UNION STATION
DISTRICT PLAN

Union Station has been a place of leave-taking and reunion for four generations of Canadians, and has often been described as the gateway to Toronto. It stands at the centre of a citywide cultural corridor, with connections to the city’s financial, entertainment and administrative districts, and serves as a critical regional transportation hub and the nexus of the national rail system.

planningAlliance was commissioned by the City of Toronto to prepare the Union Station District Plan to define a strategy for preserving the architecture of the station and surrounding area, enhancing the public realm, and improving traffic/pedestrian flow in, out and around the downtown core.

Our recommendations included establishment of a Heritage Conservation District to promote the preservation of the district’s significant buildings, creation of a vastly improved public realm with enhanced pedestrian connections and way finding, redefinition of Front Street on the North side of the station as an inspiring public space, and the establishment of a new plaza on the South side, which will connect the station to the waterfront and provide a new meeting place for Torontonians and visitors to the City.

CITY OF TORONTO
TORONTO, CANADA
2006