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Talking of the "Union Station Experience", I think one of the worst examples of visual pollution anywhere in Toronto is to be found in the underground concourse. Signage and pictograph overkill, advertising plastered everywhere - including the floors, clashing colours and textures, factory-farm lighting, you name it ...
 
No argument here, it's a real mess. It also has an oddly oppressive atmosphere, I don't know if it's the low ceilings or what..?
 
Everything clashes. You walk through from the subway and it just hits you - they've used every colour, typeface and surface cladding material known to man. Contrast it with our beautiful new airport, yet the purpose of both buildings is essentially the same - to calm down frantic travellers, impart departure and arrival information, and help them navigate around the place.
 
I agree, the underground concourse is a total mess. Any plan for Union Station needs to involve a major overhaul of that that level.
 
^ I'm hoping that some major progress on Union Station (upstairs and down) will be one of the success stories that we will be able to talk about at the end of 07. This magnificent old structure is supposed to be a gateway to our city; the impression it gives is not flattering.
 
Contrast it with our beautiful new airport, yet the purpose of both buildings is essentially the same - to calm down frantic travellers, impart departure and arrival information, and help them navigate around the place.
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Exponentially more people use Union everyday than Pearson as well. :\
 
Pearson collects user fees. Maybe the city should look at a 50c user fee and create a non-profit authority to run the station.
 
Why, is there a known link between user fees and good design?
 
I don't really see anything wrong with a 25 or 50 cent levy on GO tickets and maybe a dollar or two on VIA tickets to pay for improvements to the station. That could raise 20 million a year.
 
I actually don't mind the GO concouse--it has a nice bustle to it. Reminds me a bit of parts of Atocha station in Madrid or Sants, in Barcelona, neither of which is too visually offensive.

But the trainshed needs to go. Ick. I guess it's sort of a Boston City Hall-type preservation thing: do we need to preserve something historic even if it's really ugly?
 
Everyone: Good pictures of "The Grand Old Lady Of Front Street" I remember Toronto Union Station well from my days of traveling to TOR between 1979-1990 and a weekend trip I made in the Summer of '98. I traveled by train from NYC at least a dozen times in that time period-I only drove up once with some friends in 1988. It was a good place to trainspot-on one of my trips in the mid 80s I went to the TTR office and got a release form and I was allowed to roam the station freely-it was good to talk to station employees and get a feel of Canada's busiest rail station. My father was a station employee at NYC's Penn Station for more than 30 years as an Assistant Station Master. I have many memories there-everything from being there on my first ever TOR trip in mid-summer 1979 and being there when GO Transit opened their new section at the beginning of August that year-Seeing VIA RAIL trains like the then-new LRC trains as well as those special sound notes when trains were announced as well as being down below in the departure concourse when trains would rumble in up above-at times you would wonder how those tracks supported that weight sometimes.
I always wondered why that the platforms were so low-literally tie-level that needed the use of stepboxes to board-I fully understand why GO increased their platform height by 10 or so inches to match the bilevel cars. I felt myself that high-level platforms should have been built for the VIA Corridor trains on at least one platform track pair. I recall myself that Union was once threatened by talk of demolition-thankfully that never happened. In closing I feel that Union Station is one of Toronto's Gems! LI MIKE
 
Just a bump and a reminder that these tours are still being offered...

Union Station Tours

Derek Boles, the Vice-Chair of the Union Station Revitalization Public Advisory Group (USRPAG), conducts walking tours of Union Station on the last Saturday of every month beginning at 11 a.m.

Tickets are $10. These tours are conducted under the auspices of the Toronto Railway Historical Association and Toronto Terminals Railway.

Contact Derek at 416-917-8220, or trha@rogers.com to reserve.
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(info found on Steve Munro's website)
 
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