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

[UrbanAffair]

Saw this bollard in Basel and thought of this thread. Simple, and functional. Recesses in to the ground, and lights up red at night. I watched a service van pull up, use a small terminal and the bollards went down, and back up after the truck passed. Depth/height must have been around 2ft max.

 

[DSCToronto]

Saw this bollard in Basel and thought of this thread. Simple, and functional. Recesses in to the ground, and lights up red at night. I watched a service van pull up, use a small terminal and the bollards went down, and back up after the truck passed. Depth/height must have been around 2ft max. View attachment 703193

Retractable bollards are not uncommon but from what I have heard/seen they ARE prone to failure. Also see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ed-air-electric-barriers-officers-inside.html

 

[UrbanAffair]

I’m not sure how often they break, but I notice they’re everywhere in Switzerland, in every city and town, to control pedestrian areas. They don’t seem to break often, or I think they’d have a better system. I don’t think we need retractable bollards at Union, but they’re common in Europe. COT should look here to see how easily they’re implemented and try to do the same.

That police situation was funny. Surely a one time occurrence?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I’m not sure how often they break, but I notice they’re everywhere in Switzerland, in every city and town, to control pedestrian areas. They don’t seem to break often, or I think they’d have a better system. I don’t think we need retractable bollards at Union, but they’re common in Europe. COT should look here to see how easily they’re implemented and try to do the same.

That police situation was funny. Surely a one time occurrence?

The problem is Toronto is Switzerland run by New Yorkers.

AoD

 

[mburrrrr]

The US embassy in Ottawa had a couple installed for maintenance access between 2009-2012.

And they do need maintenance.

But if you want security you double up on these.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I seemed to recall seeing a rendering of the tower in Mark Osbaldeston’s wonderful Unbuilt Toronto books - but alas. I did manage to find renderings of the Leafs earlier iteration of a new arena directly atop Union’s train shed however, before they decided to go in on the postal station arena that the Raptors were planning independently. The two teams apparently were jockeying to be the lead developer of the stadium (which the leafs clearly intended to share given the Raptor's branding in the rendering) but the lease terms from TTR for the air rights and the Raptors expressed that they would never shift from their plan at the postal site, so these apparently made the Leafs balk and shift to the postal building only site which they were initially concerned would be too small.

From what I remember, although the tower shown in the rendering below is shockingly similar to what was ultimately built, the original scheme had the second and third tower's floor area shifted to one larger tower before the whole thing was ultimately shrunk back to what we have today.

 

[Civdis]

At least the train shed would have been eliminated

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

At least the train shed would have been eliminated

Replaced with an even more problematical structure - and lord forbid if the Leafs won in that thing.

AoD

 

[innsertnamehere]

Replaced with an even more problematical structure - and lord forbid if the Leafs won in that thing.

AoD

Not that you ever have to worry about the second part..

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Not that you ever have to worry about the second part..

The unlikelihood of it makes the impact of it happening all the worse. The place would have gained a quasi-religious aura.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

This is not technically the correct thread, but its seems the most apt for people interested in the history of Toronto's Union Station(s); plural...............

The plans for one of our previous Union Stations have now been digitized:

Plans of Toronto Union Station and vicinity [architectural: technical drawing; cartographic material] (14 digital object(s)) Archives / Collections and Fonds

Application Description

recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca

I believe this is the second Union, the one previous to the current iteration, which was demolished, was located just to the west of the current Station.

Just one image from the above:

 

[innsertnamehere]

This is not technically the correct thread, but its seems the most apt for people interested in the history of Toronto's Union Station(s); plural...............

The plans for one of our previous Union Stations have now been digitized:

Plans of Toronto Union Station and vicinity [architectural: technical drawing; cartographic material] (14 digital object(s)) Archives / Collections and Fonds

Application Description

recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca

I believe this is the second Union, the one previous to the current iteration, which was demolished, was located just to the west of the current Station.

Just one image from the above:

View attachment 703507

Yes, that's the second Union Station. It was located on the southwest corner of York and Front St from what I recall, built in the 1880's.

Only 30 years after opening the new Union started construction.

Fun fact - if you think the Eglinton Crosstown is a delayed, disfunctional mess - The Union Station building we know today was built in 1919, but did not open until 1930! The train shed component was severely delayed as the railroads had disagreements as to elevate or depress the rail corridor in order to grade separate it. We know today that they ended up elevating the corridor, but the disfunction in choosing the corridor design delayed it's construction by many years. For several years the headhouse building opened and had passengers walk on a long pathway westward to the trainshed of the former station until the new platforms could open.

The Second Union Station was constructed in 1873. The main station building was awkwardly placed, facing south towards the rail corridor.

An addition opened in 1892 - apparently the design of the station was widely disliked at the time. The addition gave a station front entry off of Front St:

The layout of the station in 1903: you can see the site of the current Union Station occupied by various structures. Also notice how as the elevated rail corridor had not yet been constructed, all tracks were at grade.

Finally, The new Union Station under construction in 1917. While the building would be complete in 1919, it would not open to the public until 1927 and would not be fully complete until 1930:

 

[Civdis]

I really wish they had decided to depress the rail corridor, would have helped so much with our connection to the waterfront.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I really wish they had decided to depress the rail corridor, would have helped so much with our connection to the waterfront.

Yes, but expanding the rail corridor would be so much more difficult than it is now.

AoD

 

[innsertnamehere]

Yes, they ultimately elevated it as it was much cheaper than depressing it. And that choice, while not as visually appealing, has definitely made adapting the corridor easier too.