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

Palma said:
its amazing the buildings the city allows to be torn down and then with something like this it needs to be kept.
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Agreed to an extent (a more ludicrous instance would be the ongoing saga of St. Lawrence Market North) - though this case is complicated by the involvement of Heritage Canada. Having said that, it does not absolve GO/Metrolinx for this current mess. We have no capacity to do the foresight thing at all.

AoD
 
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Those roof supports, if removed, would work great for bus or LRT shelters on the new lines..... or string them end to end and you'd have a walkway....there's discussion on the Finch LRT thread about Humber College potentially needing a walkway to the transit station.

- Paul
 
Will this not also impact smart track?

So, we already know the changes they are currently making won't support ridership in 2031. Now it won't even support RER in the mid term.

Any chance they saved the pieces of the old train shed they removed for the center portion? Was thinking they could 'add' pieces of those unused parts to raise up the remaining old train shed so that it could accommodate the new trains - if there's enough of it. I'd be totally against this as well (just get rid of the old crap) but just brainstorming how to make everyone happy. Probably obscenely expensive anyways, but it's not like that stops transit planning in TO anyways. cough~ scarborough subway ~cough.......

This would be funny, if it wasn't happening here...........
 
I really wonder what is so special about the train shed roof. Almost everyone thinks it's ugly and an eyesore and has no practical purpose. I wished they would have had the glass roof cover the entire thing, that'd be something, at least it'd enclose the area more.
 
My understanding of why the Bush shed is heritage.: It was once used, seldomly, by a few stations (for obvious reasons) and then all examples of them have been demolished (again, for an obvious reason). Toronto's brief flirt with demolishing Union meant that everything became a sacrosanct heritage component, even the dump of a train shed. The reasoning is it's the only one left on Earth.... Gee I wonder why?
 
Hairball said:
I really wonder what is so special about the train shed roof. Almost everyone thinks it's ugly and an eyesore and has no practical purpose. I wished they would have had the glass roof cover the entire thing, that'd be something, at least it'd enclose the area more.
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There was a HUGE amount of discussion on the Bush Shed on UT - probably higher up this thread. Whether it is ugly or not (and I think it is) it IS a piece of our heritage and should be preserved if possible. The creation of the glass atrium was a compromise between those who wanted it all gone and those who wanted it all preserved. If we only want to maintain "heritage' when it meets our aesthetic standards and does not get in the way of 'progress" we may as well give up on having a Heritage Act or any heritage designations. No doubt our predecessors who decimated the wonderful Victorian heritage of Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s thought they were being progressive but many now see how wrong they were.
 
DSC said:
There was a HUGE amount of discussion on the Bush Shed on UT - probably higher up this thread. Whether it is ugly or not (and I think it is) it IS a piece of our heritage and should be preserved if possible. The creation of the glass atrium was a compromise between those who wanted it all gone and those who wanted it all preserved. If we only want to maintain "heritage' when it meets our aesthetic standards and does not get in the way of 'progress" we may as well give up on having a Heritage Act or any heritage designations. No doubt our predecessors who decimated the wonderful Victorian heritage of Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s thought they were being progressive but many now see how wrong they were.
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This is an instance where the pendulum has swung the other way too far - everything material is a piece of our heritage, but without destruction there can be no improvement or renewal. In this case the station is central to the transportation network and was outgrown to the point of being the detriment of our requirements as a city region. Think what would happen if we decided to let heritage stand in the way of say, the New City Hall? Removing the shed isn't a tragedy - it is a necessity. Utility of the station is being compromised because of the overfocus on heritage (and one has to wonder if the inclusion of the shed is a knee-jerk reaction to the tear everything including the headhouse proposals at the time)

AoD
 
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DSC said:
If we only want to maintain "heritage' when it meets our aesthetic standards and does not get in the way of 'progress" we may as well give up on having a Heritage Act or any heritage designations. No doubt our predecessors who decimated the wonderful Victorian heritage of Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s thought they were being progressive but many now see how wrong they were.
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I won't drag anyone back into that debate. However, I wonder if this particular set of new facts is the last straw for this particular architectural feature. Other historical buildings do get moved out of the way (although that is not encouraged by law or by city policy). They frequently are repurposed - in fact this is encouraged.

When just about everyone agrees that the thing is ugly, and disfunctional for future purposes, I think it's appropriate to ask whether we are being too rigid about the Heritage law. The best way to kill the Heritage legislation - or any law - is to prove that it creates the wrong result. I don't think this particular exception would destroy the whole preservation movement.

- Paul
 
I think there is a compromise........take it down and if heritage is important...rebuild it (higher) somewhere else in the system.....somwhere like, say, Exhibition station where any roof/shelter is an improvement and where there are lots of other heritage buildings.....somewhere where it can be rebuilt and restored at the same time and along a protracted time frame as a "project". Replace the shed at Union with something more modern/striking like the centre section that has recently been built.
 
I think repurposing it across the city would be great. Put parts of it in new subway/LRT stations, for the ferry terminal, or something whimsical like in new parks. Many new public additions in the city seem to be neomodernist and lacking in the exposed bricks/mortar/steel department. Mandating that the new shed be put to use could change that.
 
TOareaFan said:
I think there is a compromise........take it down and if heritage is important...rebuild it (higher) somewhere else in the system.....somwhere like, say, Exhibition station where any roof/shelter is an improvement and where there are lots of other heritage buildings.....somewhere where it can be rebuilt and restored at the same time and along a protracted time frame as a "project". Replace the shed at Union with something more modern/striking like the centre section that has recently been built.
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But what for? It would be completely out of context, for one, and probably not exactly cost effective either. I would argue preserving a complete shed along one or two tracks might be a better compromise.

AoD
 
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