Amare
Senior Member
That's what I was implying by catenary poles, but yes that's correct as well.
Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR
ssiguy2
Senior Member
That really is ridiculous. 20 years to upgrade a station that probably took less than 3 years to build?
I shutter to ask but...............what is the budget for this entire project or has it gone so far over budget already that they are no longer counting?
I shutter to ask but...............what is the budget for this entire project or has it gone so far over budget already that they are no longer counting?
innsertnamehere
Superstar
IIRC it took 11 years to build union - it started in 1919 and didn’t open until 1930.
That was mostly due to the train platforms though, it took years to negotiate with the railways to build the elevated guideway into the station to grade seperate the approaches. I believe CN or CP wanted it elevated and the other wanted it trenched. They eventually settled on elevated and built it after the headhouse sat empty for years.
allengeorge
Senior Member
Ah - the Toronto way: take forever to do anything.
nfitz
Superstar
Three years to build? As if!
TTR was created in 1906 to, among other things, build a union passenger station. Construction began in 1914, and some of the office space opened, finally, in 1920 - but it didn't open to the public until 1927. That's 13 years. But then work continued on the train shed until 1930.
Very similar timeframes to the current project. But they didn't need to keep it fully operational while doing it, with the old station being west of York, and south of Station Street - where the Skywalk and UP platorm is now.
BTW, here's the 1924 fire insurance map, showing both stations.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
It really isn't one project with one budget. Union subway station second platform was a project, UP Express was a project, then the train shed rebuild was a project, then the dig down to add larger concourses more vertical access and a mall plus restorations was a project, the new bus terminal is a project, the new south platform is a project, the removal of tracks and widening of platforms is a project, the new Union loop is a project.
MrGoose
Active Member
Building a brand new greenfield station is easy, there’s nothing to build around or account for.
Rebuilding the busiest station in the country while keeping it open is no easy task. You can’t shut the station down during that time and you have to keep the general structure up throughout the whole time. Contractors are space constrained so only so much work can be done at any given time while drags out the timeline.
Also the contractor for the project went bankrupt halfway through, not something that Metrolinx could have foreseen.
If you gave yourself even 10s of thought before reflexively criticizing Metrolinx for anything they did, you would be posting at least half as much as you do now.
max
Active Member
One correction here, it was two contractors that went bankrupt
trtcttc
Active Member
For how much Toronto has grown the last few years, the infrastructure doesn’t really make sense. The entire suburban train network is concentrated at Union versus overlapping in the core then branching out in the suburbs. This means they had to upgrade Union while in operations. If trains overlapped, they could’ve made Bloor Yonge a large new build station as “Union North” and only slightly expanded Union. Probably cheaper and faster.
Richard White
Senior Member
So basically gut the Downtown Core and replace the busiest intersection in Canada with a railway station?
Given the expropriation required and the space constraints what you propose would have been insanely expensive not to mention time consuming.
This isn't like Budapest where the suburban trains run into Subway stations. To do what you propose, you would need to tear down quite a few homes and buildings for railway tracks.
There is no way in hell any politician would approve this, get behind it or even consider it.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Unfortunately the delays for the current project have pushed back its completion date into the start period for a number of other projects, so essentially yes it will continue to be under construction for a while. However the construction will be for a number of unrelated projects
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Summerhill station & the old North Toronto Rail station is just over 1 Km from the Bloor/Yonge intersection. Like the Rail deck park 15 years ago, what only a few years ago seemed like a pipe dream appears to be slowly becoming closer to reality.
evandyk
Senior Member
Yonge and Bloor is a busy intersection for pedestrians, but not that many cars go through it daily.
This article from 2015 says that if you combine pedestrians and vehicles, it is the 48th busiest intersection in Toronto, never mind Canada.
The 10 busiest intersections in Toronto are …
Analysis of the intersections with the heaviest traffic of vehicles and pedestrians throws up some interesting results.
www.thestar.com
Mercenary
Active Member
What they should do is fix the Missing Link and then run GO Trains from Milton to Markham that stop at the Toronto North Station which is currently an LCBO. This will give people direct GO Train access to Bloor and Yonge Area. I know it's at Summerhill but people can quickly get on the Subway and go to Yonge-Bloor or go uptown to Yonge-St.Clair which will spur job growth in both areas.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
A good amount of it isn't Metrolinx's fault - but some of it is (though really, it's more their political masters' fault) - like the cart before horse approach to the platform reorganization/integration with the new concourse.
AoD