Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

For Mississauga to turn out to be some public-transit utopia, our mayor would have had to be visionary and been able to see the future.

As for Mississauga's financial woes, it's not the end of the world. That said, in the recent public meeting I read that the people of Mississauga are highly AGAINST selling off Enersource. And I completely agree.
 
nfitz said:
Overly-elaborate stations? On the TTC? Since when? I'm yet to see a decently designed station - let alone elaborate.
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He's talking about how some stations, like the entire sheppard line, have mezzanines which are much larger than they need to be. These stations could make do with a christie-sized station building.
 
nfitz said:
I find that hard to believe. Do you have a reference?

Overly-elaborate stations? On the TTC? Since when? I'm yet to see a decently designed station - let alone elaborate.
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http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comr...8/TYSSE_Project_Delivery_Strategy_Process.pdf

$399 million of "contingency" that rises to $503M after final-inflation...and you know damn well that that contingency is as good as spent right off the bat. There's also many millions in savings to be had through economies of scale if we didn't build one piecemeal extension per decade. If a SRT or streetcar in a tunnel can be made cheaper by doing A, B, or C, so can a subway. There's things we should be doing to make every project/technology more streamlined.

RedRocket191 said:
He's talking about how some stations, like the entire sheppard line, have mezzanines which are much larger than they need to be. These stations could make do with a christie-sized station building.
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Every possible expense/padding was added to the Spadina extension, making it as expensive as possible...either the station budgets have been jacked up on purpose or the stations will be even more ridiculous than Bayview or Leslie. The Sheppard line's been open for 6 years but Spadina's stations are projected to cost twice as much as Sheppard's stations. Bayview and Leslie are as voluminous as any other stations in the entire TTC network and cost around $55M each...what on earth are they building in a field at Steeles West that'll cost over $100M? I hope that includes a 12,000 spot parking lot or free neck massages.
 
I think there's a happy middle between the cost-cutting on the Canada Line and the overbuilt Spadina extension. I mean, there's got to be a balance reached between cutting too many corners that hamper the future and overbuilding so much that it hampers further subway construction due to outrageous costs.
 
Part of the problem as well is that instead of terminating at York University, where most routes will be able to provide a transfer-free ride into the one major trip generator on that route, buses will be forced to dump passengers at large terminals at Steeles West or 407/Jane. If the buses continued into York, the need for massive terminals would be mitigated.

This is getting off topic, and will be moved into the Spadina Extension discussion.
 
nfitz said:
I find that hard to believe. Do you have a reference?

Overly-elaborate stations? On the TTC? Since when? I'm yet to see a decently designed station - let alone elaborate.
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You must not travel on the Spadina line that often. Some of those stations from 1978 seem overdesigned because they have all these details in places where people don't even look that often. One station has a tile mural on the ceiling at one point. I enjoy that part of the system. But from the beginning they've had "decent design" in using materials like Vitrolite glass and coming up with a unique font.

Downsview is clearly the most elaborate. It's deep, tall, has a large mezzanine, large skylights, and superb tile murals.
 
Overbuilt stations aren't limited to the Spadina line...I'd say every station built after the 60s is at least twice and often three or four times as large as it needs to be. The TTC has enough mezzanines to fill Tiananmen Square. The average post-60s station cannot be fully seen by being used regularly, it has to be explored. Ridiculous stations like Leslie are now the models for future stations, and tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars are being wasted on excessive Spadina extension stations (and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars could be wasted on future lines like the Eglinton streetcar).
 
I know what you mean, even the early 70s Yonge line extension stations feel oddly "overscaled"--maybe the subliminal guilt-over-Montreal thing running...
 
RedRocket191 said:
He's talking about how some stations, like the entire sheppard line, have mezzanines which are much larger than they need to be. These stations could make do with a christie-sized station building.
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Yet the TTC didn't put tiles on the platform walls!

Kind of off-topic, but in Mississauga, the Square 1 terminal has exactly the opposite problem. It's underbuilt. Too many buses coverging at too small a terminal with inefficient loading procedures. Should have been built as a turnstile access fare-paid facilty with a Yorkdale-type GO terminal.
 
Transportfan said:
Yet the TTC didn't put tiles on the platform walls!
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That cost saving measure (which is not an aesthetic negative...CTU chic) is probably trivial compared to the open pit mine volumes of Bayview or Leslie's hilariously unused bus terminal. Sheppard's triple platform will be a massive wasted cost if the line isn't extended both east and west - and I've always thought it odd that Sheppard was built for future growth even as Don Mills was overscaled as if it would always be the terminus (every bus route in Christendom was rerouted there and there's still bays left over). Bessarion, a pretty large station itself, seems modestly reasonable compared to the others on the line, but I can only wonder how overbuilt the York U stop will be since it's costing more than twice as much as Bessarion (and isn't York U supposed to have no bus bays at all?).
 
I hope we experiment with lighting with the extension station designs, like how they've drenched Heathrow T4 Tube Station or the new T5 Express station with LED lighting on trackside:

T5 Express:
2368770131_450d2e87de.jpg

2553320864_41542d51bc_o.jpg


T4 Refitted:
2368769989_42f7945127.jpg
 
I think in the debate about overbuilt stations we need to separate design from size.

Should we experiment with design to produce stations which make you feel like you want to be there... I think so.

Should we be building stations which are extremely large for their use... I think we should build them for the expected daily load or the building code minimum size, whichever is larger and no larger.

I'm thinking that the York U stop will be larger because ridership will be higher and you'll need that extra space to deal with the crowds and the fire code requirements about the space such a crowd needs. However, stations like Sheppard West clearly should not be built to the same scale as a York U or a Finch.
 
RedRocket191 said:
Sheppard West clearly should not be built to the same scale as a York U or a Finch.
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Sheppard West should not be built at all. Build an underground moving sidewalk from Downsview or Finch West to a new GO station on the Bradford line if the TTC insists on a connection.
 
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