New Ottawa Civic Hospital [930 Carling Ave + 520 Preston St] | U/C

[TheBrain]

Here's an idea to minimize impact and get ambulances from the 417 to Holland.

Ambulance coming from East would take Parkdale exit, then:
1) Squeeze on-ramp a bit south towards 417
2) Make an emergency only lane on the right that starts at the on-ramp, goes up it a bit and then comes back down to Holland in front of the school. Looking at Google I'm not sure if expropriation would be needed or not...

From West:
1) Make an emergency only exit that ends up Holland.

This wouldn't help the increased traffic on Parkdale but would create quick emergency acces to the hospital.

And, of course, all this would depend on drivers not using that lane... cameras may be needed.

One thing I don't know, do ambulances wait at the hospital for a call or are they stationed around town? If so then that would require on-ramps as well.

[little italian]

I have heard multiple doctors who work at the Civic argue that we don't need a new hospital; we need a new long-term care facility. Kay's comments to the NCC board yesterday -- against Tunney's -- reflected in part her hope that the old hospital could be converted into such a facility. What are the prospects now for the old hospital?

[zzptichka]

I find it funny that all those HOSPITAL NEEDS MOAR PARKING people were outraged when that article came out about a year ago about how hospital is raking in Millions with their parking lots.

[capital_urbanite]

Originally Posted by little italian

I have heard multiple doctors who work at the Civic argue that we don't need a new hospital; we need a new long-term care facility. Kay's comments to the NCC board yesterday -- against Tunney's -- reflected in part her hope that the old hospital could be converted into such a facility. What are the prospects now for the old hospital?

And will the Heart Institute be moving as well? They are just finishing up a major expansion. I'm guessing that they will be moving at a later date.

What about the Research Institute? Is it staying or moving to the new site in 2026?

[capital_urbanite]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I will be cheering with that choice. The feds may have all kinds of plans for Tunney's Pasture but I can't see that occurring for decades especially with four other major projects (Bayview, Lebreton, Zibi, Wateridge) that need to receive higher priority. So this will redevelop a site that is on rapid transit. I hope there will be a convenient LRT stop, not requiring a 500 m walk to the main entrance. But hey, this is the City of Ottawa.

The bus loop should be gone by 2023 (close to the anticipated construction start date for the new hospital) with stage 2 of the LRT completed. That will give an opportunity to provide a very close connection to the hospital.

[little italian]

Originally Posted by capital_urbanite

And will the Heart Institute be moving as well? They are just finishing up a major expansion. I'm guessing that they will be moving at a later date.

There was a board member from the Heart Institute at the NCC discussion. He explicitly stated that the Heart Institute is a totally different entity from the Civic Hospital, and that the Civic Hospital cannot speak to the future of the Heart Institute. So, yes, another huge question mark there, and potential massive implication in terms of patient care if the NCC's vote means that it will take longer to transfer patients to the Heart Institute.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by little italian

I have heard multiple doctors who work at the Civic argue that we don't need a new hospital; we need a new long-term care facility. Kay's comments to the NCC board yesterday -- against Tunney's -- reflected in part her hope that the old hospital could be converted into such a facility. What are the prospects now for the old hospital?

Well they have an option to stay put. If they don't want to move they can always buy properties around existing campus and/or build up.

[capital_urbanite]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Well they have an option to stay put. If they don't want to move they can always buy properties around existing campus and/or build up.

According to the hospital it would be way too expensive and disruptive to patient care to renovate the existing campus given the complexity/age of the existing structures. So this doesn't seem to be a viable option.

[c_speed3108]

What I have heard about the heart institute from people in the know is that if it does not come along it will need some stuff added to it as it currently doesn't have it's own emergency department and piggybacks on the Civic for that. If they become buildings no longer joined that will have to change.

[acottawa]

Hospitals in other cities do not have the option of begging the federal government for free land. There must be best practices for hospitals that need to be rebuilt or relocated or expanded.

[rocketphish]

Hospital officials reeling behind the scenes after Tunney's Pasture selection

Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 25, 2016 | Last Updated: November 25, 2016 5:45 PM EST

They are not saying much publicly, but behind the scenes sources say officials with The Ottawa Hospital are reeling from Thursday’s selection of Tunney’s Pasture as a potential location for a new Civic Hospital.

Words like gobsmacked, shocked, astounded and angered are being used to describe the reaction of senior hospital managers and board members to the surprise recommendation made — with dissent by board members from Ottawa — by the National Capital Commission board.

The hospital has long favoured locating a $2 billion replacement for the aging Civic hospital across the street at the corner of the Central Experimental Farm — a site promised to the hospital by the Conservative government.

Hospital CEO Jack Kitts reportedly didn’t learn of the NCC recommendation until he received a phone call at 6 p.m. the night before the board was to vote on it.

The hospital issued a terse statement Thursday after the vote, noting that Tunney’s Pasture was never among its top choices for a new Civic hospital.

On Friday, Dr. Jack Kitts, CEO of The Ottawa Hospital, told reporters he was surprised by the choice: “We did have some concerns and it wasn’t our top choice.” Kitts said he wasn’t necessarily disappointed by the selection, but he was surprised.

He said he wanted to meet quickly with federal, provincial and municipal officials. The question of who pays for the demolition of government buildings at the proposed Tunney’s site would be the first order of business. Meetings are being arranged with hospital officials and various government officials as early as next week for further discussions about the site.

It its 2016 report on potential sites, the hospital noted that demolition on Tunney’s would be costly and suggested the federal government would have to absorb the cost. A spokesman for Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, who will give final approval to the NCC’s recommendation, said it was “too early to tell,” who would pay for demolition.

Joly’s approval of the recommended site would mean the federal government has agreed to offer it to the hospital if it wants to use it. It would be up to the hospital to accept it, but, in a city in which most of the surplus land is owned by the federal government, there are few other realistic options.

A hospital spokesman pointed out Friday that its timeline to get a replacement for the Civic hospital is significantly quicker than indicated by NCC officials — 2026, which is 10 years from now, compared to 15 or 20 years, which NCC officials suggested on Thursday. That makes demolition, which could significantly delay construction, a significant issue.

At Thursday’s NCC meeting, CEO Mark Kristmanson indicated he had spoken with Kitts about the proposal and he was “on the whole quite positive about the site.”

Sources told the Citizen that as recently as a few weeks ago the hospital was looking more closely at the Sir John Carling site, believing that it might be offered as a compromise. Hospital officials had no sense Tunney’s Pasture was on the table.

Former Ottawa Mayor Jim Durrell, who has publicly pushed for the hospital to be built across the street from the existing Civic, on the site promised by former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird in 2014, said he is hearing from people from across the city “who can’t believe this is happening.”

Durrell criticized the way the decision was made and said he doubts that the hospital will ever be built at Tunney’s Pasture.

“The process was so flawed. On something this critical — we are not talking about a Tim Hortons being built — when you bring someone in (on the NCC board) from Calgary or Vancouver or wherever they are from, there are no real questions and it was approved in under an hour, this is just bizarre,” he said. “I bet half of (the NCC board members) have never been to Tunney’s and have no idea where it is.”

The NCC board includes members from across the country. Nine members voted in favour of the recommendation. Two voted no, both from Ottawa, and three abstained, two of them from Ottawa.

Durrell said there are plenty of questions that need to be answered about the site, notably who will pay the cost of demolition and land remediation. “The hospital doesn’t have the money. The hospital is so caught off guard right now, they don’t have a position.”

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said he believes a “growing list of community leaders” are talking about how they can oppose the decision in the hopes of reversing it. Poilievre has called the NCC review and selection process directed by Heritage Minister Joly a waste of time.

Supporters of protecting the Central Experimental Farm from development, who rallied against plans to build a hospital on the farm, said they were relieved by the NCC decision.

Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi said he has consistently heard from constituents that the new Civic needs to be in the downtown core and accessible by public transit.

“Over the coming weeks, I look forward to hearing from my community and The Ottawa Hospital on the feasibility and viability of this recommended site.”

[email protected]

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...e-scenes-after-tunneys-pasture-selection

[rocketphish]

Why the Ottawa Hospital should reject the Tunney's site

Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 24, 2016 | Last Updated: November 24, 2016 7:11 PM EST

After all this, Tunney’s Pasture?

It came as a shock, but bad news usually does. To deal with the easy part, first: it’s the wrong location, and isn’t getting the location right — more than considering parking, access to highways, green space versus brown space, farm versus non-farm — the only real job the National Capital Commission had?

Two obvious problems. This is a hospital to serve the city for 100 years. The city is growing west, east and very much south. So the recommendation from the NCC committee is to move the Civic campus three kilometres north, so far north it’s almost in the Ottawa River? It’s moving in the wrong general direction — away from its future patients.

Access is the second immediate objection. The LRT link is wonderful, fair enough, but the road links are iffy. Parkdale Avenue, the locals know, is already a nightmare. Improvements can be made to Scott Street and Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, of course, but first you have to get there. A wide-open Scott Street or river parkway does not help the trek from Greely.

Tunney’s already has 10,000 federal workers commuting every day and now we’re going to add 10,000 more, not to mention the daily hurly-burly of servicing a hospital with supplies, ambulances, thousands of visitors, the usual fleet of police cars and the odd helicopter landing. Whatever could go wrong?



There was an intriguing trend emerging at the meeting. Other than chairman Russell Mills, all the other local board members who chose to express an opinion opposed the choice of Tunney’s. The more you know the site, in other words, the less you like it.

There appears, too, to be a clash of values. The Civic is choking in its current location, inside and out. It just feels like every ward and corridor is cramped. One of the goals of the new $2-billion hospital is to air things out, inside and on the grounds. For that, you need open space.

Instead, the NCC sees “great city-building” potential at Tunney’s, meaning it can be “highly integrated into existing urban fabric” and plugged into a now-altered plan to put hundreds of residential units on the government complex. In other words, weave the buildings in tightly, and LRT and futuristic, self-driving cars will look after the rest.

“Where you’re located now at Tunney’s Pasture, it certainly accommodates the growth across the river,” said Brian Coburn, a former east-end politician and the plain dealer on the board. “But it does nothing for the south end where there is tremendous growth and there are transportation issues out there.”



Coburn wanted to know what will happen to the existing hospital, and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which represent huge investments in public dollars. “Was any of that discussed?” There was no answer.

And he wondered whether the board’s evaluation committee was overplaying the value of public transit as a “panacea” to broad, complicated transportation problems.

Taken together, the response of Coburn and other board members was that they just don’t know enough about the whole proposal, or are simply not a qualified body, to be picking a future home for the Civic campus.

Quebec member Denys Rivard was the most glaringly honest. He admitted he would abstain from voting because, flat out, he didn’t know much about it. Even local member Bob Plamondon, who knows a good deal about the city and the hospital, felt the matter was being rushed, as he only received the lengthy briefing material on Monday evening and had no feedback from the hospital board.

“The problem I face right now,” he said, “is that I do not feel I am adequately informed to make a decision.”

Board member Kay Stanley, meanwhile, said she’s long felt a site on the Central Experimental Farm was the best option. She also pointed to the history of Agriculture Canada giving or selling hundreds of acres to the NCC for eventual private development (Central Park) but now feeling 5.7 per cent of its land (for the Civic) is untouchable.

It is more true today than ever: the NCC is the wrong body for this task. It only looked at federal holdings, didn’t explore private or municipal land, and can’t be taken seriously as a long-term health planner. It is also a board of appointees mostly from outside Ottawa, who are evidently free to ignore the advice of members who actually live here.

The Ottawa Hospital should reject the Tunney’s offer and find plan B, before we mess this up for our grandchildren.

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email [email protected].
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...-hospital-should-reject-the-tunneys-site

[rocketphish]

Civic relocation to Tunney's Pasture wouldn't hurt response times: Paramedics

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 24, 2016 | Last Updated: November 24, 2016 6:31 PM EST

City paramedics don’t think a relocated Civic hospital at Tunney’s Pasture would hurt response times.

The Ottawa Paramedic Service provided key input to the National Capital Commission on the 12 sites reviewed by the federal agency.

According to paramedic spokesman J.P. Trottier, an urban-core location and access to Hwy. 417 were the “major priorities” for the service.

If a hospital site at Tunney’s Pasture receives approval, the paramedic service would identify efficient access routes, Trottier said.

“Using our historical call data there is no evidence that the new location will have negative impact on response times as the new location remains within the urban core and is close to the 417,” Trottier said.

A hospital at Tunney’s Pasture could have major impacts to the City of Ottawa. Major focus would be placed on the transportation network immediately west of the downtown.

The city’s 2013 transportation master plan didn’t contemplate an NHL arena at LeBreton Flats or a hospital at Tunney’s Pasture. Now the city is facing the prospect of both within three kilometres of each other.

The good news is both properties will be served by LRT.

Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder, chair of council’s planning committee, said the city doesn’t have a role to play on the hospital location yet. Tunney’s Pasture is properly zoned for a hospital and there would be consultation by the city before any planning, she said.

“We’re far from that. We’ll get the documentation and we’ll review it to see why that location was chosen,” Harder said.

“We’ll have our top managers on the file.”

Other councillors look at the roads leading to Tunney’s Pasture and immediately see a huge problem, particularly on Parkdale Avenue, a narrow street jammed with vehicles a peak hours. Two-lane Parkdale Avenue is the most direct route to Tunney’s Pasture from Hwy. 417.

“I’m looking at it from not just Kanata’s perspective,” Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley said. “How are we supposed to move people in and out of there?”

Hubley warned that city council has little power over the hospital issue.

“I think this goes beyond city hall,” Hubley said. “This has to go grassroots. People in the city are going to have to speak up.”

Cumberland Coun. Stephen Blais, a heart attack survivor, said he’s familiar with Parkdale Avenue since he often goes to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute beside the Civic hospital. Travelling south to the hospital campus isn’t a problem, he said.

“Getting off of Parkdale and heading north is difficult at the best of times,” Blais said. “I don’t know if there’s a lot of room to widen Parkdale without major expropriation.”

Blais, who’s also chair of the transit commission, said while Tunney’s Pasture benefits from an LRT stop, OC Transpo would need to consider bus connectivity, especially on Scott Street.

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, whose ward includes the Civic hospital and Tunney’s Pasture, predicts residents will have concerns about traffic and parking with a hospital relocation to Tunney’s Pasture.

Leiper pointed out The Ottawa Hospital has already noted in a previous study that road work between Hwy. 417 and Tunney’s Pasture would be required if the Civic hospital relocated there.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...e-wouldnt-hurt-response-times-paramedics

[rocketphish]

Tunney's Pasture site for new Civic hospital: What we know and don't know

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 24, 2016 | Last Updated: November 24, 2016 6:13 PM EST

What we know

Location: The proposed site is on the west side of the 121-acre Tunney’s Pasture campus, where 10,000 public servants now work. It’s bounded by Scott Street and the future LRT corridor to the south, Chardon Driveway to the east and Goldenrod Driveway/Columbine Driveway to the north. Surface parking covers much of the site, but significant buildings include the Sir Frederick G. Banting Building Research Centre and the Jeanne Mance Building.

Size: At 52 acres, the site at Tunney’s Pasture is smaller than the 60-acre site on the Experimental Farm set aside for the new Civic by the former Conservative government. However, the farm site included 10 acres for future expansion. The NCC’s evaluation committee concluded that a portion of the 23 acres allotted to surface parking could be made available for future development, reducing the total size requirement to 50 acres.

Timetable: 15 to 20 years.

Who it would serve best: Those who live along the future LRT line, where the most intense development will take place in coming decades, and residents of West Quebec. Residents of communities to the south outside the Greenbelt will be less well served.

Access by transit: With an LRT stop at Tunney’s Pasture opening in 2018, the site will be accessible by transit from the east. Once the second phase of the LRT opens in 2023, residents who live west of the site will have good transit access, as well.

Access by road: The evaluation committee rated road access as one of the site’s key strengths, with direct access from Scott Street and the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. Parkdale Avenue and Island Park Drive, the closest arteries with direct connections to Highway 417, are clogged with traffic at rush hours, but the NCC says Holland and Churchill avenues are good alternative routes.

Current plans for site: The federal government has a master plan to redevelop Tunney’s Pasture as a mixed use community over the next 25 years. The plan, approved in 2014 by the NCC, calls for the addition of up to 1,000 residential units and a doubling of federal employees to 20,000.

What we don’t know

What the new Civic will cost at Tunney’s: When it was ticketed to go on the Experimental Farm, the hospital’s estimated cost was $2 billion. No estimate has been developed yet for the Tunney’s site. Unlike the farm site, it is already serviced, which should save money. But it contains buildings that must be demolished, which will increase costs. Overall, the NCC’s evaluation committee felt the costs “would come up relatively equal,” said chief executive Mark Kristmanson, “but due diligence remains to be done.”

Who will pay for demolitions: The hospital has said it can’t afford the cost of demolishing existing buildings and the federal government would have to pay. There’s no indication yet whether the government is willing to do that.

How to ensure quick access for emergency vehicles: No traffic studies have been done, so no one knows whether streets such as Parkdale would have to be widened. The NCC’s parkway would be available, but it’s unclear what that means for the idea of reducing parkway lanes from four to two in some areas. Nor does anyone have a handle yet on the impact of innovations such as driverless cars on the road network.

What will happen to the rest of the Tunney’s property: Given that the hospital would occupy close to half of the property, plans for a mixed-used community on the site presumably would have to be scaled back. But the areas that remain would still be larger than the planned redevelopment at LeBreton Flats, so something of substance could still proceed.

Whether the hospital will accept the Tunney’s site: In a statement Thursday, Ottawa Hospital officials noted that Tunney’s was not a top-ranked site in its earlier reports, repeated concerns about access delays due to heavy traffic on Parkdale and fretted about the cost and timelines for demolishing existing buildings. But they said they would work with the three levels of government “to plan a way forward.”

[email protected]
twitter.com/ButlerDon

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/tunneys-pasture-site-what-we-know-and-dont-know

[migo]

Brainstorming time:

Would it ease people's traffic concerns to Tunney's if Parkdale Ave was converted into a one-way street going north, and Holland Ave into a one-way street going south? On Parkdale you create one Authorized Emergency Vehicles Only lane from Carling Ave to Tunney's...

What do you think? Sorry Jack...!

[Aylmer]

I think it might be overkill for the number of ambulances per day. There were about 134 000 ambulance trips in Ottawa last year, which we can crudely divide by 365 days and 4 major hospitals. That means that there would be something like 90ish daily ambulance trips to the Civic. And we can definitely assume that not all of those will be using the Queensway.

Basically, I don't think that there are so many ambulances that we would need to completely reconfigure the street network. Especially when one-way streets themselves are more prone to causing serious accidents in the first place!

[1overcosc]

It should also be noted that acute-emergency ambulance traffic coming in from the western suburbs is going to QCH instead.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by migo

Brainstorming time:

Would it ease people's traffic concerns to Tunney's if Parkdale Ave was converted into a one-way street going north, and Holland Ave into a one-way street going south? On Parkdale you create one Authorized Emergency Vehicles Only lane from Carling Ave to Tunney's...

What do you think? Sorry Jack...!

What about designating one-way lanes on Parkdale (Northwards) & Holland (Southwards) as transit only? Or even high occupancy vehicle only?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It might put an end to Sunday bike days and the use of the parkway for special events. It also may end plans to reduce the number of lanes.

1. IMO, Sunday Bike days shouldn't exist in the first place; there is a friggin bike path/walkway running parallel to it!

2. With the new "linear park" along the parkway, I think they are planning on segregating cars, bikes and pedestrians anyway, making Sunday Bike days even more redundant.

3. You're right; reducing the number of lanes will likely, and frankly should be, cancelled if the Civic moves.

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I'm not surprised at all. Many of the buildings at Tunney's are in poor shape and there's been chatter (emphasis on "chatter", not really plans) for a while now within PWGSC about decommissioning a good chunk of Tunney's office space and replacing it with new space to be leased from the Senators' Lebreton development.

Which would effectively support two NCC/Government projects at once. The idea of building millions of square feet of office space at Tunney's and LB never made sense anyway (over the next 50 years). This is a good way of easily redeveloping both at once.

Originally Posted by TheBrain

Here's an idea to minimize impact and get ambulances from the 417 to Holland.

Ambulance coming from East would take Parkdale exit, then:
1) Squeeze on-ramp a bit south towards 417
2) Make an emergency only lane on the right that starts at the on-ramp, goes up it a bit and then comes back down to Holland in front of the school. Looking at Google I'm not sure if expropriation would be needed or not...

From West:
1) Make an emergency only exit that ends up Holland.

This wouldn't help the increased traffic on Parkdale but would create quick emergency acces to the hospital.

And, of course, all this would depend on drivers not using that lane... cameras may be needed.

One thing I don't know, do ambulances wait at the hospital for a call or are they stationed around town? If so then that would require on-ramps as well.

That's a brilliant idea that would pretty much solve the major issue of Queensway access. In addition, we could convert two lanes on Holland to HOV during rush hour. Only challenge I can think of is the eastbound off-ramp for emergency vehicles, which would have to fly over the current westbound Parkdale on ramp.

As far as I know, there are no Paramedics responding to emergencies from the hospital. They are all in Paramedic posts across the City.

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

What I have heard about the heart institute from people in the know is that if it does not come along it will need some stuff added to it as it currently doesn't have it's own emergency department and piggybacks on the Civic for that. If they become buildings no longer joined that will have to change.

On the one hand, their was an article in the Citizen a few months ago justifying the HI's renovation in light of the move coming up in a few years t the new Civic Campus. On the other hand, a recent article says the Ottawa Hospital does not speak for the HI, which suggests they would stay put.

EDIT: Listened to the NCC Board meeting and they don't seem to have a clue what the will happen to the HI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQVp6hMMGMM

[1overcosc]

I think we can thank McKenna for this decision. She pushed hard for the Tunney's site.

Good to know that our local cabinet minister is a good champion for the city.