[Halifax] QE II Health Sciences Centre | ? | ? | U/C

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by DigitalNinja

I believe the parking garage next to the museum got axed and replaced.

CBC building is gone, new parking garage will be the first thing built. New power plant will be going up next to the new parking garage and the old one will be torn down.

Old Parking garage will then come down and a new building going up in it's place. Existing emergency department will stay as is. You can see a road going around the new building to the existing emergency dept.

I'm not aware of any announcement that the Summer Street parkade has been scrapped. Lindsay won the tender to construct it last July and the revised plan was presented to (and rubber stamped by) Halifax council last September. John O'Connor of Nova Scotia Lands said footings could go in as early as November. I haven't been on Summer Street since then so I don't know if there's evidence of any work.

The province has always said there would be two parking structures. The Summer Street parkade, with some 500 spaces, needs to be built before the existing garage comes down and construction begins on the Infirmary site. The larger facility, on the old CBC site, was to be about twice that size.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The VG will be demolished (good riddance - it was ancient when I did my med school, internship and residency from 1979-89). I used to sleep in the old nurses residence when I was on call, and remember describing the room décor as "1940s bomb shelter"

I believe the CRC will remain. I'm not sure what will happen to the Ambulatory Care Centre (new addition built around 1982). There wouldn't however be much need for this facility if the remainder of the medical establishment is consolidated at the Infirmary site.

Demolishing the VG will not be a bad thing. I think the building has neared the end of its service life and isn't really architecturally significant (like the old Saint John General) anyhow.

Just another day at the VG': two more leaks cause headaches at hospital

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

So, the parkade I see is going on the existing CBC site? I had assumed what I was looking at there was the one the big brouhaha was about next to the Museum. So now there are two parkades? Those renderings just don't make sense to me. The buildings don't seem to make sense given the amount of land available and leave lots of unanswered questions, like how does the current Emerg dept fit, and what happened to the existing power plant for another.

The way I understand it is that the one next to the Museum is in addition to the parkade shown in these renderings. While they're for the same "global" project, the parkade in the renderings is included in the P3 process (that's not concluded yet) while the parkade by the Museum is being done separately and in advance. I suspect the rationale is that by doing it first, parking capacity won't be negatively affected when the existing parkade on Robie is removed.

I think I see the existing emergency department under the giant pedways that cross the site in those renderings.

[mleblanc]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I think I see the existing emergency department under the giant pedways that cross the site in those renderings.

That would be correct. The pedway is going over the existing emergency department connecting the new parkade that is going on the old CBC building lot, and the new cancer centre/outpatient building that is going on the former QEH/community gardens lot.

[JET]

https://globalnews.ca/news/7364425/h...ion-criticism/

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JET

https://globalnews.ca/news/7364425/h...ion-criticism/

Good illustration of planning dysfunction and a lack of creativity being effectively applied to provincial projects in Halifax.

It is easy to explain the functional justification for the parkade, but it does not have to be ugly. It could be a beautiful building that integrates into the area and adds some value for the city. How about a natural history theme with an artistic exterior and exhibits inside?

https://www.zipcar.com/ziptopia/city...arking-garages

But the discussion seemed to be stuck between the province promoting a utilitarian build with no concern for the city and the "Friends of the Status Quo" simply being opposed to any kind of construction. At least that's the impression I get from the news articles and the renderings.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

"Friends of the Status Quo"

Beautiful! I love it!!

This is a perfect euphemism for NIMBYism.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

Good illustration of planning dysfunction and a lack of creativity being effectively applied to provincial projects in Halifax.

It is easy to explain the functional justification for the parkade, but it does not have to be ugly. It could be a beautiful building that integrates into the area and adds some value for the city. How about a natural history theme with an artistic exterior and exhibits inside?

Just wait until you see the new AGNS once they're done with it.

DTIR doesn't build anything beautiful. They are low-bid specialists and beauty is an unjustifiable frill in their minds. On the one hand I can understand their mindset and congratulate them for not wasting tax dollars unnecessarily. I wouldn't want another HRM palatial designer library on this site. But surely there can be some sort of balance that takes into account the location, visibility of the site, and other such factors to justify a bit of panache.

I truly question their management of provincial assets when you see things like this:

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/op...-water-549255/

[Good Baklava]

Originally Posted by someone123

But the discussion seemed to be stuck between the province promoting a utilitarian build with no concern for the city and the "Friends of the Status Quo" simply being opposed to any kind of construction. At least that's the impression I get from the news articles and the renderings.

I think groups making absolutist arguments overshadow any meaningful critique. Next best (and cheapest) thing to do is maybe plant some more trees to hide the parking structure?

[Keith P.]

This just has me shaking my head. Are these junior planner types so indoctrinated with the current dogma that they cannot tell that this is, y'know, a tertiary hospital and not an apartment block?

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/op...bility-561358/

First, we recommend that the ground floor of all the new buildings be lined with commercial space. This would replace blank, univinting walls with storefronts and restaurants. It would attract people to the street, extending the life and energy of Quinpool towards Spring Garden. New restaurants could provide healthy food and refreshment for the hospital’s staff, patients and visitors — as well as people in the Commons, especially if the hospital sets standards for tenants. Commercial space could also be a major revenue-generator for the hospital.

Inserting shops would require changes, but the design is still in early stages, and this should be a priority. A blank wall with no doors and windows is fatal to street life. In contrast, shops can help make it a wonderful street where people want to be.

Second, the design should have less parking overall, and use other strategies to manage peak parking demand.

A smaller structure would save the government money while vastly improving the project for the community. The proposed garages are seven to eight storeys tall, with no setback, which is too tall for the walls lining a street in a pedestrian environment. If the parkade provides lots of low-cost parking while creating a worse environment for walking, it will, in effect, be an investment in discouraging physical activity.

Building so much parking in the heart of Halifax shows surprisingly little confidence in the city’s Integrated Mobility Plan, which seeks to make the peninsula a more walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented city. The new bus lane on Robie Street, and the proposed bike lane on Bell Road pass directly beside the hospital. We should remember that 20 bikes can park in a single parking spot, and transit riders need none at all.

Too often, parking garages are designed to accommodate the one or two days a year when there is the greatest demand for parking. There are other, lower-cost strategies to manage peak parking, such as monetary incentives to encourage a handful of people to temporarily park elsewhere on the few days that this is necessary — a small cost compared to permanent spots that go largely unused. The hospital can partner with existing underused parking structures elsewhere in the city to handle overflow. Our high-frequency transit can function as a park-’n’-ride.

The mind boggles.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

This just has me shaking my head. Are these junior planner types so indoctrinated with the current dogma that they cannot tell that this is, y'know, a tertiary hospital and not an apartment block?

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/op...bility-561358/



The mind boggles.

Good God. It's like there's a chip implant in their brain that automatically kicks in and cuts off any common sense thoughts before they can start to form.

Yup, better cut back on the parking (it's too tall!) to force somebody bringing an elderly relative or cancer patient to the hospital to park elsewhere and make their experience just that much more difficult. Or maybe take your parent to their dialysis appointment on a bicycle built for two, because, you know, it will take up less parking space.

"Sorry sir, you can't accompany your wife to her cancer treatment because you can't leave your car there - however there's another parkade 5 blocks over where you can park, or you can use park 'n' ride... just leave her on this bench and you can bring her up when you return"...

There is usually enough stress built up around hospital visits that you need to make things easier for people, not more difficult. This idea that we need to make things harder for people to force them to do the 'right thing' makes me fume. Not to mention that the population is growing and you need to provide capacity for future population levels when you build a structure that will likely have a lifespan of 50 years or more. Today's "wasted space" is tomorrow's 'just enough space'...

Honestly, it seems like the people writing drivel like this have little to no life experience and are only able to view life through the perspective of a healthy 25 year old with few responsibilities.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

This just has me shaking my head. Are these junior planner types so indoctrinated with the current dogma that they cannot tell that this is, y'know, a tertiary hospital and not an apartment block?

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/op...bility-561358/



The mind boggles.

Yeah, Tristian Cleveland always seems a bit extreme in his city planning POV.

[MonctonRad]

I can guarantee you that the most pressing issue facing both the Moncton Hospital and the Dumont Hospital here in Moncton is parking. Between the two hospitals, there are over 5,000 employees and over 400 physicians. Many of these people work on call, or have irregular shifts, and public transit frequently is not an option for them when they need to report to work. Staff parking is imperative.

In addition, the hospitals see thousands of patients and visitors per day, coming and going from clinic visits or lab and x-ray appointments. These people are frequently elderly, frail and acutely ill. A sick person does not want to go to the hospital on a bus. An 85 year old will not bicycle to their clinic appointment. A person with a broken leg going for his recheck x-ray will not walk 10 blocks to get there.

To try to make a point by stating that the parking garage should be reduced in size, with monies saved to go to the promotion of active transport options is asinine to the extreme!! Who is this guy anyway? Has he ever spent anytime sick in a hospital???

[Keith P.]

It's funny because whomever designed the clinic spaces at the QEII seems to have been related to these three stooges. Take Cardiology for instance. Heart patients go from the registration kiosks in the upper lobby down one floor, then are faced with the long march from the X-ray department where the elevator discharges them all the way to the Summer St end of the facility. It is not uncommon for some of the more ill patients to have to take a rest stop along the way. Then you have Orthopedics. It is not quite so far to walk as Cardiology, but is divided up into multiple "rooms" with (at least in pre-pandemic times) not enough space nor chairs in the waiting areas. So you have people with broken legs or ankles, in casts and on crutches, forced to go from room to room to look for a seat, and if none are available, having to stand and wait. Just utter genius.

[MonctonRad]

From my understanding (from afar), the government of the day cheaped out on the design of the Infirmary and compromises had to be made. Another case of accountancy superseding clinical judgement and need. We see this all the time in my hospital too, but that's another story..........

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

From my understanding (from afar), the government of the day cheaped out on the design of the Infirmary and compromises had to be made. Another case of accountancy superseding clinical judgement and need. We see this all the time in my hospital too, but that's another story..........

Such has always been the case. In ye olden days, clinics were located in spare spaces found at the old VG or the Infirmary on Queen St. In the late '70s someone had the bright idea to consolidate them at the Ambulatory Care (Dickson) Center in part of the VG parking lot. Aside from the lack of available parking for all those outpatients arriving for appointments it made a lot of sense.

But of course the govt cheaped out on it and didn't build it anywhere near big enough. At 5 floors, the first of which wasn't very useful (blood collection, these days moved off-site, and the NS Cancer Centre took all that space) and the top floor had about half of it taken up by a cafeteria for some reason even though there was the main one accessible via the basement. The result was that only some of the services were able to be relocated while others moved around in the old VG spaces. When they built the QEII they got some but not all of those finally moved out but didn't plan for it very well at all and there was bedlam in the early days of that place operating. But some, like the eye clinic, are still at the old VG site even today. It is just nuts.

[Good Baklava]

Yikes. He works for “Happy City”, an Urbanist advocacy group started by a Vancouverite journalist who published a book under the same name; I would call them consultants at most but far from real planners or researchers. He seems over-optimistic about the effects New Urbanist design. In some alternate reality his vision may be possible, but Halifax isn’t really there. I don’t think Halifax’s plan for the future is really at the level needed for his urbanist dream either.

Yes, there is a ton of parking that could theoretically be shifted to other modes I support more. I would have liked parking to take up less space. However, I don’t think the hospital is the right place to start for a number of reasons. It’s hard to rail against something so essential, and I think any critique needs more caution than what Mr. Cleveland shows. It is possible to make transit and cycling more age-friendly, but this entails built and cultural changes that are a long way ahead. I doubt cutting parking access to the hospital will meaningfully contribute to these ends.

[someone123]

I think a lot of planners go too far in fighting against structured parking; they should pick their battles more carefully and focus on the public realm. The points about storefronts and a better street presence are valid and it's possible the design could be tweaked to improve that dimension without detracting much from the core function. A hospital can be a beautiful building that is well integrated into the surrounding city. A lot of old hospitals were beautiful. In this area in particular near Quinpool the hospital will also eventually feel like an extension of the commercial district, if implemented reasonably, and all of this will eventually be "downtown".

It is possible that the hospital planning has been mostly an engineering exercise focused on the health care aspect. They might have overlooked active transportation too. But they will need lots of parking.

Hospitals are somewhat unusual in that many of the occupants arrive at odd hours and a lot of the workers work difficult and long shifts. Transit may not work as well for them. If it does turn out that they add too much parking capacity and it's not needed 20 years from now because transit is so great by then, well, that's a great outcome. If they don't build enough parking that could be harder to correct.

Another subtle aspect about the dynamic with parking is that not too long ago planners demanded parking minimums. The pendulum has swung over to maximums and encouraging other forms of transportation. I favour a laissez-faire approach; by and large developers should be left to figure out what their development needs. If the city builds better transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure, and puts more residential in the right places, the parking requirements will naturally trend downward. There is little need for a "stick" to get developers to comply. They don't want to build parking that sits empty.

Most of the supposed parking problems like on-street parking shortages and surface lots are due to bad public policy. For surface lots the bad policy is taxing improvements on land, and for on-street the bad policy is not charging people for the value of the public space they occupy with their vehicles. Neither is caused by property owners and developers directly; they are just following the incentives.

[Good Baklava]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think a lot of planners go too far in fighting against structured parking; they should pick their battles more carefully and focus on the public realm. The points about storefronts and a better street presence are valid and it's possible the design could be tweaked to improve that dimension without detracting much from the core function. A hospital can be a beautiful building that is well integrated into the surrounding city. A lot of old hospitals were beautiful. In this area in particular near Quinpool the hospital will also eventually feel like an extension of the commercial district, if implemented reasonably, and all of this will eventually be "downtown".

It is possible that the hospital planning has been mostly an engineering exercise focused on the health care aspect. They might have overlooked active transportation too. But they will need lots of parking.

Hospitals are somewhat unusual in that many of the occupants arrive at odd hours and a lot of the workers work difficult and long shifts. Transit may not work as well for them. If it does turn out that they add too much parking capacity and it's not needed 20 years from now because transit is so great by then, well, that's a great outcome. If they don't build enough parking that could be harder to correct.

Another subtle aspect about the dynamic with parking is that not too long ago planners demanded parking minimums. The pendulum has swung over to maximums and encouraging other forms of transportation. I favour a laissez-faire approach; by and large developers should be left to figure out what their development needs. If the city builds better transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure, and puts more residential in the right places, the parking requirements will naturally trend downward. There is little need for a "stick" to get developers to comply. They don't want to build parking that sits empty.

Most of the supposed parking problems like on-street parking shortages and surface lots are due to bad public policy. For surface lots the bad policy is taxing improvements on land, and for on-street the bad policy is not charging people for the value of the public space they occupy with their vehicles. Neither is caused by property owners and developers directly; they are just following the incentives.

Seems like a classic case of fighting the symptoms instead of targeting the source. Cutting hospital parking doesn’t change the fact the city is still car-centric. Hospitals are the type of thing that need to be accessible for all. Cleveland isn’t proposing anything interesting, just applying oft-repeated ideas to the hospital without larger considerations. I can see how these “Happy City” types can get on people’s nerves - they annoy me. These aren’t municipal planners, they’re radicals trying to influence a profession. Don’t get me started on Richard Florida either.

Sure - retirees in the nearby luxury shannex development will have no problems walking to the hospital. How about those in a place like sunrise manor? How about those in Bedford? I would agree more hospital employees should be encouraged to use active/public transportation to get to work, I know some who do just that. Can all hospital employees afford to live close enough to do so? It’s not so much a hospital design issue - it’s a housing, transportation and equity issue.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Good Baklava

Seems like a classic case of fighting the symptoms instead of targeting the source. Cutting hospital parking doesn’t change the fact the city is still car-centric. Hospitals are the type of thing that need to be accessible for all. Cleveland isn’t proposing anything interesting, just applying oft-repeated ideas to the hospital without larger considerations. I can see how these “Happy City” types can get on people’s nerves - they annoy me. These aren’t municipal planners, they’re radicals trying to influence a profession. Don’t get me started on Richard Florida either.

Sure - retirees in the nearby luxury shannex development will have no problems walking to the hospital. How about those in a place like sunrise manor? How about those in Bedford? I would agree more hospital employees should be encouraged to use active/public transportation to get to work, I know some who do just that. Can all hospital employees afford to live close enough to do so? It’s not so much a hospital design issue - it’s a housing, transportation and equity issue.

Agree on all points.

The reasons that it flipped a switch with me are:

1) It's a hospital, a place where it's necessary to make things like parking as convenient as possible because people are often not at their best when going there, and obviously there are often mobility concerns. Don't pick on the hospital when trying to advance an agenda.

2) There are no downsides to adding height and thus extra spaces to a parkade - the footprint stays the same but the utility expands. The mindset seems to be to take away parking spaces to make it less convenient for people who need them, to force them to do something else. As you mention, it's better to make peoples' lives better by providing better options for them (i.e. better, more convenient transit, etc.) rather than forcing them into bad transit (or laughably in this case, bicycles) because they don't want people using their cars (the cars that people have spent their hard earned money on, to use in circumstances like these).

Anyhow, tactics of people with more extreme views like this can tend to turn off the average person, and make them see cycling advocacy, or the anti-car crowd in general, in a bad light. So be it - I'll be on site in the morning with my sign that says "More parking needed"...