Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

For as much as I bash this city, Union Station is really a class of its own. The retail execution has been exceptional, the Bay and York concourses are spacious and open, the moats look great, the UPX station, the Great Hall, etc...

There are of course glaring unfortunate lacklustre parts (ie: platform level of the Bush Shed, the Bay and York Teamways) which still hold it back, but overall the station is great.
 
Rogue2016 said:
Well, Belgium managed to build this for 480M Euros....or $3Billion Toronto dollars....

www.dezeen.com

Santiago Calatrava arranges Belgian station around "monumental bridge"

Swathes of glass and steel make up the sinuous exterior of the new Gare de Mons station in Belgium by Swiss-Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
www.dezeen.com www.dezeen.com
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Not sure you are being funny with the numbers here but that would be about $778M CAD. I mean, it would still be a big chunk of change...but no where near 3 bil.
 
Amare said:
For as much as I bash this city, Union Station is really a class of its own. The retail execution has been exceptional, the Bay and York concourses are spacious and open, the moats look great, the UPX station, the Great Hall, etc...

There are of course glaring unfortunate lacklustre parts (ie: platform level of the Bush Shed, the Bay and York Teamways) which still hold it back, but overall the station is great.
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Not quite. The retail was well curated, but I wouldn't go as far about the concourses. There are major deficiencies wayfinding and access , with vertical circulation between the retail and concourse level being a serious pain point. The escalators in particular are unreliable, with the width almost comically chosen to reduce throughput (too wide for one person, too narrow for two - which also applies to their side staircases as well). GO also didn't consider the location of their info displays on the circulation spines of the concourse either, resulting in congestion around the escalator areas.

I recall specifically that there were passenger flow studies on the rebuild - I wonder how much the result actually resembled the model. During rush the flow around the escalator landings is LOS D-F based on casual observation.

AoD
 
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APTA-2048 said:
Overheard from a couple of Boston Bruins fans eating near me this evening at Union:

This is like a real train station. It’s like, not just a station, it’s also a mall. It’s like something you see in Europe.
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Think I said the same thing a few months ago when I was going down to the retail level from the Bay Concourse. Feels much more like a full-fledged station with the additions.
AlvinofDiaspar said:
There are major deficiencies wayfinding and access , with vertical circulation between the retail and concourse level being a serious pain point
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Would agree with this. Moving through the station is not as seamless as i'd like. Feels like a convoluted path at times getting to/from places. The Bay Street walkway is a big timesaver for GO trips.
 
Mihairokov said:
Would agree with this. Moving through the station is not as seamless as i'd like. Feels like a convoluted path at times getting to/from places. The Bay Street walkway is a big timesaver for GO trips.
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While there are ways around it - the vertical circulation is more or less designed to funnel riders through the retail portion (surprise!). For example, it would make logical sense to have a second set of escalators closer to Front street leading from the concourse level (say the crossover bridge can serve as another handing) - but that would minimize exposure to storefronts.
 
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UtakataNoAnnex said:
Not sure you are being funny with the numbers here but that would be about $778M CAD. I mean, it would still be a big chunk of change...but no where near 3 bil.
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I don't think he's exagerrating. East Harbour is costing us well above $1 Billion (without property acquistion costs) and it's nowhere close to that aesthetic. The finished EH has fewer platforms and tracks with a lot of the construction occuring behind barriers (ie less complicated). Comparing complexity is potentially subjective, but I don't think EH is more complicated than the one in Belgium.
 
Rogue2016 said:
Well, Belgium managed to build this for 480M Euros....or $3Billion Toronto dollars....

www.dezeen.com

Santiago Calatrava arranges Belgian station around "monumental bridge"

Swathes of glass and steel make up the sinuous exterior of the new Gare de Mons station in Belgium by Swiss-Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
www.dezeen.com www.dezeen.com
Click to expand...
I still don’t understand why a city like Toronto, in Canada, can’t build stuff like this. We are a rich city, big economy, first world country but we have less ambition of a third world country. We need leaders with ambition and vision
 
DarwinP said:
I still don’t understand why a city like Toronto, in Canada, can’t build stuff like this. We are a rich city, big economy, first world country but we have less ambition of a third world country. We need leaders with ambition and vision
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City is dominated by suburbs who don't use public transit. Country is dominated by suburbs who don't use public transit.
DarwinP said:
We are a rich city, big economy, first world country but we have less ambition of a third world country.
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"Third world" (sic) countries never lacked ambition - they were drained by colonial powers and prevented from becoming their own places.
 
thethrows said:
I don't think he's exagerrating. East Harbour is costing us well above $1 Billion (without property acquistion costs) and it's nowhere close to that aesthetic. The finished EH has fewer platforms and tracks with a lot of the construction occuring behind barriers (ie less complicated). Comparing complexity is potentially subjective, but I don't think EH is more complicated than the one in Belgium.
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...to be fair, those are cost overruns. Something different, though not to scoff at issues seemingly with building something significant in big cities in North America. But for the sake of currency conversion, 480 mil E's does not translate to 3 bil CAD's...so I was inquiring for the sake of clarification here. Sorry. >.<
 
UtakataNoAnnex said:
...to be fair, those are cost overruns. Something different, though not to scoff at issues seemingly with building something significant in big cities in North America. But for the sake of currency conversion, 480 mil E's does not translate to 3 bil CAD's...so I was inquiring for the sake of clarification here. Sorry. >.<
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Clearly, sarcasm is lost on you. I'm familiar with currency conversions between Euros and Canadian dollars. You will note I said "Toronto" dollars...as in what happens when anything gets built here, in Toronto, with typical cost over-runs. See our $13.5B Eglinton LRT line as an example.
 
Rogue2016 said:
Clearly, sarcasm is lost on you. I'm familiar with currency conversions between Euros and Canadian dollars. You will note I said "Toronto" dollars...as in what happens when anything gets built here, in Toronto, with typical cost over-runs. See our $13.5B Eglinton LRT line as an example.
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Er...no it actually wasn't. The sarcasm wasn't being very clear, clearly...this is why I was asking.

...however, if you where joking you seem to be taking it more seriously than I am. /shrug
 
This is the best they could do after 7 years of studies, planning and RFPs. 🫠

IMG_0300.jpeg


An uneven sloppy concrete fill at the top and they couldn’t even bother to cut the stone around the bollards, they cut it square and then filled it around.

IMG_0304.jpeg


This is the result of a municipal procurement process and city culture that awards projects to the least expensive proponent.

This kind of mediocrity will continue until we have a mayor who is a champion for public space with a competitive nature to build a beautiful city that not only matches the best but aims to do better than some of the world’s most beautiful cities.
 
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