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

[Panontario]

No, it's still down to one lane, eastbound from University/York to Bay (which means the University/York/Front intersection is a bit of a circus, still). It involves part of the south side and part of the north side ... still some work going on under the road/sidewalk here and there.

thanks. wonder if they finish before July then

 

[mdrejhon]

thanks. wonder if they finish before July then

Odds are now looking good. They finally bricked almost all of the Front all the way to just before Bay. Only small openings remaining now. And they finally opened the southwest corner of Front-Bay and the Bay-side stairs with the gold staircase rail.

Much better flowing as I can now run almost all the way from King to the Bay teamway without being slowed down by crowd anymore, except for a small 10 foot section north of Front. I anticipate Front looking pretty for PanAm now.

 

[wopchop]

Let's hope they plant these new Front Street trees quickly...so they survive past PanAm. These need all the help they can get.

These kill street trees:
- small dirt openings in brick (too little water)
- poor dirt (not enough fertilization)
- salt during winter

It's a very hostile environment for trees: Limited opening in brick/concrete for rainwater, salt in wintertime, and poor dirt/poor fertialization. Let's hope the brick-free dirt opening in the ground is big and fertilized and watered enough to sustain the trees, rather than a tight brickaround that prevents rainwater from getting to these trees... Let's also consider road salt, since front of Union has many curbs removed, and sidewalks may be salted, so salty water may flow more freely. Do they even have a modified de-icing plan in front of Union to avoid salt? I've seen MANY trees die in downtown Toronto in impermeable waterproof brick going all the way to almost touching the trunk. Other cities do a better job making sure trees survive on their roads. Including cities with weather similar to Toronto. Betting 10-to-1 that at least 1 tree will die within 12 months. And after that, then betting 3-to-1, an ugly looking stump will persist in the ground for at least 12 months, not being replaced immediately. A lot of construction crew don't know anything about all the above. An aborist needs to supervise such flagship trees!

Tree plantings would be part of a landscape company's contract, so they likely know a thing or two about this sort of thing. You wouldn't see regular "construction crew" doing plantings, but people who regularly deal with plants and landscapes.

 

[mdrejhon]

Tree plantings would be part of a landscape company's contract, so they likely know a thing or two about this sort of thing. You wouldn't see regular "construction crew" doing plantings, but people who regularly deal with plants and landscapes.

As long as the construction crew that won the contract didn't outsource it to the lowest bidder! There are tree planting attempts scattered throughout Toronto where streets now mainly have stumps. I guess it depends on how it was tendered -- whether it was a separate tender directly by Ontario separately of the streetscape construction -- or the construction company was responsible for choosing a landscape company contract, and then cutting corners on it. And how it is maintained over time...

 

[wopchop]

As long as the construction crew that won the contract didn't outsource it to the lowest bidder! There are tree planting attempts scattered throughout Toronto where streets now mainly have stumps. I guess it depends on how it was tendered -- whether it was a separate tender directly by Ontario separately of the streetscape construction -- or the construction company was responsible for choosing a landscape company contract, and then cutting corners on it. And how it is maintained over time...

That's sort of a non-answer. You could say the same thing about any contract on any construction site. At the end of the day, whether it is subcontracted out or not, the company that originally won the contract (likely a landscape company) has a vested interest in making sure that the product is installed as per specifications, ie. that the trees don't die. I believe (although I'm not positive), that there is usually a contract provision regarding death of trees within a certain timeframe, which protects the owners from exactly what you describe.

Road salt is out of their hands.

 

[yyzhyd]

Shot of the trees on the northside of Front St.
https://twitter.com/kazalikhan/status/601057796117827584

 

[mdrejhon]

Shot of the trees on the northside of Front St.
https://twitter.com/kazalikhan/status/601057796117827584

Nice positioning for the trees, with potential for them to become significantly expanded overhanging canopies, to a certain pont -- planted in the middle of the north sidewalk. The grate on the ground, while bigger than many other Toronto grates, is extremely small by many heritage city standards (e.g. some huge grates I've seen, about four or five times as big). The tree will continue to require human assistance to survive once it becomes big enough for its trunk to choke the grate and prevent further water from filtering down.

Even a mere 6" wide trunk can choke water away from a 12" wide grate because of the way the trunk expands outwards at ground and below. Waterproofing the tree itself from being able to be watered by rain!! Many street designers get caught off guard by that!!!! Because of this, grate size should be least 3-4x wider than the diameter of the grate hole, as a result. But this pictured grate, while an improvement by Toronto standards, is less than 2x the width of the trunk hole. In historical times, that is why you see well-designed huge old-fashioned grates for city trees (the circular wheel-shaped ones) look so much better designed. Big enough that the tree is self-watering by weather, with no human watering in times of lean city budgets, so the tree can kind of limp along until better city budgets a decade later, etc. Those 19th century city trees and early 20th century trees are still alive today.

It really seems, that in some parts of the world, some 19th century and early 20th century city-tree aborists have done a better job than some of the 21st century, allowing massive 100-year old beautiful tree to survive in the middle of a downtown heritage district containing a grand train station like our Union!!!! For many decades, Toronto has been an absolutely terrible place for downtown city trees, and while this is gradually improving, it is still fully an abysmal record even today.

That's sort of a non-answer.

It is a generic answer, but an answer nontheless.
A real aborist inspected our own trees (we unusually have a century-old redwood tree on our Hamilton property!) so I do definitely have something to say about these Union trees.

I believe (although I'm not positive), that there is usually a contract provision regarding death of trees within a certain timeframe, which protects the owners from exactly what you describe. Road salt is out of their hands.

I pretty much believe it doesn't always happen in all cities. I hope the provisions are stronger for Union. There's many North American cities that just dig a hole in the middle of the road and plant a tree, only to see them die. And other times trees abandoned after an expiration of a some kind of contract or city funding cutbacks -- fertilization, waterings and salt-washing stops -- and many downtown trees die without human help.

The front of Union is special and any trees planted there need to live for at least 10, even 20 years, or more, if that can be possible at all, so hopefully a super long term is included in the contract (doubtful), so we don't have a mink mile situation. Also, in some Canadian cities I've even heard of them avoiding road salt on certain historical districts, utilizing other gentler methods or reduced salt (aggressively avoidance and remeditation of oversalting incidents), for one reason or another such as brickwork and/or vegetation, so in theory this is a special enough of an exception for co-ordination with road maintenance (there is precedent elsewhere) -- if a few blocks could become salt-free zones to protect heritage districts, leaving minimal salty slush rolled in from elsewhere rather than leftover excess salt rocks that takes a full month to dissolve away. Salt is known to damage brick over time, too. Considering we've put such an expensive multi-million-dollar brickwork pattern on the entire Front Street block. I'm currently just a little skeptical about the city's long term plan for keeping that location studiously in ship-shape 10-15 years from now, without salt-weakened snowplow-chipped bricks, a bunch of asphalt patches, and a couple of tree stumps between struggling semi-grown trees... But I'm hoping!

So I admonish -- I am skeptical all trees are going to to simultaneously be able to grow to even to 20 years without at least one stump in between. It can reliably be done, but this specific grate design doesn't allow self watering to succeed once the trunk reaches approximately six inches wide, if the city decides to chop maintenance budgets.

 

[wopchop]

The front of Union is special and any trees planted there need to live for at least 10, even 20 years, or more, if that can be possible at all, so hopefully a super long term is included in the contract (doubtful), so we don't have a mink mile situation. Also, in some Canadian cities I've even heard of them avoiding road salt on certain historical districts, utilizing other gentler methods or reduced salt (aggressively avoidance and remeditation of oversalting incidents), for one reason or another such as brickwork and/or vegetation, so in theory this is a special enough of an exception for co-ordination with road maintenance (there is precedent elsewhere) -- if a few blocks could become salt-free zones to protect heritage districts, leaving minimal salty slush rolled in from elsewhere rather than leftover excess salt rocks that takes a full month to dissolve away. Salt is known to damage brick over time, too. Considering we've put such an expensive multi-million-dollar brickwork pattern on the entire Front Street block. I'm currently just a little skeptical about the city's long term plan for keeping that location studiously in ship-shape 10-15 years from now, without salt-weakened snowplow-chipped bricks, a bunch of asphalt patches, and a couple of tree stumps between struggling semi-grown trees... But I'm hoping!

It is extremely unlikely that the construction company would be expected to provide a 10 or 20 year warranty on a tree. I don't see that as being reasonable, either. Short of a D-B-F-M contract, that pretty much never happens. There is likely a short warranty, similar to any other installation warranty that a contractor provides. I'll admit that I'm not as familiar with landscape construction contracts, though.

I don't believe the maintenance is being contracted out on this project, so I would say that maintenance of street trees (and the new paving) is in the hands of the City of Toronto itself.

 

[mdrejhon]

It is extremely unlikely that the construction company would be expected to provide a 10 or 20 year warranty on a tree. I don't see that as being reasonable, either. Short of a D-B-F-M contract, that pretty much never happens. There is likely a short warranty, similar to any other installation warranty that a contractor provides. I'll admit that I'm not as familiar with landscape construction contracts, though.

I don't believe the maintenance is being contracted out on this project, so I would say that maintenance of street trees (and the new paving) is in the hands of the City of Toronto itself.

Alas -- if only if.
If only they chose 3-feet-wide circular grates, or some other large grate.

Those are city-budget-cutback-resistant, allowing trees to somewhat self-water during lean times. Large grates (3-4x the diameter of the largest planned future trunk width, e.g. 3 foot circular or square grate for a planned eventual 6-8 inch trunk) reduce the tree's dependancy on human waterings, and allow city trees to better resist maintenance budget tumult in a city's history. In addition, bigger grates also accept more rainwater that dissolve and spread out road salt concentrations more quickly (down to tree-tolerant salt dilution levels), as salt will often fall down the grates. This is why some cities have 100-year-old trees in the middle of downtown, while Toronto has none (except in city squares and parks).

Lovely trees as they are, and they have a decent chance of making it to roughly 3-4"-diameter trunk thickness in a very-low-maintenance way -- but once they reach roughly half the grate width (give or take, depending on tree), the root system becomes essentially a corkplug that seals off the tree from able to easily water itself from rainwater. It's probably dead at roughly 6" trunk width. It's a shame, because the airspace above the tree is plenty big enough to support up to roughly a foot-diameter eventual trunk, depending on tree. Again, these trunk widths aren't exact, but serves to illustrate that the tree's low-maintenance lifetime factor will be quite bottlenecked by its grate opening far sooner than we'd like -- likely within ten years without a grate upgrade.

 

[drum118]

May 16
Very dead when I was there. Lot more up on site now.

 

[Adjei]

Don't like the seats they have in there, looks cheap.

 

[mdrejhon]

May 16
Very dead when I was there. Lot more up on site now.

Looking at the time board in your photo, you were there shortly after 2pm -- the system will no doubt probably be much busier with all-day 15-minute 2-way service on several routes (UPX and GO RER). We'll see Union go from an overcrowded station to a much less chaotic (especially offpeak with 3x concourse space + 135000sqft retail) station come 2018 which then gradually get more bustling as more and more offpeak service gets added, and the first electricified GO RER routes activate.

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

Looking at the time board in your photo, you were there shortly after 2pm -- the system will no doubt probably be much busier with all-day 15-minute 2-way service on several routes (UPX and GO RER). We'll see Union go from an overcrowded station to a much less chaotic (especially offpeak with 3x concourse space + 135000sqft retail) station come 2018 which then gradually get more bustling as more and more offpeak service gets added, and the first electricified GO RER routes activate.

The madhouse that is the Union Station bus terminal during the off-peak times will be shifted into the station concourses. While the train concourses may be quiet at 2 pm, the bus terminal is overflowing with people and buses.

 

[mdrejhon]

The madhouse that is the Union Station bus terminal during the off-peak times will be shifted into the station concourses. While the train concourses may be quiet at 2 pm, the bus terminal is overflowing with people and buses.

Don't forget the 135,000 square foot retail below the concourses, which will be where some people will go when they have longer waits. So not only there is 3x more concourse space, there's a whole new floor covering the whole Union station footprint, in addition to 3x concourse space!

 

[TOareaFan]

I think one of the reasons the new concourse is not as busy looking as expected is that the old one over on the Bay side is still open.

think about it....people who arrrive right on time for their train would be indifferent to which concourse they go to (they are just passing through anyway) and would likely just keep to their old habits until "forced" to change.

People that are arriving a bit ahead of their train will still pick the old one for now because, well, there are things to do there that are not at the new one (yet)....they can buy a coffee, or a snack, or a magazine or a baseball hat........while waiting at the new York concourse might be more pleasant.....it is kinda quiet with nothing to do or buy.

It will shift with time (and a forced shift is coming).