CHUM wants no REV going past hospital
The CHUM has sent a mise en demeure to the city saying it doesn’t want the REV to go via Viger because “people don’t go to the hospital by bicycle.”
This on the same day the first Québécois rider ever has won a stage in the Tour de France.
Martin - ProposMontreal 17:58 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
“people don’t go to the hospital by bicycle.”
Someone doesn’t want to lose parking money I guess.
Kate 18:42 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
They write as if everyone goes to a hospital by ambulance. Some people have appointments but are physically fine, some work there, some are visiting people there. It’s a stupid argument.
dhomas 19:24 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
That’s a good first point, Kate. But secondly, not everyone who bikes on Viger has the CHUM as a destination. I used to bike past there every single day on my way to work, further west. An actual protected bike path would be awesome on Viger. Due to safety issues on Viger, I separated my shoulder on that stretch and needed rotator cuff surgery.
Kate 19:43 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
Good point, dhomas.
Chinatown merchants should mise en demeure in favour of the REV, too.
DavidH 20:25 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
Went twice last week. Both times using a bicycle.
mare 22:38 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
I must be an anomaly, I bike to the hospital all the time. Not the CHUM, but Sacre-Coeur, or, coincidentally tomorrow, the Montreal Heart Institute. Both are served by pretty nice bike paths, Gouin and the REV Bellechasse. It makes those visits much more agreeable.
A lot of people in hospitals aren’t patients receiving care themselves, but are visiting their friends or relatives.
I can somewhat understand the CHUM doesn’t want ambulances and bikes on the same street, but I must say that drivers in Quebec don’t behave very well near ambulances either. Gridlocking is a national pastime here. At least cyclists can still hear the ambulances, modern cars are so well insulated and have such loud sound systems that drivers often don’t hear the sirens until the ambulances are very close.
Kevin 23:25 on 2022-07-19 Permalink
Martin
Parking is free at the CHUM, for the first two hours.
John B 01:26 on 2022-07-21 Permalink
From the article:
5500 people work at the CHUM daily.
4720 patients visit daily, (not counting people who accompany patients).
50 ambulances daily.
Surely cyclists will be able to let an ambulance cross the bike path once every 15 minutes? I’m sure the path will benefit a lot of the 10,000 people who arrive not in ambulances. I feel like a union, (or 3), for the workers at the CHUM should mise en demure the mise en demure.
Also, Viger is the only west-bound artery between St-Jacques in Old Montreal and René-Levesque, up the hill, and René-Levesque has a bus lane forbidding bike traffic for several hours per day. There needs to be a bike path on Viger.
In the meantime, I’m going to be visiting both the MUHC and a physio next week, by bike.
Tim S. 09:11 on 2022-07-21 Permalink
At Greene and de Maisonneuve in Westmount, the bike path goes by the loading dock for the 5 Saisons grocery store, where big trucks frequently come and go during cyclist rush hour. There’s an on-duty flagman, sometimes two, who handles traffic, and it works really well ( I assume the city mandated the flagman as part of the negotiations around the expansion about 10 years ago). Sometimes the solution is just to hire someone.
Joey 11:50 on 2022-07-21 Permalink
Also, since when do we limit our assessment of the REV to ‘how many people bike to the CHUM’? Car traffic could also impede ambulance access to the hospital – yet the hospital isn’t advocating to make Viger ‘ambulance only’. Show me a bike path in this city that isn’t *constantly* being interrupted by cars, trucks, construction, whatever.
The clip I saw of the hospital DG had her saying that an ambulance having to wait a few seconds to access the hospital because of a presumably unhinged cyclist was “a question of life and death,” as if the patient in the ambulance wasn’t going to spend the next 18 hours in a hallway waiting to be cared for. On the long, legitimate list of things the CHUM and its patients could possibly need, ‘worse cycling infrastructure’ has to to be at the very bottom.