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

steveintoronto said:
It certainly could be easier as some of the alternate passages are now closed. If it "couldn't be easier" then why are so many people lost down there? Many of these are intelligent, world aware travellers. The signs point into dead ends that were open a few months ago, but the signs haven't been changed.

Since the floors aren't yet finished from outside the TTC concourse exit, may I suggest something wildly revolutionary as a...wait for it...coloured stripe that can be removed for travellers to follow?

You're going to have to look at the situation as someone who has never navigated it before. If you do it every day, ostensibly you learn from mistakes. First time and occasional travellers don't have that awareness. Plus some of us have other things on our minds besides doing the job that transit orgs should be doing.
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For all of us who use the Union PATH every single day, do not close the alternative paths. Bypassing the 905 robots and lost tourists is the only thing that makes that section of the PATH usable during rush hour.

With respect to the lost tourists, Union has been getting a lot better with signage. Many more signs, like ones directing from VIA to TTC, intra-GO directions, and so on have been added over the past few months. I know it's not perfect, I always end up helping some random tourist stuck at the platform map, but it's gotten much better.

As for your idea of coloured paths; it'd be basically impossible. So many people are going in different directions (VIA to TTC, some are VIA to GO, GO to TTC, GO to VIA, Incoming to sidewalk, etc.) There would literally need to be a rainbow on every square inch of floor to achieve that goal. Never mind that the are multiple ingress points (from the trains) all over the place.
 
jdoe1369 said:
For all of us who use the Union PATH every single day, do not close the alternative paths. Bypassing the 905 robots and lost tourists is the only thing that makes that section of the PATH usable during rush hour.

With respect to the lost tourists, Union has been getting a lot better with signage. Many more signs, like ones directing from VIA to TTC, intra-GO directions, and so on have been added over the past few months. I know it's not perfect, I always end up helping some random tourist stuck at the platform map, but it's gotten much better.

As for your idea of coloured paths; it'd be basically impossible. So many people are going in different directions (VIA to TTC, some are VIA to GO, GO to TTC, GO to VIA, Incoming to sidewalk, etc.) There would literally need to be a rainbow on every square inch of floor to achieve that goal. Never mind that the are multiple ingress points (from the trains) all over the place.
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What do you mean by 905 robots? People commuting by GO getting to work on the same path in the PATH every day?
 
Leo_Chan said:
What do you mean by 905 robots? People commuting by GO getting to work on the same path in the PATH every day?
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The exact same path, every day, regardless of who or what's in their way. You can catch them all piled up at the far left stairs into Union TTC
 
I have walked through Union Station several times this past week and ALL work really does seem to have stopped on the project. The only place where something is going on (slowly!) is fitting up the food court in the York concourse but that is not being done (I assume) by the lead contractor, Bondfield. Bondfield have already been removed from (or removed themselves from) the North St Lawrence Market project so they are clearly not in great shape.

What is happening?
 
DSC said:
I have walked through Union Station several times this past week and ALL work really does seem to have stopped on the project. The only place where something is going on (slowly!) is fitting up the food court in the York concourse but that is not being done (I assume) by the lead contractor, Bondfield. Bondfield have already been removed from (or removed themselves from) the North St Lawrence Market project so they are clearly not in great shape.

What is happening?
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I saw a concrete truck at the workers' entrance to the Bay concourse today.
 
jdoe1369 said:
As for your idea of coloured paths; it'd be basically impossible. So many people are going in different directions (VIA to TTC, some are VIA to GO, GO to TTC, GO to VIA, Incoming to sidewalk, etc.) There would literally need to be a rainbow on every square inch of floor to achieve that goal. Never mind that the are multiple ingress points (from the trains) all over the place.
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You mean like in hospitals, airports, international train stations, etc, etc?

I took some shots down there today passing through: Here's one. So what's the secret folks? Disregard whatever the signs say? Now I can navigate without any problem because I know the layout, but going by the instructions posted in this string by Richard a day or so back stating (gist) "Easy"...it's anything but for someone coming out of the subway and faced with a litany of completely contradictory signs who's never navigated Union before, or has and is disoriented.
upload_2018-9-7_16-51-52.png


If this is an "improvement"...God only knows how bad it has been.

Btw: I had Big Black Lab with me, we were on our way to Rouge Hill for some beach time and distance walking, and he's a natural for mazes and sniffing out routes. We had fifteen minutes to spare until train time, so he delighted in pulling me around in circles from all the different passages that took you nowhere, or many that ended up at the same place, even though signed differently. Great fun...except for the poor bastard desperate to find their train.

I must admit to finding the ramp up to the north end of the VIA concourse from the York side that's been hidden for some time. Very handy to get to platform 27. Considerably shorter than going through the York Concourse.

I guess Union is full of little secrets...

Reminiscent of this:
upload_2018-9-7_17-11-58.png

Artist M. C. Escher
 

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From the article:

The refurbishment of Canada’s busiest transit hub is “one of the most complicated construction projects in the country, wedged into one of the most congested parts of Toronto,” Ms. McGuey said in explaining the delays. More than 300,000 people pass through Union Station every day.
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Because you didn't know it was complicated before you started it? :rolleyes:

AoD
 
And yet, they keep getting contracts from our governments. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
 
raptor said:
And yet, they keep getting contracts from our governments. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
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There's a convoluted irony there in that Carillion (their forerunners in a number of the projects they now have) was involved in scandalous complicity with the national gov't for continuing to get massive projects when they'd failed a litany of them before, and weren't just headed to bankruptcy (by UK terms) but were technically *already so*!

UK government ignored advice to put Carillion on highest risk level ...
https://www.ft.com/content/4cf24fb0-5dab-11e8-9334-2218e7146b04
May 22, 2018 - The UK government ignored advice to put Carillion on its highest risk ... Following a series of public sector contract scandals, a 2013 report by ...
Carillion is no one-off scandal. Neoliberalism will bring many more ...
https://www.theguardian.com/.../carillion-scandal-neoliberalism-public-services-profit
May 16, 2018 - On the day MPs published their report into Carillion, the government ... the state had to march to the rescue in the shape of the British army.
Carillion and Britain's modern kleptocracy | Letters | Business | The ...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/.../carillion-and-britains-modern-kleptocracy
May 17, 2018 - Letters: Readers respond to the collapse of Carillion and offer ways that the ... to both the scandal of corporate executive rewards and the political difficulties in ... Adapted to UKcircumstances, these committees could widen ...
As Carillion poison spreads two troubled outsourcers pick up more ...
https://www.independent.co.uk › News › Business › Business Comment
Jul 12, 2018 - It bears repeating that it isn't just through Brexit that the British government seems hell-bent on throwing the country under a bus. With the ...
[...and so on...]
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- : Google search for "carillion uk government scandal"

Meantime:
Vaughan's Bondfield Construction headquarters shot at twice, police ...
https://www.yorkregion.com/.../8671946-vaughan-s-bondfield-construction-headquar...
Jun 14, 2018 - The headquarters of a high-profile Vaughan construction firm appears to have been shot at twice over the past month. Employees at Bondfield Construction, the head office of which is located on Basaltic Road, in Concord, first called York Regional Police May 18 at 7:45 a.m., when a ...
Click to expand...
 
steveintoronto said:
You mean like in hospitals, airports, international train stations, etc, etc?

I took some shots down there today passing through: Here's one. So what's the secret folks? Disregard whatever the signs say? Now I can navigate without any problem because I know the layout, but going by the instructions posted in this string by Richard a day or so back stating (gist) "Easy"...it's anything but for someone coming out of the subway and faced with a litany of completely contradictory signs who's never navigated Union before, or has and is disoriented.
View attachment 155967

If this is an "improvement"...God only knows how bad it has been.

Btw: I had Big Black Lab with me, we were on our way to Rouge Hill for some beach time and distance walking, and he's a natural for mazes and sniffing out routes. We had fifteen minutes to spare until train time, so he delighted in pulling me around in circles from all the different passages that took you nowhere, or many that ended up at the same place, even though signed differently. Great fun...except for the poor bastard desperate to find their train.

I must admit to finding the ramp up to the north end of the VIA concourse from the York side that's been hidden for some time. Very handy to get to platform 27. Considerably shorter than going through the York Concourse.

I guess Union is full of little secrets...

Reminiscent of this:
View attachment 155970
Click to expand...
Cite image sources or your post will be deleted!
 
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