Toronto Woodbine Station Improvements | ?m | 1s

I don't fine the placement of the Woodbine second exit all that terrible, though, my instinct is that Cedarvale would be a better choice.

The location of the station box does not prohibit this at all.

There is already a tunnel from the mezzanine at Woodbine to almost Cedarvale (the streetcars use to loop off Cedarvale when Woodbine was the end of the subway. The tunnel is still there, but covered by a door.

All you need is stairs off the eastern end of the subway platform, routed up to that tunnel, then to the surface at Cedarvale (the City (Green P) owns a parking lot on the east side, though parking is 'private' on the west side, I'm not at all clear if this isn't city property in so far as it was the Streetcar loop.

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In general the concept of in-the-box, linear thinking with this project (all second exits) really annoys me.

They start with the wrong premise. I've been to Paris (as in France) for those of you who haven't, many lines there have station entrances literally every block, even though there stations are not that close together.

They do this by running a mezzanine level tunnel, almost all the way between stations, with one station's furthest exit, coming out one block from the next stations furthest exit.

This is not that expensive or difficult.

You just have to imagine that the exit need not come at the top of a stairs at 30 degree angle from the platform, with one landing.

If you stick the pre-conceived notion above, then you may well end up with daft entrances/exits where noone wants them, needs them or will use them.

For perhaps no money; for few a few hundred thousand extra on a 2-3 million dollar project, you can put the entrance/exit where it makes sense, then work backwards to figure out how it connects to the station.

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For me, I want to look at trip generators if possible, that could just be major streets (ie. Danforth)....or busy cross-streets; but it could also be 'anchor retail etc.

So at Greenwood, I want an exit at GREENWOOD, facing the high school, the obvious trip generator for the area, along with the TTC's own yard.

Now the box doesn't align for that; but that's easy, stairs to a mezzanine...........tunnel at that level, for 150m then up to Greenwood. (worried about foundations?) then put the extended path at tunnel-level, beyond the platform, and run the stairs up after 160m.

Not rocket science, but best for ridership.

They need to look at the projects not as legal compliance and make-work; but as ridership builders..........then they will get it right.
 
On the subject of Coxwell, notwithstanding the common mezzanine (which may mean this does not qualify for fire code purposes).....I think an obvious thing is to punch a whole into the south end of the current mezzanine so it empties into what is now the Green P Parking Lot facing Danforth.

That would be a real convenience to customers/riders.
 
Northern Light said:
On the subject of Coxwell, notwithstanding the common mezzanine (which may mean this does not qualify for fire code purposes).....I think an obvious thing is to punch a whole into the south end of the current mezzanine so it empties into what is now the Green P Parking Lot facing Danforth.
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Yes, it's kind of crying out for that, isn't it? So much so, I wonder what that parking lot was in the 1960s when they constructed the station. It doesn't fulfil the second exit though ... but perhaps it would make sense under the station modernization program.
 
nfitz said:
Yes, it's kind of crying out for that, isn't it? So much so, I wonder what that parking lot was in the 1960s when they constructed the station.
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Might it have been a bus loop of some sort? (Served by, of course, the present-day Bus Terminal restaurant--which, at the time, served as a transfer point between "city" and "suburban" bus systems.)

But yes: in how it literally turns its back on the Danforth, it's truly the most urbanistically perverse station in the system--like, the sort of thing that should have been rebuilt and reconfigured *ages* ago. (Not out of the question, considering how Donlands *was* reconfigured/rebuilt at street level in the 80s or so.)
 
The bids are in - http://www.merx.com/English/SUPPLIE...ate=59&id=5801&hcode=nh9PSFqvw8IG7nVX3aeF8A==

Aecon Buildings $19,682,340.00
Aquicon Construction Co. Ltd. $22,037,260.00
BUTTCON LIMITED $20,509,500.00
Carillion Canada Inc. $20,262,150.00
EllisDon Corporation $22,376,600.00
Walsh Canada $19,480,070.00

Walsh is low bidder, however the Board reviewed this at the meeting in October - http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...3/October_23/Reports/Procurement_Authoriz.pdf

Interestingly they made no decision and deferred it. Staff recommended tossing Walsh's bid because "an unsatisfactory Contractor Performance Review was issued to Walsh in August 2013." and also to toss the Aecon bid because "it failed to submit a completed Bid Bond form as bid security". When you read the details, Aecon submitted Page 2 of the bid bond, but failed to submit page 1 ... as this is an administrative oversight and clearly the bond was in place, I have to think that staff went too far.

Will be interesting to see what the Board does at the meeting in 8 days time.
 
Thanks for the update, nfitz.

I agree about the Aecon bid, however, one must be a stickler to protocol and it seems that if something wasn't submitted as requested, it will be thrown out. Rules are rules. It's unfortunate as now us taxpayers are splitting an extra $580,000.
 
sterdeus said:
I agree about the Aecon bid, however, one must be a stickler to protocol and it seems that if something wasn't submitted as requested, it will be thrown out. Rules are rules. It's unfortunate as now us taxpayers are splitting an extra $580,000.
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No, one doesn't have to be a stickler to protocol, if it has no bearing on the bid itself. It was simply a missing page of a bond form. With the other pages provided, the bond was clearly in place, and a page was missing. Proving the missing page, would have no outcome on the amounts in place, bid value, etc. TTC goes well beyond what it needs to do during the bid evaluation process. I 'd hope Aecon's lawyers are talking to TTC ... and perhaps this is why it was deferred?
 
nfitz said:
No, one doesn't have to be a stickler to protocol, if it has no bearing on the bid itself.
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The concern here will be legal liability; both with this tender (#2 will be angry) and other tenders when someone does get rejected over what they consider a minor oversight.
 
rbt said:
The concern here will be legal liability; both with this tender (#2 will be angry) and other tenders when someone does get rejected over what they consider a minor oversight.
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Apparently not a concern. It seems staff now admit they erred, and shouldn't have tossed the Aecon bid.

http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...upplementary_Reports/Procurement_Authoriz.pdf

So they've reversed their recommendation, and are now recommending that Aecon get the work for $19.7 million rather than Carillion at $20.3 million. No indication what the confidential reports were ... but Aecon must have one hell of a lawyer ... I can't recall a decision ever being reversed before like this.
 
nfitz said:
Apparently not a concern. It seems staff now admit they erred, and shouldn't have tossed the Aecon bid.

http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...upplementary_Reports/Procurement_Authoriz.pdf

So they've reversed their recommendation, and are now recommending that Aecon get the work for $19.7 million rather than Carillion at $20.3 million. No indication what the confidential reports were ... but Aecon must have one hell of a lawyer ... I can't recall a decision ever being reversed before like this.
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Good to hear. Thank-you for providing the update.
 
Construction update, July 20, 2014

I walked by the station today. The house on the northwest corner of Woodbine and Strathmore was knocked down a couple of months back. They are doing shoring (I think), and also on the south west side adjacent the house there.

Sign on southwest corner, in front of house acquired as a temporary site office:



Lot of demolished house northwest corner, with drilling/shoring (?) equipment, site of future 2nd exit:



Another view:



Shoring/drilling work on the northeast corner of Stratmore and Woodbine, north of the bus loop, presumably work for the concourse to westbound elevator:



Another view, from the east side showing how the residents in the two houses exit:


Link to the Woodbine Station Project
 
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Northern Light said:
On the subject of Coxwell, notwithstanding the common mezzanine (which may mean this does not qualify for fire code purposes).....I think an obvious thing is to punch a whole into the south end of the current mezzanine so it empties into what is now the Green P Parking Lot facing Danforth.

That would be a real convenience to customers/riders.
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The entire thing should have been redeveloped - station, bus loop and parking lot - with the Danforth frontage (including an automatic entrance to the mezzanine allowing access via the elevator to the bus loop) at 3-4 stories and an additional storey on the station. If the library across the street was relocated into the space then TPA could have some parking on that space. There is significantly more in the Coxwell Barns lot which could be leveraged but I think the developer of the dull building on the corner has some sort of option on the site, plus the barns yard might still be needed for transit purposes beyond employee parking and some Wheeltrans storage in the long run.
 
There's a report for next week's TTC meeting that the Second Exit currently under construction at Woodbine Station is going to become an automated entrance - http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...ine_Station_Second_Exit_at_Automatic_Entr.pdf

During the public meetings this was something that came up a lot, particularly given that Woodbine is a very busy street, and there's a lot of jay walking north of Danforth to get to the station. We were told at the time, that having an entrance as well would require a larger structure, and would require the expropriation of a neighbouring property for the extra turnstiles.

I recall suggesting at the time that considered looking at turnstiles that could be used both for entrance and exit, and staff said it was something they'd been thinking about, but hadn't found the right equipment. Well, looks like they have now found a turnstile that will do the job. Glad to see that someone at TTC is finally thinking ...

Hopefully they will look at retrofitting some of the other recently constructed second exits. Castle Frank comes to mind, which is particularly odd given that you can't even access it from the adjacent fare-paid bus platform, and passengers getting off the bus have to walk right past it, and then to the existing exit. It would be useful to have the Second Exit converted at Pape station as well. I'm not sure how many others have been completed in that manner.

Construction at Woodbine is slowly ramping up. They now appear to converted the old tunnel from the mezzanine to the old (and long since demolished) streetcar platform until a staging area, with hoarding now across it.
 
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