Re: Hope is not a strategy against the next bus disaster. A plan, anyone? | Unpublished
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James OGrady's picture
Ottawa, Ontario
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I am the founder of Unpublished Media Inc., a company I started in 2012. I am also a communications professional and community activist, living in Nepean, Ontario. And, I am a hockey goaltender, political hack and most importantly, an advocate for grassroots, participatory democracy at all levels of government.

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Re: Hope is not a strategy against the next bus disaster. A plan, anyone?

September 23, 2013

Here is my response to an article today in the Ottawa Citizen by journalist Kelly Egan calling for a real plan to prevent the train-bus tragedy that happened last week. My response is directed to another person who said we shouldn't be making any decisions until we know the cause of the accident. While knowing the cause is important, there are things that can be done in the interim to help mitigate the chances of this happening again.

Hog wash! The easiest, cheapest and most sensible solution can be made without knowing the cause. Changing the bus schedule as David Jeanes and Kelly Egan suggest in this article, will ensure that these two vehicles never meet up again. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, but apparently City Hall can't.

Kelly, there is a prevailing attitude, philosophy, approach--whatever you want to call it--at City Hall that calls for no safety measures to be taken on anything, until an accident occurs or someone gets hurt. We see it when it comes to traffic lights, cross walks, turning lanes, etc. I believe its done to limit and avoid higher costs which have not been budgeted.

The problem with this approach is that people get hurt unnecessarily. An accident like this could have be avoided if anyone at City Hall, Via Rail or the Transportation Safety Board had realized/cared that eventually something bad would happen if they didn't take action to mitigate the chances of an accident occurring.

I'm really tired of seeing administrative concerns override the concerns of the general public--of voters--at City Hall. I suggest you or another journalist look into it before the next municipal election because its only during elections that we the voters get to express our opinions... something that also needs to change.