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

khristopher said:
Was never supposed to be a woonerf as far as I know.
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Not to get too pedantic but it was basically never going to be a woonerf, since those are for residential areas. It seems a bit more like the complete streets idea, but still tilted in favour of cars.
 
aquateam said:
Aww, so this isn't going to turn into an Israel vs Palestine thread? :(

Anyway, construction means that the city is being invested in. If you want to see a city without construction you should visit Detroit. Of course, I'm temporarily living in another city so I get to see this work when it's done without having to deal with the hassles construction so I'm probably happier than other people about it :D
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no need to bring Detroit into the discussion. Paris and Florence are not having a lot of construction in central city either.

I agree that construction is a good thing, it means the city is growing fast and things will get better. I wish there were more construction going on actually.
 
pstogios said:
It is a complex task. And it does take time.
It has also been delayed and overbudget. Are we supposed to accept that meekly?

I thought this was a discussion board where opinions critical of the status-quo are tolerated.
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Get a grip. What does being over budget have to do with your perceived inconveniences of having to navigate around construction?

I admit that I am not down there every day but I am there usually a few times a month and I have managed to find a way to handle the inconvenience (and obviously your LA friends didn't seem to mind either), and I don't hear complaints from the daily users of the station. Yes it's a bit of a pain but a disaster it is not.
 
ksun said:
no need to bring Detroit into the discussion. Paris and Florence are not having a lot of construction in central city either.
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I don't know about Florence, but Paris has 8 buildings over 150 meters being built just in La Defense. Plus the kind of subway expansion we can only dream about here in Toronto.
 
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The problem with the Union Station rebuild isn't the speed per se - but the band-aid nature of project with a planning horizon that's only 15 years or so away.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
The problem with the Union Station rebuild isn't the speed per se - but the band-aid nature of project with a planning horizon that's only 15 years or so away.

AoD
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What else do you feel would be necessary? All I can think of is a second level of tracks buried beneath the new retail concourse being built and perhaps improvements to the Bus Terminail. I had suggested in the past that the Retail Concourse should have been extended West past York and East past Bay as a way to improve pedestrian flows but as I understand there would be complications with this.

Truthfully it's a shame that tracks were not built (or at least space created for tracks to be put it) below the Retail concourse while it was being construction. That is the greatest short sight that I can think of.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Truthfully it's a shame that tracks were not built (or at least space created for tracks to be put it) below the Retail concourse while it was being construction. That is the greatest short sight that I can think of.
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Considering that there is not even a route planned for any potential additional subterranean tracks - nevermind engineering drawings - how would they be expected to build a space below the Retail Concourse for it?

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
^yes there is. Metrolinx had rough plans drawn up a few years ago for a 2 track platform below ground for the lakeshore lines.

They still have the ability to add another platform above ground on the southern end as well, I believe.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
What else do you feel would be necessary? All I can think of is a second level of tracks buried beneath the new retail concourse being built and perhaps improvements to the Bus Terminail. I had suggested in the past that the Retail Concourse should have been extended West past York and East past Bay as a way to improve pedestrian flows but as I understand there would be complications with this.

Truthfully it's a shame that tracks were not built (or at least space created for tracks to be put it) below the Retail concourse while it was being construction. That is the greatest short sight that I can think of.
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I think smallspy touched on this - we are basically building before we figured out what the long range transportation plans are, and as a result we aren't optimizing the construction to accommodate future needs further down the road, whatever they maybe. The fact that some of the changes are financial necessities (e.g. the 50 year lease for the retail concourse) are tied up in contracts will only complicate matters.

AoD

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I think smallspy touched on this - we are basically building before we figured out what the long range transportation plans are, and as a result we aren't optimizing the construction to accommodate future needs further down the road, whatever they may be. The fact that some of the changes are financial necessities (e.g. the 50 year lease for the retail concourse) are tied up in contracts will only complicate matters. AoD
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Life would certainly be easier if we could (accurately) foresee the future (and had the financial resources to 'build for the (foreseen) future'.)

Our predictions of future need were successful when we put space for a subway on the Prince Edward Viaduct, less so when we spent money on the "Lower Queen" streetcar station. We clearly have problems setting priorities for today's needs and then actually building something (transit plans, anyone?) so setting priorities for needs that are FAR into the future (and allocating scarce $$ to them) seems utopian. and a perfect excuse to do nothing! (It's a bit like the idealistic newspaper editor who would only publish an issue when he had 'all the news'. As there was always new news and developing stories he never published. :-> )
 
innsertnamehere said:
^yes there is. Metrolinx had rough plans drawn up a few years ago for a 2 track platform below ground for the lakeshore lines.
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That was an extremely preliminary study - not an EA or an engineering drawing. And considering that it was labelled as one of several options (albeit the one they preferred), it still wasn't final choice - that would require an EA to decide.

innsertnamehere said:
They still have the ability to add another platform above ground on the southern end as well, I believe.
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They have, and they will starting in 2016.

AlvinofDiaspar said:
I think smallspy touched on this - we are basically building before we figured out what the long range transportation plans are, and as a result we aren't optimizing the construction to accommodate future needs further down the road, whatever they maybe. The fact that some of the changes are financial necessities (e.g. the 50 year lease for the retail concourse) are tied up in contracts will only complicate matters.

AoD
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And therein lies the rub.

Do we (endlessly) delay projects waiting for the next project to finish its EA and design so that we can eventually (maybe) integrate it into the first?

If we were going to hold off on the dig-down at Union for some potential plan to build a new underground GO station, the work at Union Station wouldn't have even started. We'd be even more screwed than we are already. There has to be a point at which you finally put down the paper and put the shovels into the ground.

Is it going to be more expensive to build those subterranean tunnels - should they ever get built - under the existing dig-down, rather than doing them now? Yeah, probably. But the cost would be higher still to do nothing and try and continue to use Union in its old configuration.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
ProjectEnd said:
The renders on p.25 of this document seem to indicate that there will be depressed curbs at least at some point in the future...
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Thanks for posting that document. It seems to be a bit out of date but still very informative. It states there will be granite pavers on all pedestrian areas - from what I could tell this is not happening but I will be happy to be proved wrong! Thanks.
 
scamander24 said:
Here are the plans: (at least the latest ones I can find)

zMvYxj3.png

Source

There are traffic islands (with nothing on them, basically just a traffic calming measure), although it's hardly a woonerf.
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Thanks for the latest drawings. Mostly, it looks like what they're building although the road does appear to have become asphalt instead of a part of the patterned stone.
 
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