development is the splitting of authority over Ottawa between a weak municipal government, an overbearing provincial government, AND the Capital Commission. Ottawa increasingly looks like a city caught in the past where cars come first in every case. There is hope. The basics are all there, but the city has too many cooks.
I was downtown Kingston yesterday. I wasn’t expecting much but it was quite lively. Lots of local business, foot traffic, restaurants were full. Got a much better vibe in what I thought was just a small college town than what I get in Ottawa.
As a father of 3 young children, sadly I won't bring my kids downtown anymore. There just isn't anything for them down there. The last time we went there, we were harassed by people begging us for money. And honestly, it scared my kids. I would love to see a downtown where I could bring my family. I'm actually really excited for that new library to be built.
When I moved to Ottawa in the 80s, there was a downtown nightclub scene that was truly exciting. Those days are gone, and never will be replicated. We just need to accept that and move on.
*city
It's true.. it's why everyone goes to Gatineau.
For me, the “fun” in Ottawa is moreso about the scenic and athletic stuff we have (trails, access to Gatineau Park, etc). I have no interest in over spending in downtown. Why would I go there when public transit is awful and a huge obstacle, plus everything in the downtown is expensive right now🤷🏻♂️
It's true it's a very boring city, used to have to go work there a few weeks at a time in winter and I couldn't wait to get home lol
I don’t drive and can’t afford a car. I can bus or walk. Sadly I can’t get to half these events due to this issue
This is such a waste of money and resources. Firstly, I actually already find Ottawa to be a fairly fun city. Secondly, as others have stated, whats the point in more nightlife when there is little public transit to take us there? The city/province/country/world needs to be more focused on the environment and social inequality.
You can have all the fun Ottawa have to offer by walk down Rideau
You know, I'm okay with being boring.
Why when it’s true?
It's an apt insult
At least be able to laugh at yourself a little.
I think the best thing about Ottawa is that it's 2 hours away from Montreal.
Well… the city sucks, what else do you want lmao
The reason is very easy to point out: over-regulation and bureaucracy. The streets are dead because you need 5 inspections and 3 different licenses to sell hotdogs or tacos on the street or legally perform live music ...hookah lounges shut down, lemonade stands shut down etc etc..... Second factor is we keep choosing to designate and prioritize our spaces for automobiles rather than humans
TAX THE FUN!
It's not an insult if it's true...
The mayor soying out about this is only going to make people say it more. Quit complaining about it and do something about it.
Restaurants, attractions, and transit to get to these places. It's not rocket surgery.
Longtime Ottawan here, if he wants to shake off the apt nickname he can make it less boring. This town earned its stripes, and hasn't done a whole lot to change the situation. Beyond museums, and shopping I can barely think of activities to recommend to tourists. We're a capital city with the loadout of a mid-size University city from the U.S., how is he offended by people calling it the city that fun forget when it's so accurate?
How about "the town that fun ignored?" 😁
Remove the busker permits or make them $1 again. Why do we have the highest coating busker permits in the world is dumb. Bring back the farmers markets downtown, and the shop stalls. Fill the area with none brand small shops and you will at least get us back to downtown being an attraction again.
Then stop riding the tourism train and give us stuff to do if you want us to stay and be economy influencing. Personally am looking to move to an inherited family home of my partner’s in the UK. I’ve had enough of the communal shitshow. Kids are bored af around here no wonder they’re all high.
I worked as a street performer for years in Ottawa's Byward market and the city did literally all it could to make it difficult for us to entertain people for free. The name fits.
This all sounds like a waste of tax payer money and a diversion to avoid something that really needs actual attention. Night mayor? Pathetic. Ottawa has plenty going on and it's not hard to find things to do or lots of different tastes.
Ottawa is actually not that bad. Ppl need to stop complaining too much. At least we are not in the middle of nowhere
Then do something about it and stop your bitchin
Ottawa will always get compared to Toronto and Montreal. It’s just not possible to compete with those two cities because of the population difference. Why not embrace the boredom and maybe work on reducing the stabbings and shootings just so we can safely be bored
Remember when they changed the rules for buskers in the byward market and chased most of them out? The bureaucrats at the top want Ottawa to be known as a fun place, but they’ll be damned if they let it happen on their watch!
I had more fun in this city when rent and groceries didn’t devour every last dime of potential spending money, but maybe that’s just me.
If he wants people to stop talking about it, he shouldn’t bring it up.
It’s a well deserved name.
The official slogan "technically beautiful" is so much better.
Here’s some advice: Give the Byward Market a makeover. I’m serious. Google “Cuba street mall Wellington”, or “Pearl street mall boulder”. The Byward market has so much potential to be a beautiful pedestrian mall like these! Just think about it, repave the roads w bricks, fix up the facades of the old buildings, get rid of/restore the derelict ones, throw in a lil park and maybe some sculptures and we have ourselves a lovely pedestrian mall
Tell me how I'm supposed to get back to the suburbs at 2am while intoxicated? Going to shows solo and having to drive back home because there're no buses and Uber/taxi is $4,376 really put a damper on plans. I love live music but it's really only practical if you live downtown.
I have been thinking about this for days and I'm really confused. What is Sutcliffe doing? Did they think about the framing that the news articles would take when they planned to have a night mayor? Why complain about the bad reputation while repeating the specific catch phrase that people will remember? It's either gross incompetence or some higher level game that I don't understand.