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GO Transit: Union Station Shed Replacement & Track Upgrades (Zeidler)

I am looking forward to the removal of the "wrapping" of the main part of Union Station - the west wing was unwrapped last fall and it really looks pretty sharp. I assume that when the main façade is done they will move to the east wing (where the Scotia Bank offices are at the moment.)

When it is all finished I hope that the Union Station façade will be properly illuminated and that the Federal Government can be persuaded to also light the Dominion Federal Building.
 
That picture just reinforces how ridiculously narrow our platforms are at Union.
 
^ every other platform. The skinny ones are relics from when it was regional trains only operating out of the station. The skinny ones would be used for baggage loading with the wider ones being used for passenger loading. Every track has access to a wider platform however as there is only 1 track between platforms for most of the station. Platform 24 and 27 are the only platforms without double side access, and 27 is only a few years old anyway. A train actually MUST have access to a wider platform as elevators cannot be installed on the skinny ones and neither can the raised area for the CSA's to lay down the ramp in the accessible car.

Think of those skinny platforms as "bonus platforms" rather than the full thing. Though personally, I would rather prefer a single, larger platform, its what we got.
 
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Will the steel structure in the old sections of the shed be painted light grey. I hope so as this would give it a much more open feel.
 
Can't wait for the green roof to be added. Already looks so much alive in the shed with all that natural light!
 
So has anyone asked the Liberals how they plan to get HSR, AD2W electric GO with 15 minute frequencies into Union within the next 10 years?

This station improvement is nothing but lipstick on a pig. Narrow platforms, elevators and stairs that take up almost the entire platform width (I've seen people walk on the physical rails to get around crowding)... This place is becoming a death trap with each year of increased ridership.
 
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Filip said:
So has anyone asked the Liberals how they plan to get HSR, AD2W electric GO with 15 minute frequencies into Union within the next 10 years?

This station improvement is nothing but lipstick on a pig. Narrow platforms, elevators and stairs that take up almost the entire platform width (I've seen people walk on the physical rails to get around crowding)... This place is becoming a death trap with each year of increased ridership.
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+1

Not to mention DRL connections in the Financial District. In hindsight, the Union station refurbishment (and adding just another platform to the subway station) was too premature. Had we known that we need to integrate frequent electric regional rail, another subway line and potential HSR, we would have done a complete teardown and rebuild of the USRC track system and shed.

Somehow, we are going to have to figure out how we are going to allow pedestrian movement on our existing platforms with trains arriving and departingevery 2 minutes, or so, at all hours of the day. Our current platform system - which was designed to serve long distance steam railways for a city of 500,000 in 1914 - is completely inadequate to perform this job, and we have just reinforced this with our current refurbishment.
 
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Hipster Duck said:
+1

Not to mention DRL connections in the Financial District. In hindsight, the Union station refurbishment (and adding just another platform to the subway station) was too premature. Had we known that we need to integrate frequent electric regional rail, another subway line and potential HSR, we would have done a complete teardown and rebuild of the USRC track system and shed.

Somehow, we are going to have to figure out how we are going to allow pedestrian movement on our existing platforms with trains arriving and departingevery 2 minutes, or so, at all hours of the day. Our current platform system - which was designed to serve long distance steam railways for a city of 500,000 in 1914 - is completely inadequate to perform this job, and we have just reinforced this with our current refurbishment.
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It's awful isn't it? I was such a proponent of the Union renos until I took the train one morning to work (usually I'm TTC all the way, but a closure of Lake Shore would have destroyed my commute). I get to Union and it took about 10 minutes to clear the platform! They are too narrow, the stairs are too narrow (yet wide enough to completely constrict movement on the platforms) and the elevators are haphazardly placed all over the platforms. People were actually crossing the tracks to get to another platform. I'm sure this happens every day.

Lipstick on a pig is putting it lightly. We've just spent a billion to do nothing.
 
Filip said:
This station improvement is nothing but lipstick on a pig. Narrow platforms, elevators and stairs that take up almost the entire platform width (I've seen people walk on the physical rails to get around crowding)... This place is becoming a death trap with each year of increased ridership.
Click to expand...

If the 15 minute service is 3 to 6-car single-deck EMUs, then it won't be much of a problem since a train will be carrying ~600 passengers rather than 2000 passengers. Dwell time decreases significantly due to the single level and fewer passengers being involved.

My preferred long-term choice to the Union problem is a tunnel through the existing financial district for Lake Shore to the Richmond/Queen area. I specifically use Lake Shore because it crosses the other lines and can have transfer points near Bathurst/Spadina and Bayview.
 
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rbt said:
If the 15 minute service is 3 to 6-car single-deck EMUs, then it won't be much of a problem since a train will be carrying ~600 passengers rather than 2000 passengers. Dwell time decreases significantly due to the single level and GO can park 2 trains on each platform.
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Yes...it would seem the current platforms are far more suited for the sort of service Mr. Murray has been talking about than our current type of service.
 
TOareaFan said:
Yes...it would seem the current platforms are far more suited for the sort of service Mr. Murray has been talking about than our current type of service.
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Not so fast. In cities that have regional rail, people don't wait in the shopping concourse and go up when their train arrives, because their train is in and out of the station in 60 seconds. It's the equivalent of waiting in the mezzanine until you hear your subway come. As soon as you go into the subway station, you head right for the platform. This is what we're going to have with regional rail service, and our platforms will not be able to handle this.
 
never mind the fact that every track that has a thin platform also has access to a wider one. If they really wanted to they could simply close those platforms down. only every other platform is thin.\

As for waiting on the platforms, I regularly see the full 1500 people waiting for a late GO train standing on a platform, why cannot that be done for a train that would hold half as many people?
 
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