Changelog

The reading at the top is banded on the US EPA index — the platform's default outside Europe — but a paragraph further down told you the page showed the European index, so the same page named two different scales. The prose now matches what is actually on screen, and is clearer that the EPA number and Environment Canada's AQHI are not interchangeable: this page is an hourly estimate, the AQHI is the answer.

The winter parking answer opened "It's June" and the beach answer described a finished season in the present tense; both are rewritten, and the O-Train answer now gives the 1 July 2026 fare and the 90-or-105-minute transfer window. "Who to call" carries the Ottawa Police non-emergency number, 613-236-1222, instead of telling you to go and find it. "What opens when" now says that Ādisōke will not open before 2027 and that the library has taken its final lease extension on the Main branch, to the end of that year.

The tool's whole point is moving your car before a ban starts, and it never said where to move it to. It now lists what opens up free for the length of a declared ban — City garages, pay-and-display lots, Park & Rides and some recreation centres — with the catch that matters: the gate-controlled garages on Clarence Street and Laurier Avenue West have to be emptied between 4 am and 7:30 am, while a car at a recreation centre can stay until the ban is lifted. It also points at the City's free Winter Parking e-Alerts, which email you when a ban is declared, extended or lifted. Ban season opens 15 November.

A new tool reads the snowfall forecast and tells you whether it could cross the 7 cm that leads the City to call an overnight on-street parking ban — so you can move your car before it's towed. It never says a ban is on: only the City declares one. It runs in the ban season (15 November to 1 April) and, outside it, plainly says no ban can be called now.

A colored-pencil drawing of skaters on the frozen canal, with Parliament Hill on the skyline, now heads the town page.

The Ottawa River's live level and flow at Britannia, from the official federal gauge, and where today sits against the past month. After the one-in-100-year floods of 2017 and 2019, it pairs the numbers with the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board's forecast and the City and conservation-authority warning channels — and it's clear it's a gauge, not a flood warning.

Ottawa has four publicly-funded school systems overlapping the same streets — English public (OCDSB), English Catholic (OCSB), French public (CEPEO) and French Catholic (CECCE). Answer two questions and the tool points you to the right one, with each board's own school-finder and registration pages. It's honest about who can enrol — the French-language boards admit families with French-language education rights under the Charter — and it never claims your designated school: only the board's locator, by address, does that.

Britannia, Westboro, Mooney's Bay and Petrie Island in one place: parking (only Britannia's lot is free), washrooms, food, the dogs bylaw and this summer's lifeguard hours — plus a plain explanation of why there are no daily water-quality advisories anymore and how to judge the water after rain.

Line 1's restored two-car service, the June 20 beach opening, Adisoke and Lansdowne 2.0 — the city's watched dates on one page, each saying how firm it is.

Hourly modelled air quality for downtown Ottawa, built for wildfire-smoke summers — with Environment Canada's official AQHI one tap away.

Ottawa starts with three tools. Common questions answers what the city keeps looking up: the three-item garbage limit and yellow bags, the March 2026 collection-day change, winter parking bans and what being towed really costs, the honest route to a family doctor, OC Transpo's reliability, the Skateway, beach water and school boards. Who to call carries verified numbers grouped by problem — 3-1-1, OC Transpo, Health811 and Health Care Connect, 211, the Ottawa Food Bank, police non-emergency and 988. Locals' picks is new ground: the questions Ottawa keeps asking itself — affordable groceries, the best shawarma, cafés, honest repair people, surviving February — answered by residents and ranked by votes. Reading is public; adding a pick takes a free account. Picks are reviewed regularly, and anything that looks like spam can be reported from the tool page.