Province asked to foot bill for new Vendôme entrance

$70M to $75M needed for second tunnel linking station to new superhospital

Quebec should pay the entire cost — $70 million to $75 million — to add a second entrance to the Vendôme métro/train station, the Côtedes-Neiges–Notre-Dame-deGrâce borough says.

The entrance, required if a second tunnel is going to be added linking the station to the McGill University Health Centre superhospital, will now cost tens of millions of dollars more than if it had been included when plans were drawn up for the health facility, The Gazette reported this week.

The Société de transport de Montréal says Vendôme is al- ready “near capacity.” After the hospital opens in 2015, the number of users will rise by 36 per cent, reaching 14.7 million annually, the STM says.

Train tracks separate Vendôme and the hospital site in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

As it stands, only one tunnel — inaccessible to those in wheelchairs — will connect the station and the hospital.

Borough Mayor Lionel Perez and city councillor Marvin Rotrand are to present a motion at a Feb. 4 borough council meeting urging Quebec to foot the bill.

“Clearly, hospitals need to be linked to public transit,” Rotrand said in an interview.

“Moreover, they need to have universal accessibility. A large part of the clientele will be people with reduced mobility and you don’t build state-of-the-art hospitals without having this problem resolved.”

Yet, he said, “we don’t see the funding anywhere.” It’s not in the budgets of the STM, the Agence métropolitaine de transport train authority, or the MUHC, Rotrand said.

Jean-François Lisée, Quebec minister responsible for the Montreal region, has chided planners for failing to include a second entrance in the hospital’s construction. He said the required funding will be found, but only after “a real fight about how to spread this $75 million around and who should shoulder it.”

The STM estimates the work at $70 million, $5 million less than Lisée’s figure.

Officials say it will be expensive because elevators must be installed, a tunnel will have to be bored under three sets of train tracks and the tunnel will have to be connected to the hospital.

Because of the complexity of the new entrance, it probably can’t be built in time for the opening of the $1.3-billion hospital, even if money was made available now, the MUHC said this week.

“I hope that’s not the case,” Rotrand said. “We’re asking the government to respond in a very short time.”

But if it can’t be built in time, “we might be able to jerry-rig some temporary solutions” for wheelchairs and others with reduced mobility, Rotrand said.

These measures, still being studied, “might not be ideal but they would attenuate the problem somewhat.”

Asked why the process of getting a second entrance approved is taking so long, Rotrand said, “You should not be asking me that question. You should be asking the government of Quebec.”

The MUHC, the STM and the AMT have been studying the issue for years.

In February 2011, they said they were working on a study involving an enclosed pedestrian bridge over the tracks to connect Vendôme and the hospital, with elevators on either side.

The study was to be given to Quebec in late 2011.

“The project was refined in 2011 after completion of the pre-feasibility study, and we’re currently finishing the feasibility study in order to submit the project to government with a clear definition of the project and a cost estimate,” MUHC spokeswoman Julie Paquet said Thursday.

A detailed proposal for the second entrance is to be given to Quebec in March.