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Hospital Link opens to concerns about rats and signage
by Alexandra Mazur, Ottawa South News
Thursday, January 4, 2018, 11:15 AM
The hotly contested Alta Vista Hospital Link opened quietly on Dec. 14, and since its unveiling, some Riverview Park residents have identified a set of challenges with the new road, namely a potential rodent disruption and confusing signage that could be directing more traffic toward residential areas.
Carol Richenhaller has been a resident of Cluny Street for the past 12 years. Since Cluny Street is the first street after the new Hospital Link going north on Alta Vista Drive, her backyard is one of several that butts up against the disrupted green space where part of the link now stands. In her backyard she has an old garage, which she said has seen its fair share of wildlife over the years.
“I’ve always had squirrels in there, and I see birds, the occasional mouse, but nothing big. You just kind of deal with it; you’re on the green space,” said Richenhaller. But, last winter she started noticing excessive chewing and inexplicable piles of gravel appearing on the floor of her garage.
“I saw a long skinny tail and that was the first time I’ve seen a rat in this area. I went out and all the other animals scurried off, but this one stayed there,” said Richenhaller.
Richenhaller said at first, she wasn’t certain if the rat she saw was just another symptom of living next to a green space, until the damages began to pile up.
“Things kept getting chewed, they were chewing the washed-out cartons into pieces,” said Richenhaller, who said the rats then started to get into her van, which she parked in her garage during the winter.
“There was damage to the whole inside of my air filtration system, all my air conditioner filters. My engine air filters were all chewed up.”
By the time fall came around, Richenhaller spotted a larger rat with two babies, and she figured she had an issue. She believes the construction on the Alta Vista Hospital Link has pushed these rats away from their underground homes, into her garage.
This isn’t the only report of rats being moved after major construction in the city. Back in April of 2017, the Riverside South fire station became infested with rats — an infestation so bad that the firefighters had to be relocated for the weekend while the rats were exterminated. Some have blamed that infestation on a nearby residential community construction.
Other complaints have come in from areas where light rail construction is underway, and suddenly neighbourhoods nearby have an influx of rats.
According to Ariel Perez, owner and service manager of Go! Pest Control based out of Centretown, it’s definitely possible that rodents could move into homes because of nearby construction.
“Any construction site can have a rat or mouse problem. If you build underground, that’s where there nest is,” said Perez, who added that if disturbed, rats will try to find somewhere else that is warm with a food source, especially in the winter.
The problem has been recognized by two city councillors, Mathieu Fleury and Allan Hubley, and has resulted in a two-year pilot program to begin in 2018 that will have CCTV cameras placed in Ottawa’s sewers to track the rodent population, because currently Ottawa doesn’t have a way of tracking rat numbers.
Richenhaller thought at first the rats may have been attracted to the garbage or compost in the neighbourhood, but found that the real problem started after the city began the underground water work on the hospital link behind her home.
Richenhaller is not the only one on her block who has noticed signs of rodents on their property.
The Alta Vista resident reached out to members of the Riverview Park Community Association, of which she is a member, to ask if anyone else had been noticing signs of rats. She said she got at least eight responses of sightings. She also said that both of her next-door neighbours told her they too had seen signs of rats on their property.
Bruce Kenny, the city engineer in charge of the Alta Vista Hospital Link, said in an email that rats were not identified as an issue in the construction of the new roadway.
“The project involves the construction of new storm sewers with little modification to any existing sewers,” said Kenny.
Nevertheless, Richenhaller worries that the issue will have to get to critical mass before it’s taken seriously by the city, and she doesn’t want her home to be ground zero for Alta Vista’s potential rat infestation.
Perez of Go! Pest Control said that if a rat problem gets too bad, there’s really very little option other than extermination to get rid of them. According to Perez, deterring factors don’t really work either.
“They can basically chew through anything, even metal … and in some cases cement,” said Perez.
She said she is personally working on trying to deal with the rats in a humane way, but she knows that the solution is just temporary.
“I have now spent $400 on a three-month contract to keep them out of my garage,” said Richenhaller. “In three months what happens? More (rats) come.”
She has reached out the city for help and to recognize that Alta Vista may now have to deal with a rat problem.
“This is not my problem that I caused by being a dirty resident in a dirty neighbourhood. This was diverted to me and now I’ve got the fallout,” Richenhaller said.
Despite having heard complaints, Alta Vista Coun. Jean Cloutier said he’s not sure whether the Hospital Link is the cause of the rats.
“I absolutely accept that it’s disconcerting to residents. That’s why I’ve asked construction crews to monitor areas affected,” said the councillor.
Although he admitted that he wasn’t an expert on rats, like Kenny, he said the sewer work around the Hospital Link was very minor, and that other environmental factors could be the cause, such as the flooding over the last year, the extreme cold of this winter or perhaps construction throughout the city for the new light rail system.
When Cloutier was asked whether it would be valuable to install some of the CCTV cameras planned to track rats in the city around areas where residents have complained of more rodents, the councillor was open to the idea.
“It’s absolutely one of the methods that could be used to get better counts of the rats,” said Cloutier.
Along with the potential rat diversion, now that the Hospital Link is open, some residents have reported the confusing nature of its signage, especially where the Hospital Link meets Alta Vista Drive.
Kris Nanda is the president of the Riverview Park Community Association, and he has had several complaints from residents concerning the speed limit, and the potential for illegal turns on and off the Hospital Link.
The $69.7-million Hospital Link connects Riverside Drive, the Transitway and Alta Vista Drive through an addition to Ring Road. The project was pushed through by the city to alleviate traffic and to improve bus and ambulance access to CHEO and the Ottawa Hospital’s General campus.
Riverview Park residents have opposed the project since the idea was first suggested in the 1960s, and worries that the project would take up green space and have the potential to bring more traffic to a congested area still loom.
“It’s built, and the money’s been spent; we’re trying to live with it,” Nanda said. The community association president did add that Kenny, the city engineer in charge of the project and the Alta Vista city councillor have both made themselves very available to speak to residents about concerns throughout the project, which has been appreciated.
Nevertheless, Nanda said residents want to make sure that the promises that were made before the construction will carry through now that’s it’s open.
“That kind of defeats the purpose of the corridor, if people are turning right where they’re not supposed to,” said Nanda.
According to Kenny, right turns from the Hospital Link turning northbound onto Alta Vista Drive were originally permitted, but was then revoked to address community concern about additional traffic along the residential stretch of Alta Vista Drive, north of the intersection.
Kenny calls the illegal right turns “undesirable” but “not an immediate safety hazard as the intersection was designed to accommodate the turn.”
Nanda also mentioned that although there are clear “no right turn” signs posted at the intersection to turn right going northbound onto Alta Vista, there’s some signage up ahead that might make new users of the link confused about their options.
If a driver is travelling west on the Hospital Link and reaches the Alta Vista Drive intersection, they have the option of turning left onto Alta Vista Drive, or to continue going straight through the Hospital Link. Once through the Alta Vista intersection, there is a bus ramp that takes only buses to the Transitway. This ramp is marked with do not enter signs, but from the standpoint of someone at the Alta Vista Drive intersection, Nanda said it looks as if the driver is not meant to go forward.
“There’s a sign that says no right-hand turn, but there’s also signs that say do not enter the bus ramp, so it can be kind of confusing,” said Nanda.
Kenny said that the project team is considering options to keep people from making the illegal right turns, including a temporary installation of a message board, modification of signage, police enforcement and possibly physical changed to the curb.
He also added that the general performance of the link will be under review over the next year.
“Monitoring will include a review of the traffic movements, traffic speeds and signage installed. With any newly opened facility, some modification may be required to ensure the optimum performance of the new link to the hospital,” Kenny wrote.
by Alexandra Mazur
Email: amazur@metroland.com
https://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/...s-and-signage/
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