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New look for the Victoria Park subway station (Brown and Storey)

Northern Light said:
The current 'new' bus terminal at Eglinton has always been 'temporary' pending redevelopment of the site.

The current new terminal is in the former TTC Eglinton Bus Garage, which is enmeshed with the Whole Canada Square Project.

The bus garage is closed, and the entire area it now occupies will likely be part of the massive redevelopment of the block.

In the relevant thread here.....which someone will post, there are renderings of what Toronto would like on the site.

Though that will be subject to negotiations with a preferred developer.
Click to expand...

The proposed new terminal will not be require with the building of the Eglinton Line.

Here are photo's from today visit. The roof should be pour by the end of Sept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmLfZvKXVs
 
Their was just a short article in the Toronto Star that said that Ottawa is sending Toronto $200 million to help pay for $600 million worth of infrastructure projects. The city will pick up the rest of the tab but the $200 million helps get these projects started. The Star.com said that out of this $600 million $188 million is earmarked for transit projects including money to improve Pape, Dufferin, Warden and Victoria Park subway stations.

I like what they have planned for Victoria Park Station and I hope that they use some of this money to have someone make a user friendly design for Warden Station. I use Warden Station mostly and find the seperate bus bays really poorly designed. I sometime get off my bus and have to catch another bus instead of the subway. This means I have to go up a flight of stairs and down another flight of stairs just to transfer buses. Victoria Park used to be sort of like this but the designers put a lot of thought into the new design and it will make commuting much easier and pleasant when the project is complete.

I am grateful for all the transit announcements in the last year or so. From the municpality of Toronto, to the Province and now this one from the feds. I think if Warden Station had an island type of platform like Kennedy or Scarborough Town Center it might even convince a few fence sitters to finally start using transit. I am almost certain that the ease of making transfers and increased comfort waiting for a bus connection at the future Vic Park station will increase ridership- no more waiting on a cold exposed bus platform at the future VP station.
 
I had some time off yesterday afternoon and checked out the progress of VP Station. They had a couple of cement mixer trucks there when I was there and one of those cement pumping trucks that is able to pump the cement up to high levels. It looks as though they were pouring collumns of cement that may support the canopy for the future bus bays.
 
GTS said:
I had some time off yesterday afternoon and checked out the progress of VP Station. They had a couple of cement mixer trucks there when I was there and one of those cement pumping trucks that is able to pump the cement up to high levels. It looks as though they were pouring collumns of cement that may support the canopy for the future bus bays.
Click to expand...

They are pouring the roof as the columns have been up over a month now.

They were laying the rebar for the roof the last time I was out there and it would be a week or so at that time before concrete was pour. There is still concrete to be pour for the ground level as well retaining wall to the south. Look at my Sept 10 posting #106.

I will being doing an update photo shoot next week.
 
Their is a booklet called Transit City Bus Plan that has a couple of items that impact VP Station. One item is that they TCBP is proposing to construct a sheltered waiting area for passengers waiting for buses on the southern portion of where the L shaped platform is. The TCBP wants to increase the comfort of us commuters. Another item in this booklet is a proposed Bus Rapid Transit route that would leave VP station, go east on Danforth and Kingston Rd to Eglinton Ave. The route would then loop back to VP station. If this route become reality, I hope it does because my wife and I live within walking distance of this route, they will have to construct another platform for this new route using the new VP Station.

If you get a chance pick up the Transit City Bus Plan booklet, very nicely put together with a lot of good info, such as 15,700 commuters use VP station every day. I picked this booklet up at the last months public TTC meeting at city hall. Been busy with my family and work and just got around to reading it this weekend.
 
Acting on a tip from the CPTDB, I popped by Victoria Park station and got look at the platform windows. They're quite nicely integrated into the station appart from cutting off the station name at some points. I snapped some photos, and if I can figure out whats wrong with my camera soon, I will post them tonite.
 
I'm sorry, what are they spending a billion dollars on? Aesthetics?

Look at the best subway systems in the world... Paris, NYC, Tokyo... what do they have in common?

Many, Many lines to get you everyone... what DON'T they have? elaborate 'stations' that cost billions of dollars.

I'm pretty sure that DRL would get built if we simply put the money from VP and that new Fancy DOwnsview station line into building actual subways instead of 'feel' good projects that get commuters no where.
 
Actually, Paris has plenty of extravagant stations. Pretty much everything built after WW2 (RER, Mo. 14) has been over-built. Probably because they learned their lesson after their small stations were overwhelmed after decades of ridership growth.
 
js97, thanks for the question, they aren't spending billions of dollars modernizing VP Station but rather about $50 million I believe I read. I would question the TTC spending this amount of money on aesthetics as well but this station renovation is not about aesthetic only. It will get rid of those seperated bus bays where we passengers were more exposed to the elements and had to climb stairs to reach our connecting bus. The new VP station will have all the buses share a same level loading platform with their own place to dock and we passengers will be able to wait in a sheltered area for our bus. The new station will also have elevators for those of us with limited mobility can access the TTC.

The aethetic side of things will improve a lot with all the windows they have to let natural light in. A. Badaraco just posted some pics of a couple of the window already installed. The main windows will be on the south and south west corner of the new station once it is finished. This will make our commuting feel like we are not walking into some prison or something.
 
Generally speaking

Aesthetics are vital, because subway stations are focal community hubs in which tens of thousands spend time in every day. If you care about good design and architecture in Toronto, the best ways to generate interest among the general public is to inject it into busy public spaces. Improving aesthetics when there's a need to "modernize" the station and do significant construction is hitting two birds with one stone.
 
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