Getting the sick in

Accessing the MUHC superhospital may not be easy for those who need it the most

Community organizers from Westmount, NDG and St-Henri are growing impatient as their questions about pedestrian access to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Glen Campus, expected to open in 2014, remain unanswered.

One of their biggest worries is about the need for connections to the site from the nearby Vendôme metro station. Plans have long been in the works to widen the existing underground tunnel that connects the metro to the interurban train station, and extend it to the hospital’s underground parking garage. But it’s the plans for a second pedestrian access point from the de Maisonneuve side— one that community members and hospital planners agree is necessary—that remain unclear.

“If there are going to be 8,000 visits a day to the site, we of course need another entrance on de Maisonneuve,” says Maureen Kiely, a member of the Westmount Municipal Association and Con­certation Interquartier (CIQ), a coalition of community groups from NDG, Westmount and St-Henri. In 2004, MUHC signed a partnership agreement with CIQ to work together on integrating the hospital into these communities. But coalition members say they feel they’re not being consulted enough.

Hospital planners have talked about creating a second exit to Vendôme metro, on the east side of the platform, and linking it to a more central point on the hospital site by either an above-ground pedestrian walkway or an underground tunnel. But so far, there has been no official announcement.

“From what Pierre Mayor [MUHC’s associate director of facilities development] tells us, they still don’t have word on the tunnel,” says Kiely. “It’s quite a serious problem. It seems like the city, the province, the STM—nobody’s talking to each other, or they’re only beginning to. But it’s everybody’s problem.”

Caroline Phaneuf, a senior advisor for MUHC, says that details about this particular access point are still up in the air because negotiations between the involved parties are taking longer than expected. “In our PPP [Private-Public Partnership] contract, right now, it says that our private partner will build a passerelle to the second metro exit,” she says. “But we may get something better than that. We just don’t know yet.”

Community workers are also concerned about pedestrian access from the St-Henri side, given that the St-Jacques escarpment makes for a steep climb up to the site.

“If you stand on the corner of St-Jacques and Glen, you’ll see that for the handicapped or the elderly, it’s like trying to climb Mount Everest,” says Kiely. “I have personally asked the architect whether there are any plans to put in an elevator or escalator so that people can be moved up the hill easily.”

Solidarité St-Henri coordinator Shannon Franssen, also a member of CIQ, agrees. “This is a $1.5-billion project,” she says. “If they choose to turn their backs on St-Henri, a poor neigh­bourhood with its share of sick people, right next door, it would be quite unfortunate.”

Phaneuf says the hospital has accounted for this problem. “The retaining wall around St-Jacques is coming off and we’re redoing the slope so that it will be a lot more gentle.”

CIQ members and cycling advocates would also like to see the bike path along de Maisonneuve in the vicinity of the hospital rerouted, given the increased volume of traffic expected. But so far, the City of Montreal has not announced any plans to do so. ■

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