Hospital has no clear highway connection

The Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital was the birthplace of my father through to my grandchildren, and I have been an annual fundraiser. I started training in 1977 and ever since, it is where I have delivered babies and practised family medicine. I have a long-standing commitment to this worthy institution.

When rebuilding, location and facilities are primary decisions. The proposed Dow's Lake site has led to protests over a parking garage that is no longer subterranean, and other valid concerns regarding the loss of innumerable mature trees at the Central Experimental Farm. Why has city planning bizarrely excluded a direct connection to the LRT, which was a primary justification for having the site one kilometre east of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute?

What I have not seen is a discussion of the fact that this will be a regional trauma centre without a clear and direct connection to the highway. The clearest paths either run south on Parkdale Avenue to Carling, or southeast along Sherwood Drive, both two-lane residential streets wholly inadequate for ambulance and urgent traffic.

It seems obvious that a modified Rochester Street would solve these issues. It has essentially no residential housing and the abandoned Booth Street complex is verging on redevelopment. Why are we not discussing a four-lane dedicated connection to this new hospital via the existing 417 entrance and exits (like the connection from Riverside Drive to the General Campus Ring Road)?

I know we will have a properly located helipad for more distant trauma, but I really wonder what our planners are thinking? How will a speeding ambulance deal with speed bumps on a traffic-calmed Sherwood Drive?