Union Station is Toronto’s primary transportation hub for transit and rail passengers alike. Over 26 million people pass through its doors annually. Recognizing the challenges associated with the aging infrastructure at Union Subway Station, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the City of Toronto (the City) initiated the restoration and refurbishment of the station and its surrounding areas.
Since an excavation of Front Street would be required to enable the Union Station Improvement Project, the city seized the opportunity to reduce costs and minimize future disruption with a Front Street revitalization at the same time. We were retained to redesign Front Street as a major new public space with strong emphasis on pedestrian circulation, bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks, designated lay-bys for parking and a number of other aesthetic features.
One of the busiest streets in Canada was transformed - from a main street divided, into a place for people. Front Street at Union Station has come alive. Intense, diverse, moving, Front Street captures the imagination, welcomes people in, offers them a place to stop, admire, cycle, stroll and meet, all while allowing safe movement of many modes of travel. For tourists, commuters, cyclists and locals, Front Street is no longer just a street. Now it is a destination for people.
Front Street Revitalization reflects a collaboration of many of those people who are passionate about our city. The first glimpse of the vision—a place for people, safe for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles alike, equally remarkable as historic Union Station and the Royal York Hotel—came from city stakeholders who envisioned a high quality public space. Citizens and others provided insight and ideas at two public information sessions. A preliminary design was formed as part of the environmental assessment. The ideas and hopes of caring citizens and experts were laid out on the design table, along with city urban design and green standards, and a sustainable, welcoming street was created that expresses the passion of our city, the passion of our people.
Client
Toronto Transit Commission
Services
- Project management
- Landscape architecture
- Civil
- Transportation
- Architecture
- Structural engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Cost estimating
- Subsurface utility engineering (sub)
