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TTC: Dufferin Station Modernization (TTC, U/C)

West End Boy

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Anyone have updates on the TTC's modernization for Dufferin Station? A timeline at least? I've heard rumours they will be adding elevators.
 
From the Post:

TTC touts subway station make-overs
Posted: March 07, 2008, 9:13 PM by Barry Hertz
TTC, Politics

By Ali Zafar, National Post

The TTC is introducing art into its subway stations as part of an underground make-over that has public-art advocates cheering, even as preservationists fear the system’s visual identity is being lost.

“I think this is the best thing, this integration of art into the subway stops,†said Colette Laliberté, a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD). “Reinventing the subway line and incorporating art there, it’s like walking through a gallery on your way to work, it’s fantastic.â€

This week, the TTC held an open house on its plans for the Pape station, the first station that will be revamped under the TTC’s $275-million station modernization program. It was launched last summer on the Bloor-Danforth line, and includes $25-million for “aesthetic changes†in the stations.

The $20.8-million Pape station revamp is anticipated to begin this fall, to be followed by the Dufferin station and then the Bloor-Yonge station, said Dave Grigg,
project manager for the program.

“The intent is that basically the whole appearance needs to change,†Mr. Grigg said.

The program aims to improve finishings on the walls, floors and ceilings inside the subway stops, along with better lighting. On the outside, the focus will be on creating new station appearances and landscaping.

However, for Ms. Laliberté — who teaches a course on art in the public realm — more art on the subway line is most important. “When you think of the number of people who take the subway everyday, some people are in there for hours going from Kipling to the other side of the city. So seeing the variety [of art] from one station to another is a moment of enrichment in your day to day life,†Ms. Laliberté said.

“We don’t have enough art in our life and this is bringing it to us in the subway,†she said. “It’s refreshing.â€

After its renovation — set to be completed in 2010 — the Pape station will display approximately 80 digital photographs of the station by Kitchener artist Allan Harding MacKay.

Mr. MacKay said the $85,000 artwork will be displayed in a series of two- by four-foot photos, with the actual photo set alongside abstract versions.

“The images are first literal and then get made into a series where they get transformed, abstracted, swirled or highly textured. In other words, they move from being very recognizable images to more of an abstraction,†said Mr. MacKay, who also created the Veterans’ Memorial Wall at Queen’s Park.

Mr. MacKay said the works took six months to complete, and although the TTC commissioned the project, the idea behind the art was his own.

“I wanted to do something with the environment that stimulates the imagination of people, to let their own subjectivity develop meaning for them,†he said, adding he wanted passengers to view the Pape station and its surroundings through their own eyes.

“There needs to be spaces created within the public space to allow the imagination to be exercised freely,†Mr. MacKay said.

The modernization program has raised some controversy with purists upset the subway line’s iconic visual identity — the system even has its own typeface — is being tampered with.

“There are a few stations that are in their original form and to renovate that you obviously lose some of that. The question is is it significant or of value? Is that loss something that’s irreparable?†said Andrew Pruss, an architect with ERA Architects Inc.

City councillor Adam Vaughan, who is on the Toronto Preservation Board, said the TTC should take into consideration the historical value of the subway line before it tears it apart.

“The Bloor-Danforth line is a rhythm of colours that has a set pattern and it’s designed as a piece and it speaks to an era gone by,†Mr. Vaughan said.

“Before we start tampering with this and breaking it up, there’s some history there, and I think there needs to be a discussion held on how to preserve it and recognize it as heritage,†Mr. Vaughan added.

Mr. Grigg said heritage considerations ‘‘are being reviewed,’’ and the TTC hopes it can renovate the stations without offending the preservationists. ‘‘We plan to bring something on board,†he said.

Other stops to be renovated on the Bloor-Danforth line, which opened in 1966, include the Islington station, at a cost of $19.6-million, Kipling for $35.5-million and Victoria Park for $46.4-million. Construction is set to complete by 2010 and renovations on these stations will focus on restructuring, along with having easy accessibility.

Similar reconstructions along the University line, which opened in 1963, are a joint initiative between the TTC and Toronto Community Foundation.

In that initiative, labelled Station Renaissance, St. Patrick and Osgoode stations will be renovated each at a cost of $5-million. A date hasn’t been set as to when the construction will start.

An ongoing $5-million facelift for the Museum station will be completed on April 8, when the motif pillars will be unwrapped for the public to see, Mr. Grigg said.

AoD
 
This is all I've got:

picture1xt6.jpg


This station definitely needs a revamp since it's one of the most used, yet most under developed of the system.

At any given time, day or night, you'll find many people in this station or waiting for a bus outside.

The TTC should consider roughing in an underground LRT platform when they update the station.
 
This station definitely needs a revamp since it's one of the most used, yet most under developed of the system.

The TTC should consider roughing in an underground LRT platform when they update the station.

The station is brutal for the bus connection. I figure none was built to save money, as the Ossington bus was busier than the Dufferin bus in the 1960s. Things have sure changed - a through Dufferin bus didn't exist until the 1950s.

Unfortunately, I can't see a LRT tunnel being built here, though a Dufferin rotue would outperform many of the TC routes.
 
The new glass entrances will provide a lot of opportunity for scratchitti.

Maintaining the visual identity should have been something that required consideration from the beginning.
 
Actually, this is my favourite subway-bus transfer station because it's a very straightforward shoulder for the buses to park in. Buses pull up, people get in, buses take off. The TTC bus termini are great for making connections, but add to trip times because the buses often have to make multiple left turns, sometimes onto busy streets to swing into the station. Also, through-buses that use subway stations with bus bays (like the Ossington 63), often stop for four or five minutes at the station before taking off again. Often, many trips are past Bloor street and this dwell time really cuts down on the bus' speed and attractiveness.

I love the Dufferin 29. It highlights all the things that make a bus more attractive than a streetcar on a busy urban surface route. The buses leapfrog one another, making the service seem almost semi-express. The bus drivers also really step on it and they make use of the Orion V, now my favourite bus in the system. You'd be surprised how fast you can get from Corso Italia to the Gladstone.
 
I agree with Hipster Duck. The only issue is when there are large crowds of people, having them all wait on the sidewalk can get really disorderly.
 
I love the Dufferin 29. It highlights all the things that make a bus more attractive than a streetcar on a busy urban surface route. The buses leapfrog one another, making the service seem almost semi-express. The bus drivers also really step on it and they make use of the Orion V, now my favourite bus in the system. You'd be surprised how fast you can get from Corso Italia to the Gladstone.

True. I've been caught though in the unruly mobs at Dufferin Station though, and don't like the lack of decent shelter. Everyone entering through the front also slows down the times. Otherwise, I agree about the 29.

I also like the Orion V. It's got the big windows (that don't instantly become dirty and translucent), the capacity, the great pick-up, and predate the jerk-o-matic transmissions on the later low floor Orions.
 
As I mentioned in another thread, this station is in desperate need of a south side entrance/exit to avoid the logjam that happens outside the doors and bus stop.
 
True. I've been caught though in the unruly mobs at Dufferin Station though, and don't like the lack of decent shelter. Everyone entering through the front also slows down the times. Otherwise, I agree about the 29.

And in all irony the three shelters at Dufferin west side largely go unused most of the day. Everyone just crowds the narrow walkway.

As I mentioned in another thread, this station is in desperate need of a south side entrance/exit to avoid the logjam that happens outside the doors and bus stop.

To add to that suggestion walkway right to Dufferin Mall might not be a bad idea either.
 
To add to that suggestion walkway right to Dufferin Mall might not be a bad idea either.
Now, I'm no expert on the dimensions of subway stations, but from Google Maps, this looks like a massive distance for a single walkway. How far south does the station go right now?
 
It'd be far too costly to dig a tunnel that far. People have walked from the subway stop to the mall for decades. Adding a tunnel isn't going to make the mall any more attractive. A simple (and obviously, it's by no means simple to build) entrance on the south side that would serve the mall and the school (along with the countless other destinations south of Bloor) would at least disperse the pedestrian traffic enough to improve things. The idea though that its necessary that a tunnel gets built to the mall is nonsense, and I'm sure a cost-benefit analysis would prove that easily.
 
Thanks for sharing everyone. I'm looking forward to the project.

It was interesting to learn that Dufferin doesn't have much history as a busy route, hence the lack of station resources. Now it is incredibly busy all day. I've already suggested to the TTC that they need better bus bays and a new and/or expanded entrance, ideally on the southwest corner. There is rumour of that corner being redeveloped (a school and b-ball courts there now) so there may be the opportunity and the space to do something positive.
 
I never found the connection at Dufferin to be that bad. You never have to wait too long for a 29 to pop by. And there's always lots of people. People in Mississauga have characterized Duffern Mall as "ghetto", but those people don't know what they're talking about. I've never felt unsafe in the Dufferin/College-Bloor area.

Does anyone know why Dufferin has gotten so busy?
 

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