[Hipster Duck]

Link to report

This plan is unfunded.

Proposed main level plan:

Proposed lower level plan:

Proposed rear entrance:

Proposed new train room:

View down main concourse:

Existing main hall will see few changes:

 

[alklay]

Thanks for the post.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Looks like a supersized cross between Bing Thom's design for the ROM expansion and KPMB's Koerner Hall

 

[buildup]

How would you rate this overall against our plans for Union Station?

 

[Hipster Duck]

How would you rate this overall against our plans for Union Station?

This plan is on a totally different scale than what we are doing with our Union Station. What they are doing in Washington would be like if we tore down the bush shed, ripped up the tracks, buried the whole thing underground, built a soaring glass train shed with new entrances on Yonge and Bay streets, moved the Metro Toronto Coach terminal to the site, and then extended the financial district over the newly reclaimed air rights.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'm all for the aesthetic improvements, but the whole new underground concourse is completely unnecessary. They barely use the existing tracks as is, by international standards, and learning to turn trains more quickly would cost a hell of a lot less than a gigantic underground track level and long tunnels back to the main line.

Also, compare the cost with Stuttgart 21, a project that will completely bury the tracks at a major existing station (and build a whole bunch of other rail tunnels and improvements throughout the urban area). The new underground station itself will cost 893 million euros.

 

[Hipster Duck]

While $7B is a lot of money, I think you are a bit off with the Stuttgart 21 figures. I think that over 4 billion EUR was allocated to the project and some estimates say that the final cost will be as high as 18 billion EUR. If it was an 893 million EUR project, I don't think there would be an ongoing national debate about the viability of that project in Germany, which there has been for almost a decade.

Also, the underground tracks aren't superfluous - they already exist, and are used by Amtrak for those NEC trains that continue on to Virginia as well as by VRE.

 

[unimaginative2]

Check the link. The 893 million figure is the cost (dramatically increased from original estimates) of the underground station itself. The remainder of the project is a vast network of underground tunnels criss-crossing the city, a new airport station, and part of a high-speed line.

Yes, there is already an underground connection. Check out those Washington Union Station plans, though: they include an entirely new tunnelled connection to the north, plus an entire second underground level of platforms.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^Okay, I read the link now. While 893 million euros is impressive, you can't really separate the cost of building the station building from the cost of all of the tunneled approaches, where I expect to see dramatic cost escalation. It's true that the Washington project is exorbitantly overpriced, as is every infrastructure project in the United States, and particularly in the older eastern cities. However, if the price tag can be forgiven (which is admittedly hard), I think this is still a much more worthwhile project than our own Union station renovation which just perpetuates the same mistakes into the future, albeit with an improved subway station and a roomier (but more commercialized) GO concourse.

At least the Washington Union station revamp adds capacity, integrates different transportation systems (notably the bus terminal), and has a forward-thinking approach to intercity rail transportation. It also does something we still haven't done: bury our station and free up the valuable land for real estate development. Our Union station project costs a fraction of theirs, but it still maintains a physical separation between VIA and GO (and does hardly anything to improve the experience of VIA passengers except for the Panorama Lounge), still maintains the Bush shed, still maintains the horrible track layout with its narrow, claustrophobic platforms, fails to better integrate other transportation systems (or even the ones that exist there presently), and still cuts the city off from the lake and from potentially billions in commercial real estate development.

 

[Jonny5]

This plan is unfunded.

Heh. Well isn't that a little snag. I suppose they could always try and get the federal government to pay for it. They should ask their elected representatives to.... oh right.... they don't have any.

I could see a Republican administration passing a law banning DC from spending money on this given how they love to play DC mayor.

 

[neubilder]

For some reason constructions costs in Canada are always outrageously high. It costs more to build inefficient, mediocre buildings using dated technologies in Canada than it costs to build ultra-refined ultra-efficient, architecturally interesting buildings in Germany or Denmark.