Union Station Renassiance

November 14, 2007 - Today, Mayor Miller unveiled the City's plans to revitalize Union Station, the most important transportation hub in Canada. Serving up to 200,000 passengers on a typical work day, Union Station handles more passengers than Pearson International Airport, and is "the crown jewel" of the City's transportation network.

Union Station has certainly seen better days. Opened in 1927, the station was once home to train companies that provided service to all parts of the continent. The Great Hall has names of Canadian cities that were once served by trains pulling out of Union Station. With the decline of continental rail travel, the Great Hall is now largely underutilized. Parts of the station even got converted to other uses like retail and offices.

The GO Concourse underneath the Great Hall is a different story. Tens of thousands of commuters rush through this concourse each and everyday. The concourse was originally used as a mail depot, and when GO began service at Union Station 40 years ago, no one predicted passenger flow would reach today's level. The GO Concourse is dark, over crowded and architecturally ugly. With GO ridership expected to increase over the next 20 years, something needs to be done.

The originally revitalization plan was put forth by the Union-Pearson Group, which wanted to build a new rail link to Pearson Airport from Union Station. When the deal fell through, the City took it upon itself to come up with a new revitalization plan. Highlights of the plans announced today include:

- Excavating the lower concourse to make it all one level from the GO Transit east concourse to the west concourse (though walls will still be in place to mark the VIA concourse). This will provide a direction connection with no grade change from the existing PATH and TTC subway station (currently there are a few steps you need to climb from the subway to Union Station).

- A new retail concourse beneath the lower concourse; retail development will help pay for the revitalization.

- Increase use of the Great Hall by directing GO passengers through the Hall into the GO concourse.

It would be interesting to see which private developer the City will team up with to develop the retail component. So far, the City has not named a specific developer, and public funding through senior levels of government remains a possibility. If developed properly, Union Station has the potential to become a star attraction in our city, similar to Grand Central Station in New York, Washington Union Station, and the great train stations in Europe.

Since I work on this file at work, I shall refrain from commenting on the City's plans, but you can check them out and provide your own comments here.