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GO Transit: Union Station Shed Replacement & Track Upgrades (Zeidler)

^^^ Agree. Either it's historic or it isn't you don't knock down 20% of a historic site. I'd love to see a pic of the shed and it's prime when it was first built, because today it's gotta be one of the dirtiest, ugliest historic sites I've ever seen. It's just some steel girders with some steel sheets on top. I don't get it.
 
I honestly don't get it either. So many more beautiful things are torn down, even today. Yet we get to keep this. Blah.

It's just another example of Toronto doing things on the cheap: see Exhibit A: Transit City; Exhibit B: The ARL, Exhibit C: Union Station reno
 
MetroMan said:
No. What I'm saying is that if it was that valuable historically, they wouldn't have touched it at all.
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I disagree. There are plenty of preserved facades with the rest of the building replaced, there are plenty of buildings which are historical where near identical buildings in the same area were torn down. The shed is historically relevant, but it is a large shed that is largely identical from end to end so I really don't see why it would need to remain 100% intact.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
It's just another example of Toronto doing things on the cheap: see Exhibit A: Transit City; Exhibit B: The ARL, Exhibit C: Union Station reno
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Over $8 billion for Transit City is cheap? $1 billion for an airport train that only about 5,000 people a day is cheap?

And finally, over $1 billion renovating/expanding Union Station (structure, sheds, railway and subway platforms) is cheap?

Over $10 billion. Case dismissed!
 
nfitz said:
Over $8 billion for Transit City is cheap? $1 billion for an airport train that only about 5,000 people a day is cheap?

And finally, over $1 billion renovating/expanding Union Station (structure, sheds, railway and subway platforms) is cheap?

Over $10 billion. Case dismissed!
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I don't think he was saying the dollar figure was too low, I think he was saying that the end result was not the best possible use of those funds.

And to a certain extent I agree with him. The $8B for Transit City and the $1B for Blue 22 would have been much better spent on electrification of the Georgetown and Lakeshore lines (or at least significant parts of them), with enough left over to still build the ECLRT and revamp the SLRT.

And I don't think that the Train Shed roof should have been saved. Ok, maybe save the columns, but the roof itself is butt ugly. At the very least, they could have done the roof using the same type of glass as the new roof, instead of trying to shoehorn a green roof on top of an ugly roof to begin with.
 
What about cleaning the shed? It looks like a shantytown now, but what if they gave it a really good cleaning?
 
DKsan said:
What about cleaning the shed? It looks like a shantytown now, but what if they gave it a really good cleaning?
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It's still going to look dark and cavernous though. The most they can really do while still keeping the shed is touching up the steel and concrete, and adding some new lighting.
 
hawc said:
And it'll be dirty again in a year. They run diesel trains through it don't you know. :)
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When was the last time it was cleaned? Has it been cleaned since they ran steam trains through it? Steam trains would be far worse. It will get dirty - but a year?
 
Glass is up on the canopy.

7 May 2012

IMG4072-L.jpg
 
gweed123 said:
It's still going to look dark and cavernous though. The most they can really do while still keeping the shed is touching up the steel and concrete, and adding some new lighting.
Click to expand...

That could go a long way towards changing the look and feel of the place. The trusses have an evocative feel to them of the early-20th century steam era that you couldn't achieve in any ultra-modern glass cathedral "shed", especially in the way they arch around the platform pillars. Restored and lit up, with mosaic platform paving and unique platform lighting, the space could be quite memorable.
 
I read somewhere, perhaps here, that the original design for the Bush trainshed involved glass roof panels, and they only went to the wood/tar/whatever roof to cut costs. Is this true?
 
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