Quote:
Originally Posted by mytwocents
Denver's Union is a great rehab project. I measured that the tracks going through downtown in Calgary at the tower are about 42m across at the widest point. A station I really like the design of is Montpellier France where it's 37m across. Plus Montpellier has a great concourse above the tracks and small footprint for the station, 6 tracks, 4 platforms.
I think they're could eventually be a great underground station at the tower similar to the GO concourse in Toronto.
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I took a long walk around Denver's Union Station a year ago before it opened for services, the underground bus station and the way it connects to the Commuter/Amtrac and the Light Rail stations is interesting. Denver's Union Station is the type that I would put at Sunalta, Sunalta has the LRT and the bus station.
Montpellier station is much the same as most of the other modern TGV stations, there are only 2 ways to access platforms, over or under. Underground accesses require a lot of artificial light, Denver's Union Station bus terminal tries to make as much use as it can from skylights, if a building is placed on top you loose all natural light and then you have Structural considerations as well. Overhead access to platforms is often more desirable, due to design loadings you can have a more open-plan structure, and you have more available natural light. 3 of the Brightline stations share that same design philosophy, the terminus in Miami is more like Montparnasse or Victoria, with multiple high-rise structures on top, but the platforms are elevated so they get natural light in from the sides. The Brightline design and set-up is very interesting, take a look.
Downtown Calgary is congested, and the underpinning work involved to create an underground concourse would make it prohibitively expensive, as mentioned previously in this thread, when in many decades from now High Speed Rail does get built between Calgary and Edmonton, I would envisage a station similar to Miami's, elevated above the freight and commuter lines.
https://www.albertaregionalrail.com/