Toronto Ten York Street Condos | 224.02m | 65s | Tridel | Wallman Architects

Interestingly, the main Union Station building was completed in 1920 but did not open until 1927, and reach full completion until 1930. The reason? The city couldnt decide whether or not to elevate or trench the rail corridor. They eventually decided to elevate it, which I think was a big mistake in hindsight. A trenched corridor would be much easier to bridge over and hide from the modern landscape. The station building ended up sitting empty for 7 years as they built the trainshed and the elevated approach corridors, and even when it did enter operation, a small wooden plank bridge over York street to the old union station platforms was required before the new trainshed was completed.

its rather unfortunate really, one of Toronto's grandest pieces of architecture sat unused and became the running joke of the town for the first 7 years of its life.

Good point - the same reasoning would extend to the discussion of subway vs lrt.
 
^^ Toronto politicians refuse to make any tough decisions. Look what's happening with the Gardiner. It will have to fall down and kill a few people before we decide to rebuild it or tear it down. This city has a history of always taking the easy option, which is do nothing for as long as you can or whatever is cheapest.
 
Ya, they will come in time. Our building boom isn't all that far along to warrant a park over the railway tracks to exist at this very moment. It was difficult enough to get a developer to build on the railway lands, let alone have a park over the tracks in 2015. But there are several proposals which will make these parks a reality one day. Even the greening of the train shed roofs at Union is a much appreciated improvement to the cityscape.

We will see the first stage of this with the 141 Bay project.
 
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^^ Toronto politicians refuse to make any tough decisions. Look what's happening with the Gardiner. It will have to fall down and kill a few people before we decide to rebuild it or tear it down. This city has a history of always taking the easy option, which is do nothing for as long as you can or whatever is cheapest.

Correct. And it's A Shame! Really.
 
I think you'll find similar attitudes on the part of politicians everywhere you go. Politicians don't like making decisions that involve spending large amounts of money because that almost always means higher taxes, which almost always means someone will get upset. Pretending politicians looking out for their own hides is a symptom endemic to Toronto is silly. Of all the cities I've been to, Torontonians have the weirdest relationship with their city. We love to hate ourselves, but sometimes the anti-Toronto bandwagoning gets a little too hyperbolic like interchange said up above.
 
From this afternoon.

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