Toronto Backstage On The Esplanade | 116.73m | 36s | Cityzen | P + S / IBI

I think the area behind 1 Front Street (Dominion Building), even if made into two levels with a new level above the present GO Bus area, would not provide enough bus PARKING (as opposed to loading/unloading areas). I think they may still need the land on Harbour Street for bus parking even if the building at 90 Harbour is not needed. If this development goes ahead and is connected to the GO Transit Building it will, I assume, bring the PATH to the Sony Centre/L Tower and the Dominion Building. The TTC told me recently that if changes to the passenger bus station(s) are made then they may also be able to do something with the bus parcel building on Front/Sherbourne. Though this building is used by Greyhound it is actually owned by the TTC.
 
DSC said:
I think the area behind 1 Front Street (Dominion Building), even if made into two levels with a new level above the present GO Bus area, would not provide enough bus PARKING (as opposed to loading/unloading areas). I think they may still need the land on Harbour Street for bus parking even if the building at 90 Harbour is not needed.
Click to expand...
Then build another floor or two. Basically, we need one of these...

350px-Port-authority-terminal.jpg
 
I liked Port Authority better before it was trussed up with that gridwork. It was one mean m.f. of no-nonsense brown-brick X-braced urine-soaked 70sness: the piece of NYC architecture that embodied the Travis Bickle era like no other...
 
And the funny thing: it really was "architecture", with a serious Spadina-Subway-gone-S&M feel to it...
 
It was sort of inevitable that the Bay/Dundas bus terminal would one day bite the dust but it's still kind of a downer. There was something delightfully old fashioned and third world about having a major intercity bus terminal spill out onto a warren of downtown side streets. The anachronism of seeing Greyhound buses back out onto Edward street, or drop off their passengers at the Elizabeth street terminal and then see both the passengers and a lumbering diesel bus navigate across the stream of double parked taxis. It also gave the immediate area a lot of little dingy and inexpensive eateries and probably saved old Chinatown from total collapse.

Once it's gone, some block-spanning Grazziani + Corrazza condopile will probably be erected over where the glass shed stood and they'll probably facadectomy the Gray Coach terminal and the adjoining Edwardian block like something fierce.

Like I said, it's just a matter of time before it goes, though. It's like Toronto's version of Les Halles.
 
I think GO should abandon their Esplanade plans and team up with la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec as a tenant or co-owner of a much larger tower at 45 Bay Street.

It site is positioned nicely between the existing bus station south of the federal building and the existing parking lot of the Harbour Commission.

In the attached sketch, you could see the potential to do the following:

1. Create a bus "loop" and new terminal around the tower at 45 Bay with weather protection between the tower and the condo on Yonge. Have to add a traffic light at Bay but no biggie given the benefits.

2. Create a north/south pedestrian connection (moving sidewalks to shorten the trip) under the tracks connecting the "north bus terminal" to this south terminal... assuming the northern space/terminal would be needed as well.

3. Utilize a portion of the Harbour Commission land as for bus parking and/or as a staging area for buses (assumes the extra space would be needed) waiting to enter the southern station "loop". You see at the bottom of the pic where I've hinted at bus parking/staging.


Best of all, weather-protected connections (underground or elevated) to Union can established, creating a fairly compact bus/transit /train weather-protected hub.



GO.jpg
 
The intercity bus terminal was proposed at that location south of the current GO bus station years ago. I'm not sure why talk of it ever being somewhere else began since that location is ideal. The plan at the time would create a walkway under the rail corridor to the GO station linking the two and further connections linking it to Union Station. I don't think a new stop would be required considering the union station loop basically starts at the northwest corner of the site.

A direct PATH connection from Union to the waterfront is required as the disproportionately high use of the streetcar between Queens Quay station and Union limits the ability for other line users to fit on the vehicle eventhough one station later the streetcar can become almost empty. I can see adding another stop so close to Union adding even more people to the line ups at Union only to travel a single block. Maybe if they ever get the high-speed walkway working at Pearson that same technology could take people to Queens Quay to board the streetcar rather than having so many people board the streetcar to travel one stop.
 
It would make sense to build the bus terminal up against the Gardiner - no one really wants to live facing that directly, or stare out if an office window there much either - so yeah, why not work up a little plan with the Caisse as another alternative?

Nice render 3D.

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