• Thread starter Suicidal Gingerbread Man
  • Start date
Railways overhead don't stop other countries from doing it. I think it'd be nice if there were a series of small shallow storefronts either directly under the bridge (facing east), and/or along the blank walls that face north and south just out from under the bridge.
Of course it's possible but excavating below an active rail berm is VERY expensive so I strongly doubt it will ever happen. The City is filled with vacant retail these days so I cannot see why anyone would put some in a rather dreary place - though having retail there would certainly improve this (and most) underpasses.
 
Actually the rail corridor over at Yonge & Summerhill has such an arrangement. And I would even argue retail at that dreary level does brighten things up a bit. That said, the expensive of doing so is near prohibitive and pointless when it could spent on far more useful things than vanity retail space. So for now, just no.
 
As I've indicated a multitude of pages back, that I used to remember some sorta parking lot thingy before GO moved in, as I used to cut through there a few times...but never had scope of the scale of what was above. So thanks for refreshing my memory of this once again. /bows
Your memory serves you well, here's an article that includes history of the GO bus terminal. Indeed it was parking for what seems to be a few years between demolition and construction of the bus terminal, with the last remaining building serving as a Budget Car Rental location.

http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/TTR/not_used_history_2.htm

Also, bonus fantastic shot of the CPX Building and now CIBC Square location as construction on the Dominion Public Building begins.

143393.jpg
 
Of course it's possible but excavating below an active rail berm is VERY expensive so I strongly doubt it will ever happen. The City is filled with vacant retail these days so I cannot see why anyone would put some in a rather dreary place - though having retail there would certainly improve this (and most) underpasses.
Understandable, thanks for explaining. Perhaps eventually they could put some small portable kiosks on the north side if ever there was deemed demand. From the mock-up, it even looks like the pedestrian bridge overhangs a bit, but it's not too clear. Knowing Toronto though, we'll likely just get a mural.
 
Of course it's possible but excavating below an active rail berm is VERY expensive so I strongly doubt it will ever happen. The City is filled with vacant retail these days so I cannot see why anyone would put some in a rather dreary place - though having retail there would certainly improve this (and most) underpasses.
The City of Toronto needs to look no further than the illustrious City of Niagara Falls for an example of poorly-performing vacant retail spaces below an underpass (in Niagara Falls case, an international bridge crossing)

 
We'll have to go back and look at the bridge specs to see how wide the new bridge will be, I imagine it will be less than 19M wide, but what remains by way of an underpass, even w/o the new bridge is
substantial at about 80% of what's there now, add back a pedestrian bridge, and this will be a fairly modest reduction in length.

5.5m wide roughly
Bridge.jpg
 
Thanks for the pictures. Moving out? Any updates on the last occupancy for the 1 Front St W building?
 

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