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

Amare said:
Well i'm sure a nice lawsuit towards the city will get them rectify it.
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I filed a 311 request exactly because of that. There’s a papertrail that they’re aware of it. The ticket got “resolved” within 48 hours. What’s that supposed to mean? They clearly didn’t fix it, did they just send a guy to look at it and say: “yeah, it’s bad” and then start a bureaucratic merry-go-round to put out an RFP to re-pave it that’ll go on for months or years? Maybe city contracts need to include a warranty so that work is done properly. There’s something really broken in this city.
 
nightstreak said:
I filed a 311 request exactly because of that. There’s a papertrail that they’re aware of it. The ticket got “resolved” within 48 hours. What’s that supposed to mean? They clearly didn’t fix it, did they just send a guy to look at it and say: “yeah, it’s bad” and then start a bureaucratic merry-go-round to put out an RFP to re-pave it that’ll go on for months or years? Maybe city contracts need to include a warranty so that work is done properly. There’s something really broken in this city.
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Some workflows may involve a request being resolved/completed/closed in the system because the department responsible work aren’t integrated and there isn’t a process to track the work within 311 to close it once work is actually done. They might have an SLA that they would unfairly get punished for not meeting if the request stayed in an open state without a mechanism to track the work and change its state as it moved along. If you email or call 311 and follow up on the request they’ll likely tell you more info and explain what resolved actually means in this case.

It is very frustrating as a user to see that sort of thing. But fixing that in enterprise government software is not simple and more like steering a huge ship… change is slow moving and takes time. And it’s not at all Toronto specific. But they are bringing more divisions into 311 and working to make it more user friendly, it’s just the timeline isn’t days to weeks, it’s many months to years. That’s a reality of software of this type and scale. I worked on a project for years creating an ERP + 311 system for a government and these systems and requirements are ridiculously complex. My contempt for how frustrating it can be to use 311 is only tempered by knowing first hand how complicated it is to create a similar (and much smaller!) system.

Send your anecdote to Councillor Ainslie. He’s vice chair of the committee that has oversight of 311 and is always on their case about similar situations.
 
nightstreak said:
I filed a 311 request exactly because of that. There’s a papertrail that they’re aware of it. The ticket got “resolved” within 48 hours. What’s that supposed to mean? They clearly didn’t fix it, did they just send a guy to look at it and say: “yeah, it’s bad” and then start a bureaucratic merry-go-round to put out an RFP to re-pave it that’ll go on for months or years? Maybe city contracts need to include a warranty so that work is done properly. There’s something really broken in this city.
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The 311 service considers a ticket 'resolved' when they send it off to the departments which actually do the work. It does NOT mean the work is completed. A bit like the Post Office marking an invoice from Hydro paid when they deliver the envelope to their customer!
 
DSCToronto said:
The 311 service considers a ticket 'resolved' when they send it off to the departments which actually do the work. It does NOT mean the work is completed. A bit like the Post Office marking an invoice from Hydro paid when they deliver the envelope to their customer!
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I received follow-up emails from someone at the city for an online 311 request I submitted first when they investigated and then when the issue was resolved
 
PL1 said:
I received follow-up emails from someone at the city for an online 311 request I submitted first when they investigated and then when the issue was resolved
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Yes, they are slowly improving the system so one gets updates but in most cases "Resolved" means that your report has been sent to someone to 'do something'.
 
txlseries4 said:
Some workflows may involve a request being resolved/completed/closed in the system because the department responsible work aren’t integrated and there isn’t a process to track the work within 311 to close it once work is actually done. They might have an SLA that they would unfairly get punished for not meeting if the request stayed in an open state without a mechanism to track the work and change its state as it moved along. If you email or call 311 and follow up on the request they’ll likely tell you more info and explain what resolved actually means in this case.

It is very frustrating as a user to see that sort of thing. But fixing that in enterprise government software is not simple and more like steering a huge ship… change is slow moving and takes time. And it’s not at all Toronto specific. But they are bringing more divisions into 311 and working to make it more user friendly, it’s just the timeline isn’t days to weeks, it’s many months to years. That’s a reality of software of this type and scale. I worked on a project for years creating an ERP + 311 system for a government and these systems and requirements are ridiculously complex. My contempt for how frustrating it can be to use 311 is only tempered by knowing first hand how complicated it is to create a similar (and much smaller!) system.

Send your anecdote to Councillor Ainslie. He’s vice chair of the committee that has oversight of 311 and is always on their case about similar situations.
Click to expand...

DSCToronto said:
The 311 service considers a ticket 'resolved' when they send it off to the departments which actually do the work. It does NOT mean the work is completed. A bit like the Post Office marking an invoice from Hydro paid when they deliver the envelope to their customer!
Click to expand...

PL1 said:
I received follow-up emails from someone at the city for an online 311 request I submitted first when they investigated and then when the issue was resolved
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I followed up. The ticket says: “resolved, covered with hot asphalt.”

Not only was their intended resolution lazy and ugly, they lied: no asphalt was applied. The corner remains a tripping hazard.

Maybe I’m starting to agree with Rob Ford on “taxpayer waste”. The city bureaucracy itself is wasteful, contractors are getting away with bad work, and even city workers are out there in some cases lying about doing their jobs when they didn’t.

I received confirmation that there is 2 year warranty on work done by a contractor. They have to go back and fix it. I’ll make sure they’re held to that.
 
nightstreak said:
I followed up. The ticket says: “resolved, covered with hot asphalt.”

Not only was their intended resolution lazy and ugly, they lied: no asphalt was applied. The corner remains a tripping hazard.

Maybe I’m starting to agree with Rob Ford on “taxpayer waste”. The city bureaucracy itself is wasteful, contractors are getting away with bad work, and even city workers are out there in some cases lying about doing their jobs when they didn’t.

I received confirmation that there is 2 year warranty on work done by a contractor. They have to go back and fix it. I’ll make sure they’re held to that.
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Launch a complaint:

www.toronto.ca

Customer Experience (311 Toronto) - Complaints & Compliments

311 provides residents, businesses, and visitors with easy access to non-emergency City services, programs, and information. To share your complaints or compliments about other City divisions, please visit Staff Directory, Divisions & Customer Service.
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

Outline what you have here, with your original ticket.

IF that doesn't resolve it, Let us/me know. We can try something else.
 
nightstreak said:
I followed up. The ticket says: “resolved, covered with hot asphalt.”

Not only was their intended resolution lazy and ugly, they lied: no asphalt was applied. The corner remains a tripping hazard.

Maybe I’m starting to agree with Rob Ford on “taxpayer waste”. The city bureaucracy itself is wasteful, contractors are getting away with bad work, and even city workers are out there in some cases lying about doing their jobs when they didn’t.

I received confirmation that there is 2 year warranty on work done by a contractor. They have to go back and fix it. I’ll make sure they’re held to that.
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I suspect they meant 'we have told the contractor to put on asphalt' but ......
 
nightstreak said:
While I hope they bring it back to original condition, I can't imagine the magnetic departures boards will be used so it's probably acceptable to replace them with vertical displays.
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Did Union Station ever have split-flap departure or arrivals displays (aka Solari boards)? I love them, but they've certainly been of vogue for 30 years now. They cost many thousands to build (and no idea on their maintenance costs), so I'm not sure what a pair of boards would cost to represent all of the trains going in and out of Union a day (remove GO and UPX from the equation and the number would drop substantially of course, but who wants one of those if it's not flipping a good percentage of the time)... Anway, a very expensive proposition for the sake of having something cooler than cool.

There's a company in northeastern Philadelphia still making them called Oat Foundry.


They're up over 40,000,000 rotations on that flipboard in their office now, and they can be used for art too...


...but I just want want this:


42
 
interchange42 said:
Did Union Station ever have split-flap departure or arrivals displays (aka Solari boards)? I love them, but they've certainly been of vogue for 30 years now. They cost many thousands to build (and no idea on their maintenance costs), so I'm not sure what a pair of boards would cost to represent all of the trains going in and out of Union a day (remove GO and UPX from the equation and the number would drop substantially of course, but who wants one of those if it's not flipping a good percentage of the time)... Anway, a very expensive proposition for the sake of having something cooler than cool.

There's a company in northeastern Philadelphia still making them called Oat Foundry.


They're up over 40,000,000 rotations on that flipboard in their office now, and they can be used for art too...


...but I just want want this:


42
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It did for a brief period in the 90s. Then they replaced it with the electronic board that’s (out of order) there today.

I’d love a split flap board in the Great Hall along with pew style seating.

IMG_2731.jpeg


Waiting for a train in the Great Hall with a proper public announcement system and the sound of the split flaps flapping is the kind of timeless rail travel romance that’s missing from Union Station. And it’s by choice because we have a gorgeous space just waiting to be taken full advantage of.
 
nightstreak said:
One of the entry points with removable bollards. Very clunky.
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Clunky is one {accurate) description for it.........

I would be so embarrassed to the be the project manager for this..........

Either they didn't ask to see mock ups or they looked at them and couldn't see why it was wrong.........

The criteria for the tender were wrong in the first place; but you could still salvage something out of it if you are properly demanding and understand what works....

SMH.
 
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