DESCRIPTION
Our small, cross-disciplinary team collaborated with WSP and BeWorks, a leading behavioural science firm, to review and develop facility station modification requirements to handle increased ridership in the near and long term. The program supports the growth of Toronto and will make a healthy public transit system more accessible to residents and visitors. As Lead Architect, IBI Group was required to consider demand requirements for the next 30 years and ensure wayfinding, signage, and accessibility are taken into account. As Lead Designer, my responsibilities included creating new wayfinding signage and updating existing signage within St. George, St. Andrew, and Dundas stations as part of a pilot program intended to increase safety, accessibility, and efficiency within the stations.
With each new element, the intent is to simplify the design and introduce bold, bright visual cues to catch passengers’ attention and assist in making wayfinding decisions easier and faster. Considering these tactics would be deployed in high traffic areas, the maintenance, durability, and changeability of these elements are key factors that must be considered. While each new element is designed for a specific goal, the overall design focuses on creating a system to better guide the passenger along their journey. The role required ideating and creating new types of signage to accommodate specialized needs, such as temporary, affixable signage along fare gate arrays to inform passengers which gates are open, closed, or wheelchair-accessible, from a distance. Black-tiled pillars in St. Andrew Station were wrapped in a calm-coloured gradient to attract passengers to spread out along the length of the platform to discourage crowding at one end only.
Through collaboration with engineers and architects on the team, as well as a behavioural science and economics agency, I was able to propose, create, and implement evidence-based tactics aimed at changing passengers’ behaviour to make station navigation and utilization safer and more efficient as the city’s population expands. The development time was 2 years, and the project is expected to be fully completed in 2031, with the pilot program running from late 2023 to early 2024.
