If that 2006 incident resulted in the elimination of all escalators at Union it looks like the typical Toronto/Ontario over-reaction (often with a less than satisfactory replacement). The Yonge Street van attack resulted in Jersey barriers @ Union; MAYBE acceptable as a temporary solution but not one that should still be there. MANY places seem to manage to combine escalators and crowds (New York and London UK anyone?); the old Union escalators may have been too small, too few or too old; but after 16 years I think proper replacements could be found!

Though honestly they need to figure out exactly what the platform arrangement will be before installing escalators - can you imagine them doing it the way they have messed with the station the past 2 decades? That would be putting the cart before the horse.

The reason they were eliminated was because of an accident in the station during rush hour.

Too many trains let out at once leading to a pileup at the bottom of an escalator due to overcrowding.

There was one that remained on Platform 25 but only went up and not down.

Geez trains and bus accidents happens - so let's not run trains and buses at all! That seem to be the default mentality of some organizations - less about serving the public and more about minimizing liability.

AoD
 
Last edited:
Though honestly they need to figure out exactly what the platform arrangement will be before installing escalators - can you imagine them doing it the way they have messed with the station the past 2 decades? That would be putting the cart before the horse.



Geez trains and bus accidents happens - so let's not run trains and buses at all! That seem to be the default mentality of some organizations - less about serving the public and more about minimizing liability.

AoD
then again the platforms currently are very narrow. if anything a widened platform and a few banks of escalators can do the trick... but typical toronto overreaction and redtape...
 
The reason they were eliminated was because of an accident in the station during rush hour.

Too many trains let out at once leading to a pileup at the bottom of an escalator due to overcrowding.

There was one that remained on Platform 25 but only went up and not down.
This incident didn't help, but GO had already started removing escalators throughout the system as a cost-avoidance maneuver. They claimed that escalators were hard to maintain in the winters due to the salt being tracked onto them by their customers.

So to say that this incident was the one singular cause is incorrect.

Dan
 
I really hope that, at least during rush hour, they make those staircases unidirectional. They're super narrow as it is, and trying to fight through a crowd to get up to the platform while people are going down makes you feel like a salmon swimming upstream through rapids.
 
I really hope that, at least during rush hour, they make those staircases unidirectional. They're super narrow as it is, and trying to fight through a crowd to get up to the platform while people are going down makes you feel like a salmon swimming upstream through rapids.
Unless they have a way of enforcing it, I doubt it'd work. How many people would use the "down" stairs to go to the train during rush hour? I've noticed the TTC have those markings on the ground for the direction of the fare gates, I've never seen anyone follow that except at some stations where the gates can only be opened from the appropriate side.
 
Unless they have a way of enforcing it, I doubt it'd work. How many people would use the "down" stairs to go to the train during rush hour? I've noticed the TTC have those markings on the ground for the direction of the fare gates, I've never seen anyone follow that except at some stations where the gates can only be opened from the appropriate side.

Exactly right - they couldn't even enforce letting passengers off the train first before boarding.

then again the platforms currently are very narrow. if anything a widened platform and a few banks of escalators can do the trick... but typical toronto overreaction and redtape...

Which is why I said - they need to figure out exactly what the future plans for the platform situation will be (merging them, etc) before installing anything that will require structural modifications and can't easily be moved. The issue here is that they took 2 decades to come to a "sort of" conclusion that they will need to have wider platforms - in the meantime the concourse work had to go ahead. It would have been so much more logical to decide on the former first (and quickly) before the second, but it is Toronto/Ontario...

AoD
 
Walked through Union Station the other day and hadn't read this thread in a while. I can't believe that there is a Dental Office in the primary mall area. I could understand it on the second floor or above, but massive walk-past traffic for a dental office... that is a bad sign for how the leasing is going. That seems like a low traffic shopping plaza tenant. I'm wondering if the fresh market will be brought to us by "no frills".
 
People seem to like dental offices in the PATH, there are many; while I agree it seems an expensive location for one this is clearly not the view of those of lease them (or use them).
 
Walked through Union Station the other day and hadn't read this thread in a while. I can't believe that there is a Dental Office in the primary mall area. I could understand it on the second floor or above, but massive walk-past traffic for a dental office... that is a bad sign for how the leasing is going. That seems like a low traffic shopping plaza tenant. I'm wondering if the fresh market will be brought to us by "no frills".
No frills is owned by loblaws, it would be brought to us by loblaws
 
The fresh market to my understanding won’t be one singular location, but rather a bunch of smaller independently owned places put together, like the foodie isle but larger in both restaurants and grocery.
 
The fresh market to my understanding won’t be one singular location, but rather a bunch of smaller independently owned places put together, like the foodie isle but larger in both restaurants and grocery.

The intention was to have a number of curated places mixing 'grocery' with food to go in the grocery style. (meal kits, pre-packed salads etc.)

Can't say much more on that for the moment.
 

Back
Top