Heavy truck traffic 'presenting challenges' to ambulances at Hamilton General, says HHS

As city council works to review the routes that transport trucks take through Hamilton, Hamilton Health Sciences is asking it to consider moving heavy vehicles away from the area near Hamilton General Hospital, where a man on a mobility scooter died in October after being hit by a dump truck.

HHS says heavy truck traffic on Wellington and Victoria streets, which runs along the east and west sides of the Barton Street hospital, slows down ambulances trying to get to the hospital, is dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, and makes life in hospital less pleasant for patients. 

"Patients very often [arrive] in critical condition and every minute counts when it comes to their health outcomes," wrote Deb Bidini, the organization's vice-president of adult regional care, in a letter received by city council's public works committee on Monday. "Increasingly, heavy truck traffic along these routes is presenting challenges to patients and partners accessing the site."

Council is debating changing the city's designated truck routes, which currently run along several downtown streets. Last week, it asked staff to prepare a report considering a "ring road" approach aimed at keeping trucks away from residential streets. That approach would involve directing truck traffic to existing major routes, not building new roads, the city's director of transportation planning and parking Brian Hollingworth said on Monday.

Advocates for such an approach, including the group Truck Route Reboot Hamilton, think trucks accessing the industrial area of the lower city should be limited to Burlington Street instead of cutting through the city to get to Highway 403.

In her letter to council, Bidini said hospital staff who park in the vicinity of the facility, present "endless opportunity for vehicle-related injury" when clustered at the intersections where large trucks are doing wide turns. 

She added that patients going to the Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre, which is across Wellington Street from the General, "are often accessing the facility with children utilizing various mobility assistance devices which can result in slower reaction times to situations. The risk to these young people's safety when simply crossing the street is an ongoing concern expressed by many families."

In another letter received by the committee, Stoney Creek resident Michelle Blanchette says that increased truck traffic in the residential area near Gray Road, north of the QEW, is also causing concern in that area.

"Our area has no industry and the small commercial lands we did have, have been rezoned," Blanchette writes. "We are a residential bedroom community (from Grays all the way to Fruitland, north of the QEW). There is no reason to allow 18 wheelers from the industrial park south of the QEW into our local, sidewalk-less, neighbourhood roads north of the QEW."

The committee voted to receive the letters and add them to the truck route subcommittee report from last Monday.

The report directs staff to analyze a ring-road approach and report back to the Truck Route Sub-Committee by March 31.