[URBAN NOTE] "What’s down the line for Eglinton Crosstown"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Tess Kalinowski writes about the proposed design for the underground stations on the Eglinton Crosstown line.

A first glimpse of the early station designs for the $5.3-billion Eglinton Crosstown shows a minimalist vision designed to let in the light. The reveal by Daoust Lestage, IBI Architecture and Metrolinx took place at the Toronto Design Review Panel last week, revealing glass-box entrances as the signature identifying feature of the 15 underground stations on the tunnelled portion of the Crosstown. Each underground station will cost between $80 million and $100 million; ten street-level stops, costing $3 million to $5 million, will carry the same Crosstown identity, distinct from the TTC and GO Transit. It will be about five years until the stations are built and the designs are far from final, cautions Metrolinx.

Each underground station will have a trademark glass pavilion entrance. Adjacent will be a “technical box,” a textured, cast-concrete building that acts as the station basement, where the vents emerge from track level and the HVAC and electrical are stored.

All the stations will be a variation on the theme, depending on whether it is a corner location, mid-block or one of three interchange stations where the LRT meets the subway — at Kennedy, Yonge and Allen. In some cases the glass structure will be slanted and stations will be embedded into the streetscape.

Interchange stations will have more generous plazas and landscape plantings. All stations will incorporate an “urban carpet,” a kind of welcome mat that carries riders from outside to the interior with large-format pavers.

The boxes and skylights will maximize the penetration of natural light down to platform level, about three storeys below the street.

More description, and pictures, at the site.