“Unpractical and a Safety Hazard”- A Sketchy Stairwell Situation in MacEwan’s 110 Street Parkade
One of MacEwan’s parkades has a concerning exit strategy for its side stairwells. The 100 Street Parkade seems like a normal parkade, hosting thousands of MacEwan students and residents daily. However, other than the southeast corner stairwell, all of the corner stairwells in the parkade have the same problem: once you get in the stairwell, you can only exit through the bottom.
As the image above shows, there is no handle to re-enter the parkade. Once you enter the stairwell, you are required to exit through the bottom. “Being locked out is a problem in itself and makes it complicated for students using the parkade. I think it could also be a fire hazard to have only one outdoor access at the bottom of the stairwell,” said Evan Pelech, an avid user of the parkade who believes that it could be a big problem in an emergency.
“There was somebody sleeping in the stairwell. I had nowhere else to go, so I had to creep around them and pray they didn’t wake up. Definitely a scary moment. If there was a way to get back into the parkade, it could’ve been avoided,” said Megan Tchir, another frequent Parkade user, who had a potentially dangerous encounter in one of the stairwells.
It seems as if it is just a matter of time before a similar situation like Tchir’s becomes much more extreme and dangerous. MacEwan needs to consider a solution to this problem before an incident that endangers a student happens.
