Power-pop band Metric played a free concert for 5,000 people in front of Toronto's Union Station Wednesday night. (CBC)

A free concert held Wednesday night in front of Toronto's Union Station may portend the city's plans to make over the area in front of Canada's busiest rail hub.

An estimated 5,000 people flocked to a free 45-minute concert by power-pop band Metric starting around 7 p.m. in between Union Station and Front Street West — a space normally filled with fast-walking commuters or travellers waiting for a cab.

The City of Toronto is hoping to promote use of the area known as Union Square as a public space as it pushes ahead with plans to renovate Union Station by 2015.

Matthew Blackett, the publisher of Spacing magazine and a member of the city's pedestrian committee, said he'd like to see the space used for other musical acts and entertainers.

"Dundas Square … it's a very consumer-oriented public square. But Union Station is much different that that," he said. "It's more of a temporal space that people will travel and stop at. But when you see things like Metric playing a concert down there, you can do a lot of interesting stuff."

The committee is looking at about 10 designs for the space, and those plans should soon be available for the public to see, Blackett said.

'Creating a dynamic public space'

Taxi driver Hakim Bouab had to get out of his cab and wait for the concert to finish before he could return to his post in front of the station, but he didn't mind.

"It's already congested here all the time, but give it a chance and we'll see, it might work out," he said with a chuckle.

Plans to change Union Square do not represent an attack on drivers, said Blackett.

"If you've been in a car and you drive past Union Station, your maximum speed is going to be about 10 or 15 kilometres [per hour] anyways. It's not a thoroughfare, this is very much about creating a dynamic public space in a location that sorely needs it."

Archie Wisco, one of those who came to watch the Metric show, liked the space as a venue.

"I mean, it's crazy just because it's in the middle of rush hour and there's a lot of people who are clueless as to what's going on, but this area is fine for that kind of pedestrian activity," he said.