Sorry ... good point about the subway.

You're right ... but I wonder if they're go through with it right away ... it's really really really not worth it...

Why not have the 60 continue to travel down on Keele for the 500m or so. It'll increase travel time a lot if people need to transfer to the subway.

Heck I betcha if that's the case most people would just walk from Keele and Steeles.

Regarding the 35 I can see that, I've never been sure why that went into campus in the first place, although it is convenient

I think the 41 should still go in on it's route North To Steeles / or back from it.
 
I think there's a good case to keep 41 on campus, more so than any other route - I just don't think it's going to happen :rolleyes:
 
Subway station architects intend to cheer you up

Nov 17, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume


Welcome to the better Better Way.

In anticipation of the extension of the Spadina subway north from Downsview, the TTC has hired a gaggle of globe-trotting architects to design six new stations.

Among them are two leading U.K. practitioners, Will Alsop and Norman Foster, both of whom have worked in Toronto. Alsop, of course, is the author of the celebrated "flying tabletop" at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Foster's only local project is the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Pharmacy Building.

"If you can cheer someone up for a few minutes," Alsop declares, "it's worth it."

Though in its early stages, Alsop says his design will focus on bringing natural light and fresh air down into the bowels of the stations, which cost $8 to $15 million each. Recognizing that transit travel can be brutal, especially during the cold and dark of winter, Alsop wants to improve the experience.

"Is it possible to be a bold and beautiful subway station?" asks Alsop. "I think it is."

Certainly, if any architect could pull it off, he'd be the one. Known as a visionary, if a slightly hallucinatory one, Alsop has the rare ability to build icons that don't forget their purposes. OCAD is a perfect example; what might appear to be just an outlandish building-on-stilts solved a number of practical issues of school closure, adequate classroom space and landscaping.

"It'll have a lot to do with light," he explains. "These stations occupy a large volume and we don't want to fill them up with unnecessary stuff. If we get it right, you'll be quite happy to sit on a bench and wait for a train."

Alsop has worked on the London Underground, as has Foster, whose firm designed the enormous stop at Canary Wharf. He also did the subway stations in Bilbao, Spain, and their shell-like entrances, known locally as "Fosterinos."

"Slowly, a transformation is happening at the TTC," says commission chair Adam Giambrone. "The RFP (request for proposals) was sent out in a way that would attract architects from around the globe. The decision was informed by a renewed sense of the importance of the civic realm. We have to live with these buildings in our neighbourhoods. Design matters. You need to provide more than a concrete box."

That may not sound like the TTC talking, but don't forget that Yorkdale Station was designed by Canada's most acclaimed architect, Arthur Erickson, and that a number of the country's best-known artists have contributed works.

In other words, there are precedents. Even the ill-fated Sheppard Line incorporates artworks into the very structure of the stations.

Best of all, Giambrone insists, the federal and provincial cheques for the extension, $698 million and $1.1 billion respectively, have cleared. Add to that $400 million from York Region and $600 million from Toronto.

"We actually have the money in the bank," Giambrone says. "The project has already begun."

But, he points out, "I've learned that you have to watch these things to make sure you don't get cut back at the last minute."

It remains questionable why these stations – all free-standing structures – won't be incorporated into larger buildings, office or residential towers, as are many here and abroad. Much has been said about urban intensification, getting people out of cars and into public transit. Thus the need for a seamless infrastructure that begins where the front door ends.

Because most stations include bus bays, they will have bigger footprints; yet even these could be fitted into or under larger developments. Sooner or later, this will happen. The train has already left the station.

Source
 
The whole issue with York U makes me want to pull my hair out. The hundreds of buses passing through the York Campus is not a coincidence... it's because people want to get to York U! York is the the hub of GO services on the 407 West, 407 East, and up to Newmarket. The majority of the service is cut when school is not in session... clearly it's York students (and staff) using these services.

It's ridiculous that York's plan (endorsed by the City) is to force thousands of passengers to take unnecessary one or two stop subway trips. Any money spent on bus-only roadways on the York campus and maybe even a York Mills-style underground bus terminal at York would be money well spent and would actually assure reduced travel times. Right now, the planned form of the Spadina extension will mean increased travel times (and perhaps a second fare) for thousands of travellers each day.
 
I don't see a huge problem with GO buses forcing the transfer from the 407 station, because I think the long-term plan is that the 407 service will be a through trans-905 bus service, rather than a York U service specifically. The congestion in the afternoon around Keele and Steeles might make the dedicated transfer point + quick subway ride almost as fast for York students, but asking for a double fare is a big worry. Also, YRT transfers should certainly allow a one-fare ride to York U.

Routes that naturally go to or though York U must continue to do so - especially the 106 and 41, but possibly at least a branch of the Keele North bus, YRT 3, and TTC 60. It would cut down the number of buses by at least 80% with GO, Viva, and 196 gone, but the local TTC and YRT routes still need to serve it, at least making a quick run on a segment of Ian Macdonald on the way to Steeles North Station or Promenade Mall.
 
They should have the GO 407 transitway veer out of the hydro corridor, loop through the York Campus, and back up to the hydro corridor again. Not all buses need go to York, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that it is a MAJOR destination. Probably in the top 5 of single-point destinations in the GTA.

Anything else seems like a Sportsworld-type solution.
 
The whole issue with York U makes me want to pull my hair out. The hundreds of buses passing through the York Campus is not a coincidence... it's because people want to get to York U!.... Right now, the planned form of the Spadina extension will mean increased travel times (and perhaps a second fare) for thousands of travellers each day.

Yeah, transportation planning in this city seems to be about drawing arbitrary lines more than taking people directly to, say, trip generators. We will be the "transfer city".
 
Transfer City: Subway Edition

CDL: I see the rationale of forcing the transfer from GO, at least, but not TTC services already running in the area, if only because it would be efficient, but I agree that a mini-Port Authority type bus terminal with elaborate bus ramps would be a great solution, with TTC fare-paid on one level, GO and YRT on another level, either underground, with elaborate ramps, or even elevated as part of another York parking garage around here.
 
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Subway station architects intend to cheer you up

Ah, this is just getting ridiculous.

So the TTC and City Hall continue to scream that they don't have the money to build various projects, and when they do they must spend the maximum amount possible to make the subway as fancy as the Louvre.

I'd much prefer more subway stations that all look like Soviet-style architectural crimes than a measly few stations that look like the Taj Mahal.
 
you know what would be cool? a subway station designed to look like a cave.

they can use shotcrete:

Shotcrete-Robot.png



probably wouldn't cost much either.
 
^^^

You probably picked a poor example with "soviet style" subway stations...
Mayakovskaya.jpg


EDIT: Hmm... It would seem RR191 beat me to it... Just to add something more useful, it isn't so much the architectural niceness of a station, but the overall scale. I have nothing against hiring architects, just so long as we don't get some grossly overbuilt station with 39 busbays to serve, maybe, 10k people.
 
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Well that's a bit overdone for low-key Toronto, and I would suspect that even the socialists aren't building in that style any longer. But why don't we look to Montreal? They have great subway architecture there, which makes it actually a joy to spend a bit of time in most of their subway stations.

And I can't believe that good design adds that much to the cost, particularly when we are speaking of a place where literally thousands will pass through every day, for decades into the future.
 

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