ottawa and tampa round one
tommyYou can find talk about Tampa Bay vs. Ottawa just about anywhere. But what about Ottawa vs. Tampa?
What exactly is this city of Ottawa?
Yeah – we know it’s in Canada, so they talk funny. And they spell neighbour wrong. But what do we REALLY know about them? Not much. So I asked one of them.
Miss Vicky is an Ottawan. I found her and her offhand remarks at Miss Vicky’s Offhand Remarks. I sent an email to Miss Vicky in order to find out more about the great city of Ottawa.
On her website, Miss Vicky claims that:
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, home of parliament. It’s located on the edge of the province of Ontario, across the Ottawa River from city of Gatineaul in the neighbouring* province of Quebec. The proximity of Quebec and the large number of public servants living and working in Ottawa mean that you are just as likely to hear French as you are English when you’re walking down the street. We’re a diverse population, though - 17.7% of us are visible minorities, many are immigrants.
*see, I told you.
Miss Vicky goes on to say Ottawa brags of:
…a funky music scene, some interesting theatre and a vibrant visual arts community…. two major universities, high tech industry and a lot of government employees…. two big rivers and a canal… Seasons, we’ve got four, but two of them are pretty short. Winter is long and frequently cold, and summer is hot and humid.
With Miss Vicky bragging about the number of seasons, you can see where this is headed. I’m sure we’ll hear more from Miss Vicky in the next few days.
PS: I’d like to welcome all the great Canadians that found this Canada-friendly site via Miss Vicky, eh?! I hope you learn a bit aboot this place we call home. For more information about Tampa from real people, see all the blogs listed on TampaBLAB. If you want more on the ‘ockey team, I highly recommend Boltsmag.
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April 24th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Another difference to note between Canada and the US: Canadians NEVER say “ice hockey”. Up here, it’s just hockey.
April 24th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Is it hockey season?
April 24th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Ottawa can also brag of a new light rail system scheduled to open in ‘09. “Managing growth” is one of the system’s stated purposes. What a concept.
April 24th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
I don’t know a whole lot of Americans that say “ice hockey” either, at least not up north.
PortTampa-Managing growth is nice but it’s a little easier when your nation’s total population is equal to Texas’s.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:39 am
I didn’t call it ice hockey, did I?
April 25th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Joe, Canada has a small population, but over 80% of the people live within an hour’s drive of the US border so they deal with similar urbanization challenges, plus snow removal. I think it’s a matter of perspective. Canadians seem to see managing growth as a necessity in a city growing at about 4% a year, we see it as “nice” with growth rates topping 20%.
April 25th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Funny how the Hosers love to bash on Florida’s two seasons, summer and January, yet look where they spend half the year. Take off, eh!
April 25th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Funny, I didn’t mention 4 seasons as any kind of statement about Florida! Some folks joke that we only have 2 up here - winter and mosquitoes.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Miss Vicky’s venerable Webgeek here.
Calling it “Ice Hockey” is more of a European thing. Kinda like they call “your” football “American Football” and “your” wrestling “Fake Crap” (I keed). To us, there is only one Hockey. You only need a qualifier when talking about skill levels. (NHL, Pro, Bantam, Midget) That thing that high school girls play doesn’t count.
Also, we already have a light rail system (it’s the yellow line here, we’re expanding it for 2009.
One Ottawa sore point we didn’t mention; We just lost our “Canadian” football (like “yours”, but with a bigger field, fewer downs, and a smaller pay-scale) team — AGAIN. Same frikken owners that lost the team before drove the team into the ground a second time.
And, yes we do spell neighbour, and honour, and colour, and valour *ahem* “properly”. It’s a pretty easy rule to remember. It’s “our” spelling.
Miss Vicky’s almost done with part two. She’s just having issues narrowing down the goofiest municipal politician. It’s a tight race.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Everyone knows we have 4 seasons here: Football, Hockey, Baseball, and Tourist.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Sorry Vicky’s Webgeek, I should have said “significantly expanding” light rail in ‘09. Now we look even more backward.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Hey PT,
To be honest I’m not entirely sure why we are pushing so hard for Light rail. I understand it’s use in getting rural/suburban comuters into the core, but we already developped a pretty ingeniuos solution prior to the light rail push. It’s called the Transitway. (look at that map I linked to already — the bus lines in the 90 range run on them) It’s a series of special roadways developed specifically for Bus only traffic. In certain cases, it’s a specific lane next to existing roadways (or Highways) in others, it’s an actuial corridor built specifically for the purpose. It’s like light rail systems in that it’s a dedicated, but it’s much more flexible. It allows vehicles that can already run on normal streets to also use these routes. It also allows emegency vehicles — especially Ambulances transfering high risk patients from one facility to another — to use a relatively clear path during high traffic periods, should they need to.
Don’t get me wrong. I think light rail is cool. In fact I love wandering the the underground in Montreal when I vist — beutiful system there — and was thruilled to ride on the tube when I visited London a few years ago. But I’m not sure it’s entirely neccesary to rip up roads to drop rails on the same roads we’re already using for the transitway.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Webgeek-thanks for the heads up on your transitway. It’s the equivalent of what we call BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) down here and is a proposed alternative to light rail. The fear here is that you won’t get people out of their cars to ride in any kind of bus. It must be nice to be in a community where both Transitway and Light Rail are a reality, even though Kenora will always be my favorite Ontario city.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:44 am
We have those same debates up here, too, and cars frequently win out. We still spend way more on roads than we do transit, and spawl still happens despite council’s stated intention to focus more on increasing density in the core.