Toronto St Michael's Hospital Patient Care Tower & Emergency Department | ?m | 17s | St. Michael's | NORR

[Skeezix]

I'm a bit annoyed at St. Mike's. The construction occupies a lane on Victoria Street, but they made no accommodation for pedestrians (or cyclists for that matter), so the sidewalk on the east side of the street simply dead ends immediately north of the construction. Pedestrians are unlikely to walk back up to the closest accessible legal crossing at Shuter, so they either jaywalk across the street to the west side, or shuffle next to the jersey barriers on the street, trying to squeeze between the concrete barrier and the northbound traffic that is already squeezed into a reduced lane. I'm constantly seeing cars whip by really close to pedestrians and cyclists. It's a dangerous situation and someone is going to get hurt sooner than later. Victoria is also full of construction vehicles due to St. Mike's and MOD, so cars are already trying to detour around trucks, and visibility is not great.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Fortunately they are close to Emerg if they are!

 

[Skeezix]

Fortunately they are close to Emerg if they are!

I was going to say that ("the only consolation is that anyone injured would be close to an ER"), but decided not to risk it.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

I will always go for the cheap obvious joke.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Whenever I bike up Victoria there I take the whole lane.. coming around the corner to the construction entrance means you can run right into a truck coming out or pedestrians trying to squeeze by.

Victoria is a mess of a street in general, not very safe to bike or drive on. It just seems to be begging for multitudes of collisions.

 

[Edward Skira]

Starting the second floor.

 

[Skeezix]

I still don't get it. As is evident from Ed's photos, they built hoarding on the Queen Street frontage, but on Victoria Street it's just chain link fencing and jersey barriers with no accommodation for pedestrian or cyclists. Yet at the MOD site across the street on Victoria, they did do appropriate hoarding with pedestrian protection. Is it somehow because St. Mike's is a hospital, and not a condo developer, that they can get away with this cr*p?

Although, as @Sean_YYZ notes on Twitter, St. Mike's didn't do a great job with the hoarding along Queen either:

 

[interchange42]

Quite a bit more scaffold in place now for the extra-height lobby. Yesterday:

42

 

[Edward Skira]

From yesterday.

 

[mgl]

The marketeria on the 6th floor is getting a Tim Hortons where the Second Cup,used to be years ago, along with a gift shop.

 

[G.L.17]

From today:

 

[stjames2queenwest]

 

[Edward Skira]

Moving on up.

 

[interchange42]

From yesterday:

42

 

[innsertnamehere]

Interesting how they seem to just be building over that poster. I wonder if it will be entombed only to be discovered again 70 years from now when they demolish this wing.