Metrolinx shares vision for three Ontario Line stations
The expanded Ontario Line subway project in Toronto isn’t scheduled to open until 2027, but Metrolinx has already given the public a taste of what three of the line’s stations will look like.
The Ontario Line has 15 planned stops, with a mix of subway and elevated trains from the Exhibition to Corktown, and north to the Ontario Science Centre.
On June 10, the Crown agency responsible for public transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) shared design concepts for the Exhibition, King and Bathurst, and Queen at Spadina stations. The plans show how the stations will work, and how they plan to incorporate heritage attributes.
Exhibition Station: a ‘vital transit hub’
Metrolinx’s plans for Exhibition Station see significant upgrades and an expanded footprint in an effort to turn the station into a “vital transit hub.”
The station will give new subway access to growing areas of the city such as Liberty Village and Parkdale. It’s expected that commuters from those areas alone will create more than 12,000 trips on the line from Exhibition Station daily.
Those riders coming from further-west regions of the GTHA, including Niagara, Hamilton, Halton and Peel, will use the station to transfer from GO trains onto the subway system. Doing so, Metrolinx forecasts, will help to relieve congestion at Union Station by 14 percent. Connections at Exhibition Station will be enhanced by a shared concourse and an above-ground connection between the GO trains and the subway line.
TTC riders will also be able to connect to the 511 Bathurst and 509 Harbourfront streetcars.
King and Bathurst: access at the Fashion District
Toronto’s Fashion District will finally be served by the subway system via a new station at the corner of King and Bathurst.
The corner is best known for bars and restaurants, and the new station will add quicker access to transit for the more than 9,000 households in the neighbourhood that don’t have cars.
The area is well served by TTC streetcars, but once the Ontario Line opens, riders will have additional—and easy—access to the subway.
Queen and Spadina: community of young professionals
The area around Queen and Spadina is expected to be home to nearly 23,000 people and more than 42,000 jobs by 2041. It is therefore a key growth neighbourhood. The planned Ontario Line station will provide fast and convenient links. Each day about 4,000 people are expected to transfer between the Ontario Line, and the TTC streetcars at this station.
Working with heritage properties
Metrolinx says it is mindful about respecting the heritage character of the buildings in the neighbourhoods targeted for new subway stations. The organization will work with conservation specialists to explore options and customize solutions for individual sites.
Options, it says, “include retaining full façades that stations can be built within, and carefully dismantling the exteriors into panels which can be stored and then reassembled as part of new stations.”
The organization will reveal proposed design approaches at each of the stations as part of a Heritage Detailed Design Report that is expected to be released for public review in January 2022.
“We are only acquiring properties we need to build and accommodate new transit infrastructure and to create the best possible transit connections,” said Malcom MacKay, program sponsor for the Ontario Line. “We know we need to work hard to make sure any new structure fits and blends in with the community it serves, and that’s something we’re going to do from one end of the line to the other.”
By 2041, Metrolinx expects that nearly 62,000 people will live living within a 10-minute walk of the Ontario Line stations, while 84,000 jobs will be nearby, and the line is expected to attract more than 24,000 daily trips.