telefann said:
It's easy enough to put forth the proposition of "if only we invited the likes of Zaha Hadid" on paper, but at a more fundamental level, we need to ask ourselves: is this a city and country that (still) believes enough in itself and the future to exercise such daring?
Toronto, Canada, North America, and the broader West are in a state of decline and malaise that isn't simply a matter of economics or politics, but rather something deeper: a crisis of civilizational morale and self-confidence.
Say what you want about China, Southeast Asia, or the Arab Gulf States, but those are civilizations that (for both better and worse) believe very much in themselves and the future in 2025.
There's a reason that we built Union Station 1.0 in the 1920s and the world's (then-)tallest structure in the 1970s, but can't exercise an analogous level of transcendental transformative ambition in the 2010s-2020s. We've simply become too comfortable.
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East Harbour ending up with such a genuinely, dogshit design is probably more so Metrolinx and the province being too cheap to invest in interesting and useful architecture, ESPECIALLY for public transit.

Your statement about the west being in decline screams very concerning hard right, populist rhetoric. Canada and the west as a whole isn't going to go down anytime soon to anything dawg. Though I will agree we aren't being ambitious enough for this project. At least we've got the Highway 407 station in Vaughan which looks really good, inside and out.

China isn't the most democratic of countries, neither are the gulf states. Very nationalistic, not to mention they both have a very large tourism industry which would allow for vast amounts of public support for very expensive, super cool looking buildings and landmarks. I'd argue Canada isn't a very popular country for sightseeing, we don't really like showing off in the same way the others do.
 
UT69420J said:
Your statement about the west being in decline screams very concerning hard right, populist rhetoric. Canada and the west as a whole isn't going to go down anytime soon to anything dawg.
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The West being in decline isn't populist rhetoric and more-so an observation of late-stage capitalism at work, where we penny-pinch and value-engineer everything until it's barely recognizable and hardly serves its purpose. The West being in decline doesn't imply that it's losing to anything, simply that it's declining on its own. Having there be a winner and a loser is very American-centric thinking.
UT69420J said:
At least we've got the Highway 407 station in Vaughan which looks really good, inside and out.
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Highways were cool to build in the 1950s and stations within or around highways aren't servicing anything. Like @telefann pointed out, there's a good reason why we haven't built anything of any real substance in nearly 50 years. We no longer have the ambition to do so.
UT69420J said:
China isn't the most democratic of countries, neither are the gulf states. Very nationalistic, not to mention they both have a very large tourism industry which would allow for vast amounts of public support for very expensive, super cool looking buildings and landmarks.
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This isn't what they were saying whatsoever. What they were speaking to was a nationalist ideal to build a broader, better place for their people. Tangibly improving public services to make their countries better. We don't really do that any more, and haven't for a few generations. China doesn't build gigantic high-speed railway stations to show off to international tourists - they're not thinking about anyone outside of China. It's all to service their population and make their lives easier and better. When was the last time we had a tangible improvement in our lives here? Chow has to work her ass off to make sure our garbage bins are emptied more than once a week.
 
I think we better start waving our flag and bragging more about our accomplishments in Canada.
NOBODY else is going to do that on our behalf! NOBODY but us.
 
Mihairokov said:
The West being in decline isn't populist rhetoric and more-so an observation of late-stage capitalism at work, where we penny-pinch and value-engineer everything until it's barely recognizable and hardly serves its purpose. The West being in decline doesn't imply that it's losing to anything, simply that it's declining on its own. Having there be a winner and a loser is very American-centric thinking.

Highways were cool to build in the 1950s and stations within or around highways aren't servicing anything. Like @telefann pointed out, there's a good reason why we haven't built anything of any real substance in nearly 50 years. We no longer have the ambition to do so.

This isn't what they were saying whatsoever. What they were speaking to was a nationalist ideal to build a broader, better place for their people. Tangibly improving public services to make their countries better. We don't really do that any more, and haven't for a few generations. China doesn't build gigantic high-speed railway stations to show off to international tourists - they're not thinking about anyone outside of China. It's all to service their population and make their lives easier and better. When was the last time we had a tangible improvement in our lives here? Chow has to work her ass off to make sure our garbage bins are emptied more than once a week.
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Though to be fair the lack of concern for aesthetics isn't necessarily symptomatic of decline (case in point - the original Yonge line - which was built at a time when the city and country is on the cusp of expansion). Also the cost of building has increased beyond simple inflation - and not all of it is necessarily justifiable.

Part of the problem is also that we are selection on where and how to spend on the basis of politics.

AoD
 
Back to the topic at hand. I walk by this project occasionally and it is a big project with big overall effects for Toronto and beyond.
Yes the station design could be more stylish I agree.
 
UT69420J said:
Your statement about the west being in decline screams very concerning hard right, populist rhetoric. Canada and the west as a whole isn't going to go down anytime soon
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Ah...here we are in 2025, well past the heyday of the "woke" zeitgeist, and we're still marginalizing brutally honest observations about a civilization's trajectory as "far right"?

We live in an era where we need to start realizing that virtue-signalling about how "democratic" we are and how "authoritarian" others are does us no favours. It's manifestly clear that whatever the modality of our governance, the Anglosphere has been failing miserably at progress over the past few decades.

It's about civilizational morale and self-belief, folks. Not one-party regimes, elections, recessions, dollars or cents. Here's a simple thought experiment: if I asked the Torontonian or Canadian establishment in 2025 to (hypothetically) build today's equivalent of a transcontinental railroad in the form of coast-to-coast HSR or today's equivalent of the CN Tower that's a state-of-the-art structure one kilometre high which will once again put us on the map as home to the world's tallest structure, would they entertain such aspirations?

The point isn't necessarily that we should be chasing wild visions primarily out of egotism. But if you compare our esprit du temps with that of the East (in nations and states "authoritarian" and "democratic" alike!), it should be plainly obvious that our time in the sun has passed, at least for the time being.

Cracked asphalt, overhead electrical, sodium vapour cobra-head lights, rusted lamp poles, and weed-infested concrete from the 1970s, anyone? This place looks positively post-Soviet coming back from Doha or Singapore.
 
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There is definitely an architecture/infrastructure decline but I don't like framing it as a product of our culture.

It's a lack of money that is to blame, and for that I blame three culprits:
  • neoliberal taxation policies leading to reduced government revenue
  • increased costs related to automobile dependance
  • increased infrastructure costs (which has a variety of sub-causes)
 
telefann said:
Ah...here we are in 2025, well past the heyday of the "woke" zeitgeist, and we're still marginalizing brutally honest observations about a civilization's trajectory as "far right"?

We live in an era where we need to start realizing that virtue-signalling about how "democratic" we are and how "authoritarian" others are does us no favours. It's manifestly clear that whatever the modality of our governance, the Anglosphere has been failing miserably at progress over the past few decades.

It's about civilizational morale and self-belief, folks. Not one-party regimes, elections, recessions, dollars or cents. Here's a simple thought experiment: if I asked the Torontonian or Canadian establishment in 2025 to (hypothetically) build today's equivalent of a transcontinental railroad in the form of coast-to-coast HSR or today's equivalent of the CN Tower that's a state-of-the-art structure one kilometre high which will once again put us on the map as home to the world's tallest structure, would they entertain such aspirations?

The point isn't necessarily that we should be chasing wild visions primarily out of egotism. But if you compare our esprit du temps with that of the East (in nations and states "authoritarian" and "democratic" alike!), it should be plainly obvious that our time in the sun has passed, at least for the time being.

Cracked asphalt, overhead electrical, sodium vapour cobra-head lights, rusted lamp poles, and weed-infested concrete from the 1970s, anyone? This place looks positively post-Soviet coming back from Doha or Singapore.
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The more people are divided, the richer and more powerful the elite get while accomplishing nothing. Canadians keep saying how great they are but we don't have much to show for it to the outside world.
 
Any further posts in this thread that include political jargon will be deleted. If you want to debate politics as it relates to the shape of stations generally, start a thread in our Politics Forum. Please keep the posts in this thread restricted to this particular station.

Remember, when those first images for this station were presented, developer First Gulf was expecting to attract business clients to over 10M sq ft of planned new office towers and a major new shopping district, so they were blue-skying everything in a way that made the area look like it was going to be Toronto's Canary Wharf.​
​
At some point though, First Gulf saw that the dream wasn't coming here, and they sold their landholdings here to Cadillac Fairview. It's been a different time since then, with little demand for office space now, and CadFair pushed the City to allow some residential here (which the City was absolutely adamant was never going to happen during the initial planning stages), and the City relented.​
​
As of the press conference, Kinga Surma said that they are now negotiating a higher percentage of residential here than currently allowed, so who knows where all of that is going, but...​
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...Cadillac Fairview's plans have never been as ambitious as First Gulf's were, and residential leaves very little money for the largesse that everyone wants to see spent on this station. Those first fantasy renderings were quite beguiling, but if this area just becomes another residential zone then that grand a station would be out of place, even if there were a way to pay for it.​
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The Ontario Government (not to defend them too much) is already spending enormous amounts on new transit lines, and are splashing out at least at Exhibition Station, even if the other stations are underwhelming. Too bad this one looks to be *this underwhelming.* I agree that the member who posted that they should stop calling this Union Station East in the meantime; that would only ever happen if the area did end up being built as Toronto's Canary Wharf, and that is just not happening.​

So, that's how to stay on topic here. Cheers!

42
 
...at the end of the day as the member who posted that they should stop calling it Union Station East, I still think we should rise above the "whatever" thinking and demand much better here. Or a least tell 'Linx and Doug to stop making this more than the sum of its current parts..unless they're willing to put the money where their mouth parts are, IMO.
 
^^^ Speaking strictly of this station............it is certainly possible within the allotted budget to do better in respect of appearance than what is currently promised. That's not an unreasonable ask in my mind.

I also don't think it's unreasonable to contemplate (not that this will change now), full canopy coverage of the platforms. That's not something inherently blue-sky, or grandiose, it can be done well as a reasonable cost. But it won't be, here.
 
Northern Light said:
^^^ Speaking strictly of this station............it is certainly possible within the allotted budget to do better in respect of appearance than what is currently promised. That's not an unreasonable ask in my mind.

I also don't think it's unreasonable to contemplate (not that this will change now), full canopy coverage of the platforms. That's not something inherently blue-sky, or grandiose, it can be done well as a reasonable cost. But it won't be, here.
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Though the saving grace - if it can be called that - is that ridership of the GO portion of the line will likely be low when it opens (the OL station is covered) such that the lack of a canopy wouldn't have mattered much (and the shift away from a high frequency back to a standard GO model meant that it will operate with the station serving as the waiting room).

AoD
 
Northern Light said:
^^^ Speaking strictly of this station............it is certainly possible within the allotted budget to do better in respect of appearance than what is currently promised. That's not an unreasonable ask in my mind.

I also don't think its unreasonable to contemplate (not that this will change now), full canopy coverage of the platforms. That's not something inherently blue-sky, or grandiose, it can be done well as a reasonable cost. But it won't be, here.
Click to expand...
The fact that a canopy is absent, in a city with cold winters and lots of snow, is still ridiculous. It might not provide a warm space, but at least it'll keep the snow off the platforms and tracks. Hopefully they'll add it back since those renders are subject to change.
 
UT69420J said:
The fact that a canopy is absent, in a city with cold winters and lots of snow, is still ridiculous. It might not provide a warm space, but at least it'll keep the snow off the platforms and tracks. Hopefully they'll add it back since those renders are subject to change.
Click to expand...

To be perfectly honest canopies are borderline useless in Canadian winter in terms of providing warm spaces; you really need an enclosure. Also GO station canopies doesn't cover tracks in general (plus they needed to be open to allow for venting of exhaust fumes).

AoD
 
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