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

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Agreed. I hope that if they build the DRL or the yonge extension to RH they will follow a cookie cutter design (that has a balanced design) to save time and money

I suspect the southern leg of the DRL will not be that amenable to cookie cutter designs given the engineering challenges of building on restricted sites - but on the other hand, they are not likely to have these massive station entrances along the line of TYSSE either given development needs and lack of space in general.

AoD

 

[Adjei]

And how much money could we have saved by going the usual cheap Toronto route and ending up with with bland crap which most of the city looks like. What makes anybody think that any potential savings by cheapening out would have been used to help expand the system or do anything else transit wise? All this talk about extravagant station is a red herring. What needs to be discussed are proper ways to fund the system and not looking for ways to find some savings from building cheap crap. I hate this attitude in Toronto where anything that has good design is seen as extravagant and instead we should go for the bland and uninspiring. We see it from the likes of DMW rallying aginst Sugar Beach to people on this forum who I would think would appreciate good design rallying against these stations. No wonder the city looks so bland and uninspiring.

 

[Adjei]

What's with all the whining about a pittance being spent on a station we have to live with for a century. Montreal does much better than this, and their stations often cost less than ours. It's not a significant cost.

Besides, look at all the money they've saved making them big open-air spaces, compared to having to fill it all in like they used to.

You won't find this kind attitude in Montreal where people there appreciate good design and how the city looks. You won't hear them whining about all the subways they can build if only they could have cheapened out on their stations.

Also how different are these stations from Downsview station which is one of the best looking stations we have in Toronto? If we can build stations like Downsview, I don't see whats wrong with these stations.

 

[nfitz]

clearly you are ignorant about engineering.

Please don't turn me into PEO!

The incessant whining that the stations won't carry on the Toronto Toilet motif is irking.

 

[44 North]

Here's Vaughan Station. I'd say this is the most extravagant feature of TYSSE. It's no more extravagant than Downsview, Eglinton West or Yorkdale, imo.

Pioneer village station:

Again, not unusually extravagant. It reminds me a lot of the Mississauga Transitway, just on a much larger scale.

Mafalda

Highway 407 Station is nothing noteworthy, in my opinion.

I know a lot of people have voiced concerns over the grandiose size of these stations. I have no idea what the square footage of these station are and how they compare to the rest of the system. However, I've always known renders to exaggerate the size of buildings. I'd expect them to be less grandiose in person. Also, consider that large stations aren't unusual in Toronto. For example, Finch, Sheppard-Yonge, York Mills, Downsview, Wilson, Spadina, Lawrence, Kennedy, Warden and I'm sure others are all rather large.

The complaints about the designs of the station are a distraction. This is a multi billion dollar project. Making the stations smaller, with less thought put into design would've saved a relatively inconsequential amount of money. The true extravagance of TYSSE lies within the tunnels, where we're paying billions of dollars to built an underground RT line that would've worked perfectly fine on the surface.

True, many of our past stations are quite large with expansive surface portions. But factoring in size, realistic daily ridership, and costs (incl inflation), I think TYSSE's stations would be leaps and bounds ahead of any of our past stations for extravagance and expenditure. York Mills was probably our most costly and complex due to the unique geography and engineering challenges (it's straddling a valley with half the platform underneath a river). But aside from that our large stations seem to be rather straightforward. The supports, layout, and design of TYSSE's stations OTH appear much more elaborate, which I think is a key reason for the overruns and delay.

As for the images: to me VMC station does look unique in that render, definitely much more so than Eglinton West or Yorkdale. Can't tell if that's a mezzanine or a rip in the space-time continuum. And perhaps PV looks like a 'SaugaTransitway station (or a mansion in Muskoka), but IMO it appears nothing like any of our preexisting stations. *and CRS1026 makes some great points about future maintenance

Long and short, I don't think anyone is saying new stations should be bare and reminiscent of a prison or public washroom...probably everyone would welcome colour and artistry. But I think we most definitely should've toned it down on the palatial flamboyance (unfortunately the precedent has already been set, and now every future station that's smaller and less ornate will probably be seen as "cheap").

 

[Adjei]

True, many of our past stations are quite large with expansive surface portions. But factoring in size, realistic daily ridership, and costs (incl inflation), I think TYSSE's stations would be leaps and bounds ahead of any of our past stations for extravagance and expenditure. York Mills was probably our most costly and complex due to the unique geography and engineering challenges (it's straddling a valley with half the platform underneath a river). But aside from that our large stations seem to be rather straightforward. The supports, layout, and design of TYSSE's stations OTH appear much more elaborate, which I think is a key reason for the overruns and delay.

As for the images: to me VMC station does look unique in that render, definitely much more so than Eglinton West or Yorkdale. Can't tell if that's a mezzanine or a rip in the space-time continuum. And perhaps PV looks like a 'SaugaTransitway station (or a mansion in Muskoka), but IMO it appears nothing like any of our preexisting stations. *and CRS1026 makes some great points about future maintenance

Long and short, I don't think anyone is saying new stations should be bare and reminiscent of a prison or public washroom...probably everyone would welcome colour and artistry. But I think we most definitely should've toned it down on the palatial flamboyance (unfortunately the precedent has already been set, and now every future station that's smaller and less ornate will probably be seen as "cheap").

What is different about these stations compared to Downsview station? These stations are similar to Downsview and the precedent has been set with that so I don't see the need for all this uproar. They are just following in Downsview's footsteps.

I think the problem is you guys don't like that it goes to Vaughan and want to find anything to complain about with regards to this project. I'm sure you blood must have been boiling when they built Downsview station.

 

[cplchanb]

And how much money could we have saved by going the usual cheap Toronto route and ending up with with bland crap which most of the city looks like. What makes anybody think that any potential savings by cheapening out would have been used to help expand the system or do anything else transit wise? All this talk about extravagant station is a red herring. What needs to be discussed are proper ways to fund the system and not looking for ways to find some savings from building cheap crap. I hate this attitude in Toronto where anything that has good design is seen as extravagant and instead we should go for the bland and uninspiring. We see it from the likes of DMW rallying aginst Sugar Beach to people on this forum who I would think would appreciate good design rallying against these stations. No wonder the city looks so bland and uninspiring.

You do realize that the 2015 Toronto cant afford to make grand central stations. Sure a good design is beneficial, but if I were to pick between this and having a system that provides good coverage and can be done much sooner, I would definitely choose the latter. Flame me or not, many advocates for large opulent open air stations and think that what the TTC has done for the YUS is the way to go are living in a dream world from the 80s when we had the money and expertise to do it. Unfortunately in 2015,
we lack both but yet we demand more. As AoD said, there must be balance which I agree, but what TTC designers envision is skewed too much on form and not towards function. The product is clearly apparent today by the complexities of construction and the delays on top of the worker death at York and related. Time is money and every extra day spent is more money lost.

 

[cplchanb]

What is different about these stations compared to Downsview station? These stations are similar to Downsview and the precedent has been set with that so I don't see the need for all this uproar. They are just following in Downsview's footsteps.

I think the problem is you guys don't like that it goes to Vaughan and want to find anything to complain about with regards to this project. I'm sure you blood must have been boiling when they built Downsview station.

Yes you are right. I wasnt old enough to know about downsview back then, but I would've been raising my eyebrows had it been built today. And this is coming from a mechanical engineering perspective here not some latte sipping hipster.
Unless you work in the large building construction industry, you have not idea how complex these new stations are over more practical designs

 

[Adjei]

You do realize that the 2015 Toronto cant afford to make grand central stations. Sure a good design is beneficial, but if I were to pick between this and having a system that provides good coverage and can be done much sooner, I would definitely choose the latter. Flame me or not, many advocates for large opulent open air stations and think that what the TTC has done for the YUS is the way to go are living in a dream world from the 80s when we had the money and expertise to do it. Unfortunately in 2015,
we lack both but yet we demand more. As AoD said, there must be balance which I agree, but what TTC designers envision is skewed too much on form and not towards function. The product is clearly apparent today by the complexities of construction and the delays on top of the worker death at York and related. Time is money and every extra day spent is more money lost.

Oh come on. How much money can you save from going cheap on the stations? It cost 300-400 million per kilometre to build a subway in Toronto. I doubt we can even build one kilometre of subway if we went cheap on the stations. So spare us all this talk about good coverage vs good design. You are talking as if we are building subway stations all the time. We got bland stations on Sheppard, how much savings did we get from that? I don't see the subway map expanding massively with all the so called savings from going cheap there.

Stop looking to blame good design for our measly transit system. Ask why all levels of government have failed and neglected to fund the system for years and not only pet projects to get votes. That's where you should be looking at and not some well designed stations.

 

[44 North]

What is different about these stations compared to Downsview station? These stations are similar to Downsview and the precedent has been set with that so I don't see the need for all this uproar. They are just following in Downsview's footsteps.

I think the problem is you guys don't like that it goes to Vaughan and want to find anything to complain about with regards to this project. I'm sure you blood must have been boiling when they built Downsview station.

The extension to Downsview took four years and cost $114M (which factoring in inflation would be $170M, or less than $90M/km). The extension was built affordably, leaving enough funds left over to be splurged on its one station and Y/U-S's terminus. Compare that with TYSSE, which is taking six years longer to build and with a per-km cost four times higher.

And correct, I don't like that this was an admitted pork barrel project, or that we've set a terrible precedent by sending the costliest transportation infrastructure to a centre with the lowest density in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. But as I noted in the previous page, my aversion to this expenditure mostly revolves around the fact that we have numerous other transit projects that are delayed or have been dropped entirely. I can't exactly prove that TYSSE is partly to blame; but I think it should be apparent that funds are finite, and that using some funds on one project could come at the expense of other projects.

 

[Adjei]

Yes you are right. I wasnt old enough to know about downsview back then, but I would've been raising my eyebrows had it been built today. And this is coming from a mechanical engineering perspective here not some latte sipping hipster.
Unless you work in the large building construction industry, you have not idea how complex these new stations are over more practical designs

Yeah I'm sure only latte sipping hipsters want well built stations...

I may not work in the large building construction industry but I appreciate good aesthetics and design so spare me if I demand good design from my city when I see many examples of it being done around the world without the cities going broke doing so.

 

[BMO]

My barbershop is crusty and looks like crap, but their prices are good and they do a great job - so I keep going back. Similarly, all the stations I've regularly used I did so because it was handy, not because the building was unique or attractive. I'll agree overcrowded stations can turn people off (something stations like Hwy 407, VMC, or probably any TYSSE station would never experience). Not to mention dingy and dark stations are somewhat off-putting (which is more a maintenance issue). But spending scarce capital on frills and flair is a bit wasteful, especially considering the costs involved, and that we have numerous projects that are awaiting funds or have been dropped entirely. It's not like we're talking about some art installations atop an LRT stop - cost-wise one TYSSE station would be like three or more St Clair ROWs. So it's possible that the difference between a standard station and TYSSE station could buy us an entire streetcar line (though that's just a guess).

As well, we want people to use transit everywhere. So does that mean every new station henceforth must be palatial and "unique"?



I guess our last subway project was Sheppard, so it's hard to gauge. But are the interiors standard? For me they seem quite unique and extravagant, particularly the northernmost three.

It's important to make these stations attractive as they will be pushing through into York Region where not many people take transit. How you market transit as an alternative is just as important as where you're putting it in this scenario. People driving by the 407 station will see it and begin to ask "what's that it looks nice?" Same with the other stations at Steeles, Finch west, etc. It builds mindshare and will get people thinking of it. Just the other day I was walking along Yonge near eglinton and a tourist had no idea where the subway stop was, granted it's Yonge and Eglinton so ridership isn't an issue, but in these suburban stations you really have to make an effort because you're attracting choice riders NOT people who have to suffer like sardines on a subway or Bus because it's their only means to get downtown and even in that scenario it's always refreshing to look at some art when you're packed in like sheep.

 

[cplchanb]

It's important to make these stations attractive as they will be pushing through into York Region where not many people take transit. How you market transit as an alternative is just as important as where you're putting it in this scenario. People driving by the 407 station will see it and begin to ask "what's that it looks nice?" Same with the other stations at Steeles, Finch west, etc. It builds mindshare and will get people thinking of it. Just the other day I was walking along Yonge near eglinton and a tourist had no idea where the subway stop was, granted it's Yonge and Eglinton so ridership isn't an issue, but in these suburban stations you really have to make an effort because you're attracting choice riders NOT people who have to suffer like sardines on a subway or Bus because it's their only means to get downtown and even in that scenario it's always refreshing to look at some art when you're packed in like sheep.

You have a point, but I think alot has to also do with signage as well. London certainly has no stations even in the suburbs that look remotely like this but yet attract the multitudes. I think resources can be spent on marketing
the conveniences of transit over having a large and potentially underused structure.

 

[44 North]

It's important to make these stations attractive as they will be pushing through into York Region where not many people take transit. How you market transit as an alternative is just as important as where you're putting it in this scenario. People driving by the 407 station will see it and begin to ask "what's that it looks nice?" Same with the other stations at Steeles, Finch west, etc. It builds mindshare and will get people thinking of it. Just the other day I was walking along Yonge near eglinton and a tourist had no idea where the subway stop was, granted it's Yonge and Eglinton so ridership isn't an issue, but in these suburban stations you really have to make an effort because you're attracting choice riders NOT people who have to suffer like sardines on a subway or Bus because it's their only means to get downtown and even in that scenario it's always refreshing to look at some art when you're packed in like sheep.

In other words: where the fewest people use transit is where we should spend the most money on transit. Which I guess is Toronot's transit history in a nutshell (or at leas the last half century).

 

[cplchanb]

Yeah I'm sure only latte sipping hipsters want well built stations...

I may not work in the large building construction industry but I appreciate good aesthetics and design so spare me if I demand good design from my city when I see many examples of it being done around the world without the cities going broke doing so.

thats because their labour is cheaper and bureaucratic red tape is less. We dont have that luxury so we need to make concessions on what we want and what we can afford to practically do.