Quote:
Originally Posted by logan5
Probably been said before, but the success of the waterfront area will likely be incumbent upon the relocation of the Gardiner Expressway and Union Station to below grade. That's probably obvious, I wonder what the cost would be?
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I disagree that the success of the waterfront depends on that.
But if that's what
your basing the success of the waterfront on, your going to have to wait a
long time.
The Gardiner will probably come down in a decade or two when they can no long rehabilitate it. But the railways will stay long after that. GO transit is a vital transportation link absent of which the economy of Toronto would greatly suffer. To say nothing of VIA, which plays a lesser but not insignificant roll. Obviously I know your not suggesting to eliminate passenger rail service. But burying all the rail lines and associated tracks that lead into Union station would greatly reduce the capacity of the system for years on end at a time when its growing by almost 10% per year. That's a non-starter, never mind the fact that they're spending somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 billion dollars and a decade of construction to modify & rehabilitate the station and refurbish & upgrade the tracks leading to it. see;
http://top100projects.ca/2010/union-...italization-2/
http://top100projects.ca/2010/union-...ation-project/
http://top100projects.ca/2010/union-...lling-program/
Obviously they're not going to just tear it all down so soon after they've just spent that kind of money on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
^ somewhere above 5 billion.. (for both)
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That's a large underestimate. The costs burying all the lines and the station itself below the street level would probably make Boston's big dig look cheap by comparison.
Consider the West Toronto diamond project(the most expensive rail burying project in Canada today), which was estimated to cost 277 million dollars just to grade separate a 4 track mainline from another 2 track mainline and one road crossing. Other than 2 new bridges none of it is covered.
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/mediaroom/re...h018e-2375.htm
The total length of both approaches are approximately 1 km long and 2 separate overhead bridges will be built. A total of only 0.3km will actually be below grade. The project starting in Jan 2009 and was scheduled to be completed at the end of 2011 but the completion date has now been pushed back until 2014.
http://top100projects.ca/2010/west-t...ion-project-2/
So, what would it cost to bury a corridor 8 to 14 tracks wide, 3.5 km's of which would have to be below grade and bridged over + and additional 1/2 km approach on either side in 2020 dollars? Oh and lets not forget having to rebuild the largest rail station in the country entirely underground, while keeping it in service the entire time?
To get a better idea of the difference between the two heres a comparison of their sizes;
West Toronto;
Union Station Rail Corridor;
The images are in the same scale. Yellow is the approach sections. Red is the portion that is entirely below grade and Green is Union station.
The project would be several orders of magnitude greater than the WT project. Compared to Bostons big dig the USRC project would be 4.5km long vs 5.6km, however the USRC is wider and would include a massive passenger rail station. The big dig cost 14.6 billion although new estimates peg the actual cost at 22 billion. Not counting for inflation, that would be a good starting point
In other words, not that I want to shot down anyone's hopes but realistically, its just not going to happen.
At least not in our lifetimes.
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