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

[Richard White]

Just saw this on twitter. Lead to a subway bypass at Union which has since cleared. Any idea what happened?

 

[DSC]

Just saw this on twitter. Lead to a subway bypass at Union which has since cleared. Any idea what happened?

No listed in Active Incidents on TFS website and no mention on TTC website so I assume some sort of welding fire and no out?

Now:
CP24

✔ @CP24
Replying to @CP24
TTC says trains are now stopping at Union Station and the earlier bypass order has ended.

 

[Richard White]

No listed in Active Incidents on TFS website and no mention on TTC website so I assume some sort of welding fire and no out?

Now:
CP24

✔ @CP24
Replying to @CP24
TTC says trains are now stopping at Union Station and the earlier bypass order has ended.

It was there about 20 mins ago. Said FIRE - COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL. Thought maybe something went wrong with the canopy.

 

[TOareaFan]

Did the industrial accident this morning at Bay and Front have anything to do with Union.

 

[union2pearson]

It was there about 20 mins ago. Said FIRE - COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL. Thought maybe something went wrong with the canopy.

Just saw this on twitter. Lead to a subway bypass at Union which has since cleared. Any idea what happened?

No listed in Active Incidents on TFS website and no mention on TTC website so I assume some sort of welding fire and no out?

Now:
CP24

✔ @CP24
Replying to @CP24
TTC says trains are now stopping at Union Station and the earlier bypass order has ended.

A lit cigarette butt was thrown into the construction space in the Bay Moat and some plastic caught fire as a result.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The place is about 1/4 open right now. The pit in the middle will open to a gigantic retail level stretching under the entire station, and there will be another concourse, even larger than the York Concourse, open on the Bay street side where the old GO concourse was.

What is the point of the larger retail space? Is the taxpayer paying for this? I'm all for updating the station to allow for better movement of people, but why create a whole new retail level? If I was a commuter I'd not be shopping, and if I lived nearby I'd be shopping elsewhere, especially since the shops on the Path generally close at 6pm and not on weekends.

How was the lower level concourse financially justified? Couldn't that have been skipped and instead the resources put towards advancing the great hall updates and other essential parts of the project?

 

[APTA-2048]

A peak through the gate to the Bay Concourse.

 

[mdrejhon]

What is the point of the larger retail space? Is the taxpayer paying for this? I'm all for updating the station to allow for better movement of people, but why create a whole new retail level? If I was a commuter I'd not be shopping, and if I lived nearby I'd be shopping elsewhere, especially since the shops on the Path generally close at 6pm and not on weekends.

How was the lower level concourse financially justified? Couldn't that have been skipped and instead the resources put towards advancing the great hall updates and other essential parts of the project?

More than half is food!

They are turning Union into a destination. Some real nice places are beginning to arrive. About half of the lower level will be food-related. A new restaurant called Amano opened in York concourse, as a small taster of the numerous establishments opening.

Slowly, the first "mall" establishments are beginning to open, not on the lower level.

The new Union Station restaurant I went to was open late....and fancier than most on PATH. I decided to skip a Lakeshore train to eat. So it worked for me. I think it will work (based on other cities I have been to, with flagship train stations)

In the upcoming 15-min RER era, you need much more space for passengers, and it helps spread rush hour out longer too, where some people may loiter with a meal before heading home, or such. Less rushing for a train and less crowding if you also have a boutique mall. And the lunch market is huge.

As for taxpayer justification, that sailed long ago. We all knew a full mall level was coming!

Tax worthiness is another matter of debate considering cost overruns of Union, but it will be 6 times bigger waiting space (3x concourse space + new mall/food level) which will help Union triple in passenger throughput. The leap from 1500 trains to 6000 trains a week, needs this.

Imagine 2-3x more people rushing through Union - that is the huge Union plan! Doubling width of PATH emtrances channels thru the food level directly from TTC, with a wide east-west pedestrian expressway that is level with TTC, zooming equal parts of people to York/Bay, underneath the large escalators of Bay and York concourses. Food court just happens to be part of periphery of these pedestrian channelways. So the capacity is needed.

Lemme dig up some old plan images....it will help give context.

EDIT
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/12/union-station-taking-shape-new-retailers-and-td-partnership

Green code is food. So you can see it is a big amount of restaurants (a food court, plus a bunch of sit-in restaurants). I imagine open til 10 or 11. Will be useful to me, am really looking forward to it. At the new restaurant was the first time in a while I felt relaxed at Union. Very differnt vibe.

So, check out the pedestrian expressways coming, advertised to us in 2011:
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2011/06/digging-deep-bigger-better-union-station

So the mall level has a transport purpose, to channel massive numbers of commuters (up to 3x as many as today, simultaneously) to underneath all concourses, in a much more expanded way, out of conflict of waiting passengers above.

You also notice that TTC is flush with a large portion of the lower level mall/food (no stairs). And the TTC pedestrian bandwidth is massively increased.

In this sense, this is justifiable taxpayer expense (maybe debated to what extent, though). It is an engineering accomplishment that a mall (er, "ped expresways") is being built under active floors, right under VIA concourse without shutting it down, etc...

Union is beckoning a massive GO expansion in the 2020s.

 

[crs1026]

The redevelopment is clearly money well spent. It anchors the transportation hub within an attractive and useful space full of services. As noted, it's a place with a reason to go to and not just someplace to pass through.

And, while we all have our own pet peeves and wish-they-had-done talking points, it's a very diligent and basically competent attempt to preserve the past grandeur of the station and to bring the faded and worn bits back to life and into modernity.

Many cities with lesser vision and more aggressive development attitudes would have just razed the old depot and put up some cheap modernistic shopping mall type structure. Toronto did it the right way, and we should be proud of the result.

But that damn Bush trainshed.......ugh. Can't gloss over that ;-)

- Paul

 

[DSC]

Union Station
Fare gate construction will be conducted in two phases at Union Station.

Phase 1 - December 6 to March 2018
Brookfield east entrance

• Customers can enter and exit the station through a temporary station collector aisle.

West and north exits
Portion of north fare line

• Customers can visit one of the other collector booths at the station to purchase fares. A temporary collector aisle will be available for customer entry.

Phase 2 - March 2018 to June 2018
South fare line

• Customers can enter the station through the collector booth aisle or temporary station collector aisle at the south fare line.
• Customers can also enter the station through the Brookfield automatic entrance or the west entrance/exit.

Remaining portion of north fare line

• The collector booth will be open for sales.

Brookfield Rotunda
To purchase a PRESTO card visit the Gateway Newstand in Union Station.

 

[TransitBart]

What is the point of the larger retail space? Is the taxpayer paying for this? I'm all for updating the station to allow for better movement of people, but why create a whole new retail level? If I was a commuter I'd not be shopping, and if I lived nearby I'd be shopping elsewhere, especially since the shops on the Path generally close at 6pm and not on weekends.

How was the lower level concourse financially justified? Couldn't that have been skipped and instead the resources put towards advancing the great hall updates and other essential parts of the project?

Where have you been in the world where a transit hub, airport, train station or bus station did not have a place to have a pee, buy a coffee, get a newspaper and in some cases much more?

I am frequently travelling and hustling to make a deadline and by the time I get to the station / platform / gate often grateful to find that I can get a sandwich or coffee before my departure. Sometimes the last food for several hours.

A few amentities won’t hurt the usability of Union Station. God forbid Toronto have nice transit like Asia or Europe.

I have read your posts and we know you are commuting on GO. What if I were taking the train to Montreal and I wanted something savoury and fresh ahead of a 5 hour trip?

I travel a lot and with the end of any decent food on intra-North America flights, I am grateful for something fresh ahead of a two or three hour flight.

 

[TransitBart]

What is the point of the larger retail space? Is the taxpayer paying for this? I'm all for updating the station to allow for better movement of people, but why create a whole new retail level? If I was a commuter I'd not be shopping, and if I lived nearby I'd be shopping elsewhere, especially since the shops on the Path generally close at 6pm and not on weekends.

How was the lower level concourse financially justified? Couldn't that have been skipped and instead the resources put towards advancing the great hall updates and other essential parts of the project?

Answer Two.

Ok. No retail. The facility is publicly owned. We’ll make it as austere and functional as possible. Ticket wickets, passages, pissoirs, platforms. Maybe a door or two to protect from the wind.

Say this building costs $1.0M to maintain annually. Cleaning, snow shovelling, power, water, roof up-keep, etc.

Say we make it 10% larger. The overhead costs I mentioned above change, but minimally. Say we lease all that space which becomes a revenue stream. We know there will be clients. We forecast X million passengers per year. We also know that after shelter and clothing, food is a need so we can forecast demand for the services of the businesses. Say the rental income is $100,000. We have in theory, just offset 10% of that overhead without charging VIA or GO more to use the station or increasing the government subsidy to maintain it. If furthermore, say 3% more travellers take the train because the experience is less painful, then that is a bonus. It increases the train CO’s revenues and also ours as the station owners.

So my answer two is - retail might make the facility more financially viable overall.

 

[TransitBart]

Many cities with lesser vision and more aggressive development attitudes would have just razed the old depot and put up some cheap modernistic shopping mall type structure. Toronto did it the right way, and we should be proud of the result.

But that damn Bush trainshed.......ugh. Can't gloss over that ;-)

- Paul

Maybe we can create an argument that the most financially responsible way to install the electrification overhead is to demolish this Victorian monstrosity.

 

[DSC]

Maybe we can create an argument that the most financially responsible way to install the electrification overhead is to demolish this Victorian monstrosity.

We have REALLY been through this discussion enough (on the SHED THREAD too) See: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threa...shed-replacement-track-upgrades-zeidler.3222/ Bottom line is that the Bush Shed is protected by the Federal government's heritage designation and isn't going anywhere.- whatever you or I may want.

 

[mdrejhon]

Maybe we can create an argument that the most financially responsible way to install the electrification overhead is to demolish this Victorian monstrosity.

Sadly, built in the 1920s, it is not even Victorian.

I'll concur; I would have been interested in keeping the trainshed only under a full-glassover situation. You'd be able to turn it into something resembling a famous Victorian glasshouse with the ironwork lattices. Beautiful preservation of the Shed!

But with that green roof (as environmentally conscious as it may be) -- it diminishes the heritageness of the shed to mere simple supports. Maybe in another fifty years, they'll do something, like make it a fully walkable deck -- when diesel trains are no longer needed. With the deck-over stretching all the way to the Fort.