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

sacred said:
The moat doors from the subway to the Bay concourse are inadequate...
Firstly, this morning (not early) the door I tried was locked "southbound" (a "northbound" commuter opened the door). This has happened to me once before.
Secondly, these doors are way too heavy and complicated for the amount of traffic they handle.
Have revolving doors fallen out of fashion?
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trtcttc said:
Or they should hold those doors open especially during rush hour. Eglinton has the same issue with only two sets of double doors at the north entrance
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Northern Light said:
No revolving doors are not out of fashion.

***

Saw this discussion, and sent a message to a major installer of door systems (a friend) and asked for his take.

The answer amounted to this.

All other things being equal; Sliding doors will give you higher capacity throughput than revolving doors.

Double-swing doors (push in both directions) also produce higher capacity vs push-pull designs, though may lead to greater conflict with 2-way traffic. (most people don't expect this door-type. )

Revolving doors achieve slightly better flow management and much better energy efficiency with an outside environment, but have a lower flow rate, in most cases, vs the above door systems; though there are higher capacity models.

If the doors could be left open during open hours, a folding door system may be preferable, as it can completely open and once opened, it's folded away, so there is no need to 'hold' it open. This design, at Union would likely require significant structural changes. (wall removal/alteration).
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smallspy said:
There is one other option.

There are self-latching doors that, when coupled with motion sensors, will hold doors open so long as they sense someone approaching them from either direction.

They have been used to great effect to access the teamways at both ends. One wonders why they were not installed here.

Dan
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I wonder if the type of doors has to do with fire codes because you are going from one building to another and the doors have to be a certain way to prevent a fire from spreading from either building. The rest of the path has a lot of doors like that as well.
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
I wonder if the type of doors has to do with fire codes because you are going from one building to another and the doors have to be a certain way to prevent a fire from spreading from either building. The rest of the path has a lot of doors like that as well.
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It's definitely part of it, but the fire code doesn't require that doors remain closed when there is no fire. You can put maglock-like magnetic door holders to hold the door open, that automatically cut the power to the lock when the fire system is activated (or perhaps after no pedestrians are detected for a period of time, if it's more about HVAC). But that requires thought.
 
nfitz said:
It's definitely part of it, but the fire code doesn't require that doors remain closed when there is no fire. You can put maglock-like magnetic door holders to hold the door open, that automatically cut the power to the lock when the fire system is activated (or perhaps after no pedestrians are detected for a period of time, if it's more about HVAC). But that requires thought.
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Now that you mentioned HVAC that's a possibility for the main union station building for the TTC it could be so that the doors don't open when two subways enter the station, sometimes when that happens at a station that is underground the doors of the building will open up I've seen it a few times at Main Street station and you can also feel a large gust coming up the stairs from the mezzanine level.
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
Now that you mentioned HVAC that's a possibility for the main union station building for the TTC it could be so that the doors don't open when two subways enter the station, sometimes when that happens at a station that is underground the doors of the building will open up I've seen it a few times at Main Street station and you can also feel a large gust coming up the stairs from the mezzanine level.
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I don't think that's an issue here because the doors are the ones connecting the Bay Concourse to the Moat, there's the streetcar loop, the entire main floor of the subway station, and the moat to distribute the additional gust of air that I doubt it would affect whether those doors would open. I noticed they keep a couple of the centre ones open during the day now, honestly can't see the reason why they don't hold all doors open.
 
Nespresso opening in the space beside Decathlon

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EastYorkTTCFan said:
wow tha'ts surproseing given how they seem to be disapering from malls I thought they wer going out of busenes
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Second Cup has had a succession of different owners w/bizarrely different strategies.

One owner wanted to go hyper upscale; another wanted to turn them into pot shops/cafes....

All have under invested.

The fact is, when Starbucks first entered the market here, Second Cup had the better product in both food/beverage and ambiance in its best locations.

Instead of running w/that, and upping the marketing budget, reno'ing older locations and adding new ones in key locations, they basically surrendered to Starbucks.

Bizarre business strategy. They even spent some money on key locations, and made them worse; while losing other key spots to competitors/other retailers (see Queen's Quay location)

The latest owner snagged what could be a lucrative spot; though, I'd say the train side would have been better, and instead, you can find McDs, Pilot and soon Arabica...........

Real Estate is a huge part of the game, best location does a lot for you.
 
Photos taken 30 June. Btw I was talking to someone in planning from Metrolinx about 7 years ago and they said that there were discussions about creating a series of platforms far underneath Union similar to the RER setup at Gare du Nord in Paris. See this as a way to add multiple platforms for high speed rail and general expansion.
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@rdaner ; yes, a plan was superficially considered but discarded for going under Union itself.

A further plan was considered for going just to the south of Union, under what we call the Scotiabank Arena this week, LOL

To the best of my knowledge, USEP is not making any specific provision for such a future expansion, regardless, were it to occur, I would expect the tracks to run to the south of Union proper. the desire would be to minimize the need for further underpinning, I expect you would see the tracks/platforms going under Raptors Way/Bremner as this would be the least disruptive choice, and still allow for a clean connection into Union Station.

But I would be very surprised to see this happen in the next 10+ years.

@smallspy might have some insight into where things landed.
 
rdaner said:
Photos taken 30 June. Btw I was talking to someone in planning from Metrolinx about 7 years ago and they said that there were discussions about creating a series of platforms far underneath Union similar to the RER setup at Gare du Nord in Paris. See this as a way to add multiple platforms for high speed rail and general expansion.
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Northern Light said:
@rdaner ; yes, a plan was superficially considered but discarded for going under Union itself.

A further plan was considered for going just to the south of Union, under what we call the Scotiabank Arena this week, LOL

To the best of my knowledge, USEP is not making any specific provision for such a future expansion, regardless, were it to occur, I would expect the tracks to run to the south of Union proper. the desire would be to minimize the need for further underpinning, I expect you would see the tracks/platforms going under Raptors Way/Bremner as this would be the least disruptive choice, and still allow for a clean connection into Union Station.

But I would be very surprised to see this happen in the next 10+ years.

@smallspy might have some insight into where things landed.
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They were likely talking about Simcoe Station - more here via Wayback machine.
 
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