Don your traffic-cone hat and party on, I guess

When the City of Ottawa sent a press release, both in French and English, to inform us that the mayor and a few councillors had gathered merrily together to mark the beginning of Construction Season I could not help myself. 

I guffawed. 

“This is satire begging to be written,” I decided. How #autowashed do you have to be, really, to not realize that not only is construction anti-fun but that calling it a “season” is the dorkiest thing ever? 

We know it is. We don’t like it. We sure as hell not gonna party about it. 

Infrastructure is critically important. I wrote an entire book about that a decade ago (have no fear, it is safely out of print). It was a crisis then. It’s not better now. Construction, as annoying as it is when you’re trying to get somewhere, is necessary. But we’re not doing it well and that’s a real problem. That’s what I wrote my column about this week. 

And there’s a well-deserved shoutout to my good friend, the incomparable Toon Dreessen. You’ll like what he’s got to say.