When I worked at the Globe and Mail a number of years ago, at its former location on Front Street, my desk overlooked the sunken rail corridor. Knowing the desperate need for public park space in that area, it seemed like a no-brainer to cover it, though the engineering challenges of building over an active series of rail lines are pretty obvious. Moreover, one person responded to my concept by saying, "If they can build a supporting structure to create useable space, there would be immediate pressure to put more towers above it."
These are concepts I worked up at the time the Globe was soliciting staff ideas for a new building at the Front. St. site. Here was mine (with apologies to Frank Gehry's Novartis campus in Basel, Switzerland). I suspect traffic controllers and nearby residents would object to large video screens in their midst...
- it will unseparate it from vehicular and streetcars for one. On a more serious note though, that stretch of the corridor can get pretty deep - and maybe sufficient to allow for two levels of tracks (perhaps leading to an underground platform/concourse - as originally envisioned by one of the USRC studies). Also one of the unspoken goals of the Spadina RER station and OL alignment is probably using the former as a terminus for some lines to relief USRC?
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2020/01/16/mayor-backs-city-push-to-expropriate-air-rights-for-rail-deck-park/_1_rdp_front_street_final_low_res.jpg)
