eddiek
New Member
I care, and plenty of people care. Most people spend lots of time everyday on the subway system. You might get on a train after 5 minutes, but then for the next 10-30 minutes you're on the subway seeing other stations. The variety relieves the monotony of the experience. Besides, many people spend more than 5 minutes at a subway station. Some invariably wait for acquaintances on the platform, and people for longer periods of time for buses.
It doesn't make that big of a difference to build an attractive station in cost, unless the station is built with the image of an airport terminal in mind. It's size that adds more to costs than design. A lot of Sheppard line stations are huge (and were costly), but not that impressive, unless you compare them to the notoriously cheap and uninspiring Bloor Danforth line stations.
What uniquely designed stations add is civic pride and a higher level of appreciation for public transit and the city in general. Montreal's Metro really boosts the perception of the city, for instance, among locals and visitors. At the end of the day, the subway is a vital piece of infrastructure which hundreds of thousands use daily. It's a fantastic place to bring quality architecture and design into peoples' daily lives and neighbourhoods across the city.
Yes I agree, a nice station is great and pleasing to the eye, but if you can get an extra kilometer of track based on the price difference on all the stations, would you take that extra Kilometer? So far the cost differences on all the stations equal a kilometer of track. At the end of the day, it's more important for people to have transportation to and from work then something that is "contemporary" to a few people. With that said, I'm not trying to say we should make ugly 1970 styled stations, after spending a lot of time reading on this forum, someone made reference to many German transits stations being simple, stylish and cost effective. We can follow that same model and still have enough money to complete the job. At this point, this extension project is over budget.
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