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

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I'm not sure why it is such a shock to the local hipsters that most people prefer to drive (or be driven) to the hospital. Many people who go to the hospital are a) unwell b) bringing someone unwell to the hospital or c) visiting someone unwell. All three of those groups may have to go to the hospital outside of rush hour when transit is frequent. I suppose some people who are going for routine procedures like allergy shots or blood tests who could take transit, but drivers are a huge chunk of the hospital's clientele. The riverside campus is literally right on top of a transit station and is still surrounded by parking.

How many people on this thread would tell their mother to take a bus if she needed to go to the hospital?

If politicians have a choice between listening to the actual clients of the hospital who will take a strong interest in this come election day and the non-clients of the hospital who will forget about this in two weeks they are probably going with the former.

Holy straw man, batman!
How does Tunney's location prevent you from driving to Hospital? You can drive all you want. But with Tunney's you have an alternative to take efficient LRT train if you don't drive or want to avoid paying $15 for 2 hours of parking there.
Also, as a driver, would you rather walk through 300m of wind-swept surface parking lot in the winter or park in a heated parking garage and take an elevator for a short walk to the entrance instead?

Really boggles my mind how public and officials buy into this false Cars vs Transit debate that's being pushed on them by the Hospital.

This tweet pretty much sums up all these arguments:

Christopher Ryan ‏@chrisarrrrr Nov 29
Bad news: the situation at Tunney’s is now worse. There’s a moat with crocodiles. One of them is eating the only bridge to Tunney’s.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Holy straw man, batman!
How does Tunney's location prevent you from driving to Hospital? You can drive all you want. But with Tunney's you have an alternative to take efficient LRT train if you don't drive or want to avoid paying $15 for 2 hours of parking there.
Also, as a driver, would you rather walk through 300m of wind-swept surface parking lot or park in a heated parking garage and take an elevator for a short walk to the entrance instead?

Dinosaur tweet is good.

The province won't pay for parking as part of hospital construction, and the province also limits parking fees which limit the hospital's ability to find private sector partners, so to go to Tunney's the hospital will have insufficient parking or have to fund raise hundreds of millions of dollars for parking structures (one of the Citizen articles above had an estimate) and good luck finding a rich person or company that wants to make a big donation to put their name on a parking garage.

Tunney's is also much harder to access for most people. Parkdale (the main link to the Queensway) is one of the most consistently congested streets in the city. The parkway is hard to access from most directions (but great if you live in Quebec).

Nobody is being forced to take transit, but the hospital clients who want to drive (which I suggest is a large majority) will be worse off.

If the federal government want to pay for the parking and a better link between the Queensway and Parkway then I think people would come around to Tunney's.

[zzptichka]

They somehow managed to build 7-storey parking garage on Queensway-Carleton campus 5 years ago or so. Don't remember much fuss about it.

It'd be interesting to see what thousands of people working at the hospital and commuting to it daily really think about it. Regular people, nurses, technicians, interns, not handful of higher ups with free reserved parking spots, sitting on the board.

There was that article about a year ago showing how hospital is making $20 Million a year from their parking lots alone. I bet they could use some of that money to finance a parking garage. I thought Hospital shouldn't be in the parking business, or should it?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Tunney's is also much harder to access for most people.

Please point me in the direction of the traffic study which quantifies this.

Nobody is being forced to take transit, but the hospital clients who want to drive (which I suggest is a large majority) will be worse off.

How so?

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Please point me in the direction of the traffic study which quantifies this.



How so?

The opposite questions are equally, if not more valid.

Is there a traffic study quantifying that there isn't, or won't be an issue if such a move is made?

If not, there must be...a credible one.

I'm on the fence about all of this, but in my mind the burden of proof (that there isn't or won't be an issue) rests with the "move" camp. It's not the obligation of the "stay" camp to prove there is or will be an issue.

[McC]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

They somehow managed to build 7-storey parking garage on Queensway-Carleton campus 5 years ago or so. Don't remember much fuss about it.

As I said when you noted this yesterday afternoon, it's a different "they" though, the Queensway-Carleton Hospital and the Ottawa Hospital are separate entities.

[Aylmer]

Well, if the paramedics are saying that it won't affect response times, I'd say that's a start. We should also keep in mind that for anyone heading to the current Civic, you still have to take the Parkdale exit. Unless you live west of the Carling/Queensway interchange. But if you do, it's actually faster for you to go to QCH.

We have to keep in mind that not everyone in the city will be heading to the Civic; if you live west of Merrivale or SE of the Canal, there's another Hospital closer to you. That leaves essentially Downtown, Centretown, The Glebe, Westboro, McKellar Park, Carlington, Chinatown and LeBreton Flats. With the exception of The Glebe and Carlington, these are all neighbourhoods with easy access to either Scott St. or the ORP. These are also all neighbourhoods (except maybe the Glebe) which do not have very good access to the Queensway or for which it would be a rather significant detour.

So the neighbourhoods the Civic is meant to serve are better able to drive to Tunney's and wouldn't use the Queensway. So why is access to the Queensway such an issue? If nothing, I'd say the current site for the Civic is more difficult to drive to.

[YOWflier]

Empirical data is required to support any such claims; theories and observations won't cut it.

People also need to understand that not all Hospitals are the same. The Civic is our region's trauma centre; any move must provide at least equivalent, if not better road access.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

The opposite questions are equally, if not more valid.

Is there a traffic study quantifying that there isn't, or won't be an issue if such a move is made?

If not, there must be...a credible one.

I'm on the fence about all of this, but in my mind the burden of proof (that there isn't or won't be an issue) rests with the "move" camp. It's not the obligation of the "stay" camp to prove there is or will be an issue.

You can't prove a negative.

The Suburban Ottawa Hospital Corp is asserting that there will be deleterious traffic impacts. It is up to them to adduce the evidence of that. They have the burden of proof.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by McC

As I said when you noted this yesterday afternoon, it's a different "they" though, the Queensway-Carleton Hospital and the Ottawa Hospital are separate entities.

And that's not even remotely relevent.

The distinction between the two sites is not in who governs them, but the fact that the QC is already on a generous and suburban plot of land with lots of room to build things like garages, where the existing civic is not.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

You can't prove a negative.

The Suburban Ottawa Hospital Corp is asserting that there will be deleterious traffic impacts. It is up to them to adduce the evidence of that. They have the burden of proof.

Sorry, disagree vehemently.

People are expressing concerns, well founded or otherwise, and so it's up to to the "movers" to provide the required assurance.

[MarkR]

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

That would be an excellent site. Sadly I don't think that'll happen, mostly for BS reasons like the hospital not wanting to spend money on land. Does anybody know who owns that land?

Within the red outlined area, I know that the Feds own the land east of the train tracks. Of course the brown buildings shown have been torn down, and they even went to the trouble to grass it all over.

[HighwayStar]

The plot thickens:

Tunney's Pasture scrapped as future home of Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/tunney-s-pa...mpus-1.3185663

[1overcosc]

Well that was fast. Normally when any dispute involves the NCC there's years of agony. Remember the LRT-by-the-river crisis?

John Carling can work. As an AAFC employee in the works division I can definitely say we have no real use for the land east of the labs where the John Carling building used to be.

The absolute must for the site, though, is a better pedestrian crossing across Carling. Once there's a major hospital on the south side, the at-grade crosswalks that require pushing a button and waiting 3 minutes for a walk light are not going to cut it. Either a bridge or underpass will be needed by Carling station.

Double tracking the Trillium line is probably going to move up the priority list whenever the city gets around to updating its TMP next. Ideally, it would be moved ahead of the Kanata extension as the next item to work on after Phase 2.

[1overcosc]

Carling-Preston area is going to be one hell of a major centre once this goes through... all those big condos AND the new hospital.. wow.

[HighwayStar]

Like many others I was on the fence about Tunneys... I hope against hope against hope that they don't turn this into a giant parking lot with a couple of buildings in the middle.

They better get this right...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

Like many others I was on the fence about Tunneys... I hope against hope against hope that they don't turn this into a giant parking lot with a couple of buildings in the middle.

They better get this right...

How can you have any doubt when they've got off to SUCH a good start!

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Sorry, disagree vehemently.

People are expressing concerns, well founded or otherwise, and so it's up to to the "movers" to provide the required assurance.

No, it is (or was) up to the hospital to compare the various sites on various criteria, including a traffic AND TRANSIT AND TRANSPORTATION study.

[1overcosc]

The John Carling site is actually pretty constrained due to its irregular shape and grade changes. I'm surprised the hospital would prefer it over Tunney's as John Carling is actually a lot harder to build a suburban-style campus on.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The absolute must for the site, though, is a better pedestrian crossing across Carling. Once there's a major hospital on the south side, the at-grade crosswalks that require pushing a button and waiting 3 minutes for a walk light are not going to cut it. Either a bridge or underpass will be needed by Carling station.

Wrong preposition: not "by" Carling station, to/from it. Fully integrated and out of the weather.

Double tracking the Trillium line is probably going to move up the priority list whenever the city gets around to updating its TMP next. Ideally, it would be moved ahead of the Kanata extension as the next item to work on after Phase 2.

Hopefully the Kanata extension will get deferred in favour of some real transit in transit-supportive built forms in town. We need to stop subsidizing the suburbs.