Environment hurt by growth of city: report; Vital Signs update gives Ottawa a poorer score than 2006 survey

Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Page C3

By Patrick Dare

Posted with permission from the Ottawa Citizen.

Ottawa's economic growth is happening at the expense of the environment, according to a report card on quality of life released yesterday.

 

The second Vital Signs report, an annual measurement of life in the city by the Community Foundation of Ottawa, gives the city two out of five marks for attention to the environment. In last year's report, the city had a rating of three out of five in that category.

 

The city's weak areas include increased garbage generation, increased car use, closed beaches and the consumption of farmland for development.

 

The city isn't making any progress on diverting more residential garbage from landfills, recycling 32.4 per cent when the city's goal is 40 per cent and the provincial goal for towns and cities is 60 per cent. Solid waste collection for 2006 was 371 kilograms per capita, up 3.3 per cent from 2005.

 

Vital Signs used 150 volunteers from the community to grade aspects of Ottawa life, such as housing, safety, economic well-being, health care and transportation. They used a variety of measurements, mostly from Statistics Canada.

 

The foundation's researchers say that in 2006, 428 hectares of farmland were lost to development.

 

And Ottawa's public transit system is struggling to keep up with the growth of the city, accounting for only about 13 per cent of trips, according to a 24-hour study of a single day in 2005.

 

In that same study, 71 per cent of travellers used their cars. Cycling accounted for one per cent of trips and walking accounted for 11 per cent.

 

The 13-per-cent transit share is up from the transit low of 10 per cent in 1995, but it's down from the 15-per-cent share of daily trips transit had in 1986.

 

"Ottawa residents have a long way to go to become truly green," said Community Foundation president Barbara McInnes. "People are loving their cars a little too much."

 

One of the graders for the report, former city councillor George Brown, said he was disappointed with the city's results on pollution problems, such as waste management and transportation. He said Ottawans "need to get our act together" with a new transit plan to avoid severe road congestion and air quality problems.

 

The report finds that Ottawa is a good city in which to live in many regards.

 

Unemployment is at a 17-year low of 5.1 per cent. Property crime and violent crime are falling. And Ottawans are having an easier time affording housing. In 2005, Ottawans spent an average of three times their household income for a house. By contrast, in the rest of the province and the country, the average home cost four times the household income of the buyers.

 

Ottawa has a high number of educated citizens, with 60 per cent of residents in 2006 having completed some kind of post-secondary degree or diploma, up from 55 per cent in 2001. The Ottawa Public Library is seeing big increases in the number of visits to its buildings and its website.

 

But the report also says 19 per cent of Ottawa families have low incomes, the number of food bank and emergency shelter users is going up and low-income citizens struggle to pay apartment rents. A two-bedroom apartment in Ottawa went for an average rent of $941 in 2006.

 

In regards to health, the number of smokers is falling and a greater percentage of Ottawa residents are physically active (56.4 per cent) than in the rest of the country (51 per cent).

 

Ottawa has a higher number of licensed doctors than the rest of the province and the country. But many of those doctors are working for the federal government, or national health science organizations, so access to a family doctor in Eastern Ontario is actually lower than in the rest of the province.

 

Dr. Alicia Donohue, president of the Academy of Medicine Ottawa, said that across Eastern Ontario in the past few years, 770 doctors have registered 650,000 patients on their rosters. Eastern Ontario has a population of 1.1 million people. That leaves more than 400,000 residents across the region who either can't find a family doctor or can't be bothered.

 

Dr. Donohue said people have a false impression that Ottawa has lots of doctors when the city really needs to attract young doctors. She said the problem will only get worse in the near future as the number of doctors above age 60 consider their options.

 

"They won't live forever. They won't work forever," she said.