Disclaimer: Although I am the Vice-Chair of Toronto’s Union Station Revitalization Public Advisory Group, this article represents my own opinions, not necessarily those of USRPAG who have not had a chance to discuss this matter since the release of the report linked below.
On June 2, Toronto’s Executive Committee will consider a staff report recommending that the Union Station Revitalization project proceed at a total cost of $640-million. This project is dependent on funding approvals from Queen’s Park and Ottawa which are expected to materialize over the coming months.
As previously reported, GO Transit will take a strata sale interest in parts of the station they do not already own, specifically much of the West Wing office space to which they will relocate their offices from Bay & Queen’s Quay, as well as their new east and west concourses. GO will lease additional space in the station.
The East Wing, now occupied by the Bank of Nova Scotia, will be returned to public use on the first floor. The east door (the old Postal Station A entrance) will give a new public access to the building, and the office space on the first floor will be used during construction as a swing space for building tenants such as Via and GO whose operations in the Great Hall will be displaced during renovation. Eventually, this area will become available for commercial use.
Current plans call for the Via Panorama Lounge to relocate from the south end of the departures concourse to the West Wing, probably in the old York Pioneer Room space north of the waiting room. Other space on the first floor of the West Wing will be reserved for the Air Rail Link’s waiting area, and that service (presuming it actually starts operating some day) will run from Track 1 (Platform 3) with direct access from the West Wing.
Negotiations are in progress for a Head Lessee for all of the commercial space in the revamped station, but the name of the successful proponent for this lease remains confidential pending confirmation of the entire project.
Several projects will run concurrently in the Union Station area:
- The station revitalization and “dig down” to create new, bilevel concourse space.
- The North-West PATH tunnel construction linking the West Wing to the Royal York Hotel, other buildings on York Street and the western portion of the existing PATH network at Wellington Street.
- The TTC’s Union Station second platform project for the subway station, and possible changes to Union Station Loop to accommodate the Waterfront East LRT line.
- GO Transit’s reconstruction of the train shed and insertion of the glass atrium in the portion of the shed directly south of the Great Hall.
- Planned reconfiguration of Front Street to alter the pedestrian/auto balance.
Union Station is nearly 90 years old and many of its structures and systems reflect building technology of its day. Many of these systems, notably heating and cooling, will be updated, and with the use of district facilities such as deep water cooling from Lake Ontario, there will be large energy savings in the building’s operation.
The detailed budget for the project is shown in Attachment 2 of the report at Page 14. Note that a considerable amount is already spent or planned up to the end of 2009, and this has covered building restoration/repair that was required regardless of the status of the revitalization project. Large, visible items included the repair of the west window in the Great Hall, the skylight over the waiting room, and the reconstruction of the bridge over the Front Street “moat” now in progress.
The report includes floor plans showing the new layout of the upper and lower levels of the station as well as the current and future access points that will be provided at track level. These are more recent than versions on the City’s Union Station site as the design has been fine-tuned over the past months in response to, among other things, pedestrian flow models that showed problems with the original design. To the greatest degree possible, multiple pathways exist between various parts of the building, and from the building (especially the GO concourses) to the surrounding streets. These are required to handle a projected doubling of passenger demand at Union over the next two decades.
The main reconstruction activity will likely begin with the west concourses. This space is now used for a few GO train platforms and a car rental operation (to be removed from the station). The space will be reconstructed to provide a new loading area at the southwest corner of the complex, as well as the new west GO and shopping levels. This must be completed first to allow GO’s operations to switch from the existing east concourse to the west side of the station.
Once GO is out of their existing space, the east concourse can be rebuilt into its new two level arrangement. This work will include lowering the moat between the bridge to the Postal Station entrance (east end) and the main bridge (now under reconstruction) to the Great Hall. This new level will permit direct access with no change in grade from the mezzanine of Union Subway Station to the lower level of the East Wing. TTC’s plans for their station involve reconfiguring the fare control area into a central island (as opposed to the split east and west control areas at present), and providing a better flow to the PATH system north of the station.
The entire project is expected to be complete by 2015. Because of its complexity, a head contract manager will be retained by the City to oversee and co-ordinate the work. Although there is a preliminary staging plan, this changes in response to emerging details in the project, and in light of modelling exercises both for pedestrian flow and construction activities in each stage.
Steve Munro 
Has any thought gone into ensuring the new, improved Union Station will be able to accommodate high-speed rail? Or is this major renovation being built to existing, decades old technology only?
Steve: High speed rail does not depend on completely replaced technology. Even the TGV runs over “normal” rail tracks to access stations in many locales. In Toronto, there is no alternative corridor for HSR to use to get out of the 416, and even in the 905, things are tricky in some locations.
The major issue at Union is provision for electrification, and that is in the plan. HSR has much bigger hurdles to get over than Union Station.
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On page 16 of the city’s document why is the “York Street GO concourse” next to Bay St. and the “Bay Street GO Concourse” next to York St? Are they going to rotate the building 180 degrees? On the next page they seem to have them in the correct place. This is a very impressive design but I want to see this station handle an extra 200 000 passenger per day. GO is going to have to be running on a very tight schedule to fit all of their trains plus VIA’a and Blue 22’s onto 14 platforms.
Steve: The concourses are mislabelled. The streets are in the correct place. North is to the left.
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Steve: ” igh speed rail does not depend on completely replaced technology. Even the TGV runs over “normal” rail tracks to access stations in many locales. In Toronto, there is no alternative corridor for HSR to use to get out of the 416, and even in the 905, things are tricky in some locations.
“The major issue at Union is provision for electrification, and that is in the plan. HSR has much bigger hurdles to get over than Union Station.”
Here I thought that the Hamilton Street Railway was getting back into rail service.
I think high speed rail will only be a pipe dream that politicians keep dragging out to get photo ops because the cost of a TGV line would be prohibitively high compared to the number of potential users. You would have to get all of the rail, bus, plane and auto traffic to take rail to keep the losses from being astronomical. I think that they are better with going for incremental improvements to diesel hauled trains. The corridor coast would be in the trillion dollar order of magnitude.
Steve: Yes, but talking about high speed rail distracts people from the fact that Via Rail service should be so much better. Heaven preserve us from actually doing something to improve what we already have. On that note, Via has plans, finally, for improvements in the Toronto-Montreal corridor, and for better service on Toronto-KW-London, but the latter is hung up with the wrangling over Metrolinx plans for the same corridor.
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Steve: “The entire project is expected to be complete by 2015.”
I think I’m going to be staying out of Union Station for the next few years. Keeping a facility in use during major reconstruction is a monumental task, and it will be difficult, no matter how well planned and executed.
I find the comment about alterting the auto/pedestrian balance on Front St. intriguing. Auto traffic in front of the station is horrific most of the time, because one lane is always taken up by taxis, tour buses and other vehicles dropping off or picking up, leaving one lane for actual traffic. Pedestrians are always walking across the street into traffic like flocks of geese crossing the 401. Are they going to reduce the road to one lane and then just let it clog up with taxis dropping off and picking up? There needs to be proper layby arrangements for pickups and dropoffs, that would help the overall traffic flow on Front St., and the willy-nilly streams of pedestrians are going to be difficult to tame.
Steve: The proposed plan for Front Street includes both laybys as well as a new taxi stand at the south end of Union Station in an area still under construction today.
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Steve wrote:
“Current plans call for the Via Panorama Lounge to relocate from the south end of the departures concourse to the West Wing, probably in the old York Pioneer Room space north of the waiting room.”
Why on earth would anyone consider moving the Panorama Lounge there? VIA moved it to its current location a number of years ago when the former location (located beside the gate to Track 6 as I recall) became insufficient to meet the demand placed on it. However, it is at least in a location that is right where passengers will need to be in order to board their trains. Moving it to the West Wing is taking it completely away from where passengers will be accessing the trains from.
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I’m glad they’ve improved the access routes from the last version so that there are now multiple rouets from the concourse level down to the retail level (and PATH/TTC).
Any idea what the headroom will be in the concourse areas?
Steve: The detailed drawings show the relative elevations of the various levels as: Retail Concourse (-1.5′), Existing Moat (7.5′), GO Concourse (12.5′), Via Concourse (15.2′), Track Platform (30′). This gives 14′ between the Retail and GO Concourses, although you have to deduct a few feet for utilities and the GO concourse slab. From the GO Concourse to Track Platform level is 17.5′, but this includes the high platform, the track slab itself and utilities in the ceiling of the GO concourse. Part of the Bay Street Concourse will be double height immediately south of the entryway from the subway station where the moat will be lowered to the new concourse level.
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Steve wrote:
“Union Station is nearly 90 years old and many of its structures and systems reflect building technology of its day.”
Kevin’s comment:
I actually like some of the old technology. Two examples:
1. The opening over the track to accomodate coal-fired steam engine exhaust is rather nice. It provides an open feeling and excellent ventilation.
2. I like the old-fashioned washroom fixtures, particularly the urinals. It would be good to clean them up and retain them.
Steve: The train shed roof will be rebuilt in the same manner it exists today. The natural ventillation is still needed for diesel trains. There will be a garedn on top of the new shed to make it a green roof. As for the men’s loo, there is some concern about modern sanitation standards, and I don’t know if the existing fittings will be retained for historical purposes. I am reliably informed that the women’s loo is of comparable vintage.
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Steve I can’t seem to find detailled drawings of the Union subway station layout. Could a western entrance to the station be built at or near the Front/University/York intersection, with manned or automated gates? Just how far west does the station platform reach?
Steve: Remember that there are two parts to the “straight” section of the station — the platform itself and then the beginning of the centre track. The curve into University Avenue is well into the three-track section, and this is located roughly at York Street. The platform ends well east of that point.
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Another thing I just remembered. On the Lakeshore line at Union Station, they open the doors on the North side first to allow passengers to leave, and then open the South doors for passengers to board.
This is fine, but what is not fine is the fact that there are only elevators on the South platform. A little fact that is never told to anyone. So when I have my bike, or if someone else has mobility issues and wants to use the elevator, we have to have the secret Gnostic knowledge – or else find out the hard way.
For someone with mobility issues, salmoning upstream to the traffic flow may be difficult and frightening.
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Are there any plans to bring the Coach Canada Bus Terminal from Bay and Dundas to Union Station? When I first moved to Ontario from Vancouver I lived for a short time in St. Catharines and would take a Greyhound bus to Toronto and always thought that the bus terminal would make more sense if it were linked to Union Station making even more a multi-modal terminal. I live here in Toronto now but still think the Coach Canada bus terminal needs a location near Union where it will have closer access to our highway system that these regional buses use mostly.
Steve: There has been talk of this, but the problem is to find a large enough piece of property. Vacant provincial land on the west side of Bay between Lake Shore and Harbour is one proposed site.
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It has been noted elsewhere that a future Downtown Relief Line could have a Union Station stop – I think the idea would be for a separate set of platforms – although granted that could be many years in the future. Will there be potential locations for such a station after the current redevelopment, or would what is being built now have to be “unbuilt”?
Steve: One of the earlier schemes for a DRL Union Station involved space between the existing subway structure and the railway station building. This space will now be occupied by both the second platform for the subway station and the new lowered moat section for the crossing from the subway mezzanine to the lower level Bay Street Concourse. There is likely also a conflict with the structure of the Harbourfront streetcar loop.
An alignment over or under the rail corridor is not workable. Over would run smack into the new GO atrium structure south of the Great Hall, and under would have to be a very, very long way down under the station, likely below the water table, and in a place where it would have to support the viaduct structure. Space at the south end of the viaduct has been consumed by GO Transit recently added platform, and the embankment as a whole is constrained by structures erected since the freight yards were removed.
Also, I have reservations about a DRL through Union Station simply from a capacity perspective. The amount of pedestrian traffic at that site will be at least double what it is today, and we should try to spread the demand out a bit.
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@ Steve: Also, I have reservations about a DRL through Union Station simply from a capacity perspective. The amount of pedestrian traffic at that site will be at least double what it is today, and we should try to spread the demand out a bit.
Given that most people exiting Union Station (GO & TTC) head north for jobs, shopping etc, a DRL station would be best placed north of Union as well for this very reason.
This probably means tunnels under streets north of Union, where there is the least obstruction by building foundations, PATH, underground parking, utilities etc.
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I agree that the DRL should be north of Union for two main reasons:
1. Union is pretty busy as it is now.
2. Not everyone wants to go to Union. Let’s fact it, the world does not begin and end at Union. The line could connect with Queen St. and/or Osgoode subway stations in my opinion. Or one (or both) of the King Street stations.
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If the DRL goes to Queen and then Osgoode it could probably just use the station shell that’s already there. Just see what infrastrure barriers (pipes and whatnot) have been allowed to intrude and figure out how to reroute them. I do believe that there was some utility relocation for a possible second level at Osgoode for a possible Queen subway which there is zero chance of ever being built so here’s a good opportunity to use what’s already there.
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Toronto Streetcars said:
“Not everyone wants to go to Union. Let’s face it, the world does not begin and end at Union. The line could connect with Queen St. and/or Osgoode subway stations in my opinion. Or one (or both) of the King Street station”
I concur. Queen or King would be better suited for a DRL stop at either University or Yonge, even both. These streets are frequented by tourists,Torontonians and business people alike. Union was heavily traveled 40 years ago when rail was still key in moving people around but now its only busy during rush hours and people are coming to and from work. At least on King or Queen streets you can bring people where they want to go or at least close to it without having to walk from Union station. The demand on these streets are steady throughout the day and would benefit from a DRL stop or two.
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@David Aldinger
If the DRL goes to Queen and then Osgoode it could probably just use the station shell that’s already there. Just see what infrastrure barriers (pipes and whatnot) have been allowed to intrude and figure out how to reroute them.
Transit Toronto has a great article of Queen Station’s east-west station shell, with a pic & description of the elevator shafts and and a new underpass being the main intrusions into the shell.
Steve: When talking about a Queen line, it’s important to remember that, at best, Osgoode does not, repeat not have a roughed in station. All that was done was some utility relocation “just in case”. I think that any discussion of the DRL alignment through downtown needs to look at all of the issues for possible routes, and it should not be gerrymandered to get to a very small piece of tunnel at Queen and Yonge. If Queen turns out to be the best route, fine, then use the existing station, but don’t force the line to go there if it belongs further south in the larger picture.
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No, I don’t think that the DRL should go under Queen just to use the unused level of the Queen station but should Queen Street actually be where the line is put under, the use of the existing station shell is really a no-brainer. But if it has to stay unused because another routing is found to be the right one, it has to stay unused, that’s all. I just want to see any studies on the downtown alignment to be as unflawed and noncontroversial as humanly possible.
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One thing I’ve always wondered. When standing on the Union Station platform and looking down the tracks, I see that the tracks and platform are not straight. They have a “wiggle.”
Why is this?
Steve: I believe that the tunnel narrows at the point where it would otherwise encounter the foundation of the Royal York Hotel.
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Hi there,
I’m already interested in leasing space at the revitalzed Union Station. Is it too early to start filling out applications?
Dan
Steve: Considering that the city has not even announced who will be head lessee, the answer is yes.
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