The Station Toronto Needs
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2023
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Few transit projects offer as many benefits at a cost as reasonable as a second downtown rail station for Toronto, which is why in today's video I make the ultimate case for Cityplace Station at Front and Spadina. Check it out and share it!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
If you enjoy this video and think this is a project, we should build here are some steps you can take to help.
1) share this with your local politicians city counsellors and MPPS
2) share the video! The more people that see it the more people that send it on!
ever seen the Antwerp central station ?
it has multiple layers of departure stations underneath.
Surely there’s a way to get this in front of Phil
Love that you addressed the need to "protect for the future" and I understand the prioritization of the Lakeshore, Kitchener, and Barrie lines as they are currently in the process of being upgraded.
BUT the Milton line will be upgraded to 2-way all-day (2WAD) at some point and it would be a huge miss to not future proof the station for the inclusion of that service - heck service could even begin without 2WAD as many of your arguments still apply even if the line currently only runs 1-way during rush hour.
While I fully agree with you about this new station, all that density is somewhat misleading, as most skyscraper condos are left unoccupied because they are owned by greedy investors who only use them as investment items, not housing.
BRFORE this all Dies.. TRY ANOTHER responce Video!
As a Norwegian, I approve the use of "a Norway" as a measuring unit of number of people. 😁
I think that we should call Reece's proposed station "Little Norway"... because there is a park not too far from there actually called that.
@@davidreichert9392 that’s neat, I am actually down there right now so will check out this park
@@japanesetrainandtravel6168 Enjoy! There should be a plaque or something in the area explaining the history of it.
I’m happy to hear it 😂
@@davidreichert9392 After the Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940, this became a training base for the Royal Norwegian Air Force. After the war, it was converted to a park. The King of Norway came to the official park opening, and gave thanks to Canadians for our contribution to winning the war and liberating his country.
You must have put so much work in this video, it's excellent. And this is very much the station Toronto needs.
Thank you it was months of work! But I care which is why I spent the time!
I’ve been saying this for decades: the city needs to buy 2/4 TBMs and have a goal of building 2-4 stations every few years. Over a decade or two you’d get a solid rapid transit network that is properly interconnected. The fact that the well exists where it does now is a slap in the face
and an addiction to filling up every pocket of development with a station lol
@@sanjarsocool based
@@sanjarsocool that should be the goal, and would reduce car dependency which is desparately needed in canada.
amazing as always, which local politician should I call to make this happen
Probably Caroline Mulroney, Ontario Minister of Transportation
@@BrandonSchleifer we should send them emails. 🤷🏾♂️ Better then nothing
All of them! Especially Councillor Malik as this is her ward, also your MPP!
Mayoral elections start today
Gong.
I've worked at Union Station, and this vision is exactly what would help.
I agrée! 😂
"Skydome"
I felt that.
"A SkyDome" ah yes, my favorite part of Toronto when that building was called the SkyDome was when Meilin Lee's mom wreaked havoc on the area during a 4*Town concert and absolutely destroyed the whole place because her daughter was attending said concert. But hey, glad to see it's back to normal after they raised a charity in the Lee Family's Temple to accumulate enough money to rebuild it!
Billy Bishop is definitely a solid and unique airport. Don't have to take an express train to Union or a pricey taxi from Pearson because you're already in downtown, you get to the airport by either tunnel or one of the shortest ferries ever, the views are wonderful, it's named after a beast of a Canadian flying ace from WWI who had 72 victories, and it's ranked one of the best in North America!
The thing with the overcrowding at TTC stations, Union, etc. I never see discussed by politicians or anyone is what happens when there is a fire or shooting causing a mass panic? There will be a stampede into small staircases; it's a tinderbox that needs a single spark.
Thank you Reece for an extremely well-presented and argued video. Just one footnote from a Brit brought up 55 kilometres north of London. The THAMESLINK north-south line across London is just as important as the east-west Crossrail/Elizabeth. Note, too, that both lines have no less than FIVE city centre stations.
also, london has 14 terminus stations for full size trains
@@KingFinnch That, however, is not something you want to emulate.
Yep! Tons of coverage of the urban core! Thanks for watching!
@@KaiHenningsenwith a city as large as London, it kind of becomes necessary to have multiple. 14 is too much, but like 5 should be enough. Because you don't want that many people on only few stations
@@jan-lukas Tons of city center mainline tail stations isn't a bad thing if they're all connected, like an S-Bahn or on the Yamanote Line
As an Aldershot to Union rider that exits union and walks west i highly approve of this message!
You could easily build a deck over those tracks as well, and sell some of the air rights above tracks for new towers. In that way, the project has paid for itself. If you deck over the area, you could create a new public square (like Federation sq in Melbourne) to better activate the area.
There was a lot of noise about creating a rail deck park not long ago, but that seems to have died off in the public consciousness.
The air rights are already sold and a developer will build around 10 towers there
@@rantingrodent416 air rights were already sold and the approval process for 10 towers there is well on its way
@@TheTroyc1982 could definitely approve more density with a big Station though!
@@TheTroyc1982 Do you have a link for that please?
You should run for office. Great idea! I hope those in power pay attention to your smart ideas.
Toronto council has very little say on transit projects in the city and no say for GO projects. All these decisions are made by the province
I’m not sure office is for me, but I’m always open to sharing ideas!
Reece for governor general of Canada!
Just recently visited Toronto for the first time in many years and was surprised by how overwhelming Union was and also how much construction is happening all across the city. Toronto is truly BOOMING. I didn’t really remember from my past experiences just how massive that gash created by the rail lines is in downtown, severing the city from the waterfront. I know it wouldn’t be cheap, but I do think filling in the area above the tracks would make downtown feel a lot more connected to the lake & pleasant overall. Especially if that “filling in” includes more public gathering spaces and a new secondary station.
Things I do love about the TTC include the ultra wide cars & platforms (I’m used to the claustrophobic Chicago CTA). Also, Toronto gave me serious street car envy. They are so much more pleasant than riding busses, especially on busy routes, but I totally see your point about how some of them could be justifiably replaced by a full metro line. They’re a bit slow so I could only see seriously riding them for for the last km or two of a journey to connect with the heavier rail.
Eloquent, well-thought-out videos like this are what actually promotes change. Will do my part to advocate!
Thank you so much for the kind words!
If only there was another dense North American city with a through-running rail system with multiple major downtown stations, also with fare gates and EMUs 🤔🤔🤔
Either way I hope that Toronto gets this built
Is it Philadelphia?
Naw, it's Detroit.
Often great ideas are simple, but somehow nobody in charge has come up with that before.
Worse is when the idea is known, but still no movement to implement it.
I agrée, it’s quite disheartening
This is really makes so much sense, I hope people in charge are watching.
I like how you called it the “SkyDome”! ❤
I'm surprised this didn't come up in your video on Hamburg because the situation at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is really similar. With 550,000 passengers a day, it's the second-busiest train station in Europe and it isn't built for it. Since 2010, the German national rail company DB classifies it as an overencumbered railway section. Trains have as little as 4 minutes of stopping time, leading to terrible cascading delays if they start missing their time windows.
I did mention how it’s extreme centrality was odd
I think a station there would be really great, but I am strongly against any kind of development above train tracks. It makes reconfiguring the tracks or changing/expanding the station so much more difficult. You may think 'just build the station right the first time, so you won't have to rebuild anything later', but you never know what the future will bring, and you always need to remember that planners that designed our current infrastructure probably thought it their plans would be how to build it right.
Unfortunately the towers and development are already happening
I was just about to bring up NYC as an example of a place with more than one termini! In addition to operating at Penn Station and Grand Central Madison, the LIRR also has service at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. Service to/from Atlantic Terminal is mostly a shuttle between it and Jamaica as the result of Grand Central Madison and of course it's not in Manhattan, but it still serves an important area: Downtown Brooklyn and its proximity to Lower Manhattan. Thus, the Atlantic Branch serves not just Brooklynites but also those who work in the Financial District. Not to mention, on top of all the subway services that stop there, Atlantic Terminal is also next door to the Barclays Center so it's useful for events at the arena as well!
And while not a terminus, there's also Jamaica station in Queens, with "Change at Jamaica" a quintessential part of living on Long Island. Exhibition's design reminds me a little bit of Jamaica, and I think that design would indeed look great for a CityPlace station! Toronto has an opportunity to make things a whole lot easier for people going into Downtown Toronto, and Spadina-Front station...is not it.
Love your videos and your analysis of transit in Toronto. I really hope you are lobbying Metrolinx and sharing your videos with our policy makers. What you propose makes TOO much sense. This needs to be shared with the politicians and decision makers!
You should share it too!
That broken voice of “sucks” in 8:25 says a lot about just how bad it could be without actually looking at the ensuing inages
TOTALLY agree with your vision/idea. Toronto needs it's own Clapham Junction / Vauxhall / Stratford. I don't love oversite developments, as I think they may stations dark and depressing and make it difficult to move stuff around underneath once you've built them, BUT, if that's the only way to get a station built, then I'm all for it, because a station with oversite development in an area like that is better than no station at all.
I love your insistence on saying “Skydome” instead of “rogers centre” 😂 True Torontonian spirit
We need this so badly!
This project really should be a nobrainer! Heck several more GO stations in the downtown area should be no brainers like Bathurst too! Heck in Copenhagen we have 4 stations right in the heart of the city for our S train network, 3 of which also serve regional trains from further out. We have Copenhagen Central at the southern end which opened in 1911, Østerport at the northern end which opened in 1897 as the terminus of a railway to the north, Nørreport which is fully underground and opened in 1918 along with the Boulevard Tunnel, a large Cut n Cover tunnel with 4 tracks through the city. Between 2002 and 2020, Nørreport was even more heavily used than Copenhagen Central, and finally Vesterport just a few hundred meters north of Copenhagen Central, built in 1934 exclusively for the S trains upon the opening of that system.
As a daily GO commuter I completely agree!! Another station like union should’ve been built years ago! Toronto is a massive city.
This proposition makes me think of Paris' Bibliothèque François Mitterand station (M14 & RER C) which is located on the tracks heading in/out of Austerlitz mainline (and suburban) train station in the 13th district.
After the RER and metro station was built, they covered and built up a large portion of the tracks with new mixed-use and high density buildings.
The rail tracks / yards area covered and built up is now a little over a kilometer long.
That created / completed a whole new and booming neighborhood. The tracks' "beam" continues to be covered & developed and will probably be almost entirely covered in the near future, only leaving the very last bit closest to the mainline station as open-air.
So, I think your idea is great and should be followed by a project the sooner the better !
Let's root for CityPlace station !
13:06 Finally! I’d love an update on the Dundas West/Bloor connection! As someone who missed the train to the airport last week due to me needing to run the full length of the subway platform westward and then navigate that distance back eastward, any update would be appreciated! Funny, while I waited for the next train, I started Googling info about this connection, and the only thing I could find beyond the Wikipedia page was your channel’s video from the pre-COVID days.
The bidding for the contract to build the tunnel closed 2 months ago. Construction should be starting shortly.
@@veonnisual it’s really exciting!
As a non Canadian this is basic in many places, but adding ine station is only a temporary solution as a long term solution should be a RER/S-bahn type thing - making Union Station a pass-through station, and add a few stations along the main corridor (I wouldn't dream suggesting a new tunnel going through the city itself) with meaningful connections to other transport means.
I can vouch for this. Visited Berlin this summer, took the train from the airport to my hotel in the city center. My stop was one station before the Central station. This was awesome, because I could walk to my hotel from my stop, and at the same time I didn't have to ride further to the central station, thus avoiding being stuck in a crowd in Europe's largest train station...
Whenever I take the Lakeshore GO from my parent's place, I get off on at Danforth and hop on the subway to skip the union busyness. More stations to give more options like that would do wonders for commuter rail in the city.
yep i do the same often on the kitchener line but at bloor go (dundas west)
Your research always astounds me! You make a good case here.
the Go platforms at Union can get very scary at rush hours they are so narrow and over crowded, you have to stand back and wait for people to clear to get to the concourse below otherwise you risk getting pushed onto the tracks, there is a huge need for 2 more relief stations for downtown Toronto near Union. With all of the development happening it's going to get very inadequate very quickly in the coming years. They should also ban cars in that area and give transit priority.
Awesome proposal! You’ve laid out the policy and customer experience case quite well. Would love to see Metrolinx respond with some technical analysis.
Interesting. You might want to get maps of housing/job density plus projected density for downtown to supplement your proposal
"It's the station Toronto needs, but not what Toronto deserves." -Batman probably
I appreciate sooooo much that you call the Skydome by it's proper name. 😊
It looks like East Harbor is getting ahead of the NIMBY problem. Maybe new station coordination should be a requirement before major housing and business developments are constructed.
Very persuasive. One comment in particular struck a chord with this Montrealer: protect it before somebody builds something else in the way. You brought my mind to the Centre Bell, stupidly built where train tracks used to be, and now separating three commuter lines from the beautifully historic Gare Windsor. So sometimes, we already have amazing infrastructure and we STILL manage to make a mess of it! Sigh...
Man, I live in CityPlace and the fact that the Well didn’t have transit in mind really is the epitome of Toronto.
Great video. I was just up to Toronto last week for a charity bike ride. I took the go train from oshawa and got off at exhibition. Union would have been more convenient, but I just didn't want the hassle
Indeed, more options would be great
How about calling the station Canoe Landing, since it's close enough to Canoe Landing Park. The GO tracks run where Toronto's shoreline used to be. That's my suggestion.
Very good proposal!
9:00 I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto and commuted to Downtown everyday for work for a very long time. And I can tell you that every single day I got a little lost in Union Station, it really is that bad.
You are 100% correct on this
I love these videos, I will do my best to get the attention of politicians by sending them this video.
Thanks for your support 😊
I've never been so aware of a problem and so uncertain about the solution. This video is great! I often travel Hamilton to Toronto and then do a myriad of things... while some of them would be easier if I didn't have to come into Toronto at all, most of them would benefit from the option to get off at Spadina. Amazing.... now if only that was the plan.
This highlights a flaw with hub and spoke from a center. When I visited Paris, the metro seemed relatively centerless, with each line making a big arc, interesting each other line two places, so that one could get everywhere to anywhere else with, typically, one change. This worked well. Hub and spoke systems seemed congested, and they limited frequency due to the constrictions of a central station.
To enable frequent services through Union, we need much wider platforms, and therefore fewer platforms. To fit the number of trains within the limited number of platforms, it is critical that trains have much shorter dwells than they do today. Which means that we need to drastically reduce the number of boardings/alightings per train.
Exhibition and East Harbour will help somewhat once the Ontario line opens, but they might not divert enough ridership on their own, and a larger Cityplace station would complement them nicely.
Some of your best work Reece!! 😍 👏 🙌
I think this is a brilliant idea and it should definitely be built
Excellent video! That proposed station reminds me of Zurich‘s secondary station „Oerlikon“.
This is great and you are absolutely right
This is possibly my favourite video you have ever made! 🎉 Great insights, common sense, blunt commentary, and great solutions suggested! Keep up the great work Reece.
Fantastic video as always
Lost in the discussion of why Boston has 2 rail terminii, North and South Stations, that aren't directly connected to each other is that the city does have a 3rd major rail station.
Many of the same trains that serve South Station, including the Acela (!), also call on Back Bay Station, which connects with the Orange Line subway that also serves North Station. The Back Bay area has developed into Boston's 2nd CBD with offices, shops and residential areas around what amounts to the city's only attempt at an orderly street grid, laid out when the neighborhood was first conceived from filling in what in colonial times was literally a bay, part of the tidal estuary where the Muddy River joined the Charles.
With HS2, they chose stations for London that largely to different transport lines. If you are going to have a "secondary station", this is the best way of doing things, as it can help to spread things out.
This is the station that’s needed in the city!
Extremely well done and researched.
i’m genuinely surprised Toronto does not have a a “City Circle” or “City Loop”
great video! so well done. here's hoping the city will one day take great suggestions like this into consideration!
Great video as always!
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the planned Durham BRT through Pickering and Whitby. I don't think you've made a video on it and it would be the first addition of "rapid" transit to a large part of Durham region.
another great idea Reece!
Anyone who says that Toronto isn’t big enough for a second downtown commuter rail station should look at Chicago. Comparable sized city, three downtown commuter rail stations.
Chicago has LaSalle St, Union, Ogilvie and Millenium. All serve Metra lines terminating there.
@@eriklakeland3857I forgot about LaSalle, even! 4 stations!
@@peterc2254yep! I used to make the transfer from Ogilvie to Union every day for 5 years.
Chicago Union is the main, and the only one with potential for through routing, something that should have been done when it underwent a massive renovation back in 1969 (nice).
Especially given that there's no direct connectivity to the 'L' from there, and that all but one Amtrak routes pass in close proximity to 'L' stations on their way into the Loop.
(And the lone Amtrak exception did pass close to the 'L' until about 30 years ago, a segment that was torn down due to the complaints of a NIMBY megachurch)
Sounds awesome! 😎👍
One of the huge misses during the reconstruction of Union was having the subway and the most dense railway lines (in terms of people-carrying volume) arrive at the same level so that it’s possible to walk straight from trains onto subway or vice versa. It’s a disaster right now navigating through Union to get from one to the other. Given the billions and years that were spent, it’s nuts that this didn’t happen.
The other station that Toronto has needed for decades (like since the 80s and 90s) is a station *right at* the 401. Quick off ramp from the highway to drop off a passenger who needs to take transit and then the driver can resume the highway travel while allowing a passenger to jump on public transportation would allow a lot of flexibility for carpooling as well as people being given a lift to visit the downtown area, or even people flying out of Billy Bishop. Integrating and making easier interchanges between public and private transit makes public transit a more attractive and accessible alternative.
You read my mind! I visited Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and we were staying on the west side in Parkdale.
Arriving using GO, we had to get off at Exhibition, but it was still a 25 min walk (with all of our stuff) because there was no transit between Queen St and the station.
The nearby Queen St and Dundas St streetcars were our lifeline, but the subway was essentially obsolete for us unless we were already in the middle of the city.
There is so much going on at Spadina, it felt perfect for a place for another hub. The west side seemed to live or die by the streetcars, as the subway and Union were simply inconvenient.
Really great video!
Great video! This proposal makes a lot of sense! I just emailed the video to my local MPP
This is my kind of advocacy. Thanks!
Wow! You really put a lot thought into this video.
Glad you think so!
Informative video. Great idea. A couple of thoughts:
1) Wouid it be feasible to pair different lines so they shared island platforms? The interchanges mentioned could be improved if they didnt need a change of level.
2) Releasing capacity at a station like Union is always a good idea.
3) No integrated fares?! That's unacceptable.
Pairing. The other lines is possible, but would require some complex flyovers.
Love the videos!
Thank you for correctly calling the stadium the SkyDome.
Excellent suggestion.
Thanx for all the videos. And the impression of interchange in Union Station. I think you need more sub-hubs and interchanges in this city (like you said). Best in each direction of traval / corridor, so some ppl can change trains heading outside before congestion in the inner part.
I dont' understand why all this unserved businesses especially the mall do not demand a subway-connection.
i don't like videos too often but this one 1000% deserves it. Great content and idea....I just hope if it does go forward it will be a bit quicker than the Eglinton LRT (A bit).
I'd love to see the GO trains to go all the way to Windsor, crazy idea but I think it would really be awesome and the current VIA Rail service is awful
As a test, you try the GO train to London to see how well you'd endure four hours in a commuter car.
@@drgwdrgw I have and I didn’t mind it. I’ve taken trains in europe for the same amount of time and it isn’t as bad as you make it.
9:20 "opens directly to spadina" also means direct access to the spadina streetcar with its right of way too! :+D
I think a better name for a new station would be Blue Jay or Billy Bishop Station.
It probably wouldn’t take much to create a more direct link to the airport while having a station that exits people more or less directly in front of the SkyDome/Rogers Centre would be insanely helpful. You could even have trains stop separately at union and the new station, like ones coming from the East going to Union as LSE-A and the ones going the new station bypassing Union completely as LSE-B. The inbound west ones would simply be LSW-A and LSW-B as well.
As someone who frequently goes to Blue Jays games having a GO Station just outside would be amazing and I’d have less feeling to rush. Plus people going to a Leafs/Raptors game wouldn’t cause such a massive wave getting on/off at the same time as Blue Jays fans if they went to different stations completely.
And with like you said, it would ease the traffic at Union by quite bit!
Very tightly argued, well done!
here in the hague we have two very large main stations serving the city center and 3 main stations all throughout the city. Toronto is a larger city and absolutely should get a second main station imo
And the Netherlands is pretty good for its railways 😊
I would say that the section where all GO trains run together should have a station about every 1-2km, functioning as a sort of s-bahn for the inner area, and that should be a no-brainer
Another fellow Aussie city with multiple inner-city stations is Brisbane. We have Roma Street Station, Central Station, and Fortitude Valley Station which all of the Suburban and Interurban rail lines serve while Roma Street is the primary terminus for regional trains.
With Cross-River Rail coming, the inner-city will also get new stations in Albert Street Station, and Exhibition Station (Exhibition already exists, but it's rarely used now and will be getting upgraded as part of the project). Additionally Roma Street will get a new underground station as part of the project
Yeah, it's so annoying that the platforms at Union station are so narrow!
1:14 Love the failure mode of the totally crashed electronic signboard in the Great Hall.
The E/N rail way on Vancouver island, BC would be a cool video it would add transportation and so much to an island in need.
I love your videos. ❤
London UK is the gold standard in rail transit. Your suggestions are great but doubtful planners in Toronto would listen.
We also have a piece of track along the Dupont Street area of Toronto that is a missed opportunity of transit that could connect a city like Peterborough to Toronto.
I agree Spadina would be a good one. I think we also need a hub of sorts near Pearson, either near the Malton station or Woodbine. Not sure any other would really work but Malton would make for a great hub to YR, Brampton and Mississauga as well as to SWO with the Kitchener line.
Great analysis Reese. You made a very interesting comment about having the wrong facility in the right place. Could you expand, with a few classic examples? I fear that, too often, it's such wastes of money which stymie schemes and cloud peoples' view of (admittedly eyewateringly expensive) infrastructure projects.
One for a future video, perhaps?
I visited Union station earlier this week and I said the same thing when I saw the Dental Office.
Brilliant! As someone using the Milton line a few times a week, id gladly get down at spadina and walk for a extra 10 min rather than getting off at Union with the feeling of "is someone going to push me by accident into the tracks ?" its so narrow and the whole walkin down to concourse to union in the morning is sub-optimal.sometime, idont feel safe on the platforms cos we arell standing on the yellow area (where youre not supposed to stand). Makes so much sense! we should make more noise about this project and get Metrolinx to consider!
I feel so _heard_ as a Toronto resident!!!
They need to do this!
We have something very similar here in Dublin. Heuston station mainly serves intercity trains down to the cities of Cork, Waterford and Galway, along with commuter trains on the Hazelhatch/Celbridge line, while Connolly station serves most of Dublins commuter routes and the services down to Rosslare and the enterprise up to Belfast. Its also very easy to get to and from one another via the Red line on the Luas streetcar.
Amazing idea, personally though my hope is that the rail deck park plan will one day come back, hopefully with a station underneath!