Ottawa by-law officers getting positive feedback about downtown traffic blitz

A two-week crackdown on traffic violations in Ottawa's downtown core is soon coming to an end, but not without some glowing reviews from residents in the area.

“It's going great,” said Roger Chapman, Director of By-law and Regulatory Services. “We haven't seen a huge increase in ticket production.”

“The comments we're getting [from the public] is that the traffic flow has improved in the downtown core.” explained Chapman.

Tow trucks remain on standby in the affected areas.

Chapman was at Thursday's City of Ottawa Community and Protective Services meeting to present the committee with by-law's annual report. At the meeting, he announced that they had taken 76,000 service requests last year, which is an eight per cent increase from 2017, and a 14 per cent increase from 2011.

Chapman said the increase is mostly due to emerging issues that have come up.

“The vehicle-for-hire by-law, we've taken on the responsibility of transportation of injured wildlife, and more service requests from the Ottawa police, who no longer do noise calls at night.” said Chapman.

He explained that the single biggest increase in service requests has been in property standards, and they see the most issues in Rideau-Vanier and Somerset wards.

To help combat the increase in service calls, committee has approved by-law’s recommendation of turning 22 temporary full-time positions into permanent full-time.