[URBAN NOTE] "That time Toronto almost built the subway to the Lake"

[rfmcdonald]

blogTO's Chris Bateman engages in a bit of alternate history, pointing out that the city of Toronto could have extended down to Lake Ontario if not for Union Station.

Everyone knows about the Queen Street line, Toronto's great (mostly) unbuilt subway. But not many know about the abandoned plan to extend the Yonge and University lines south to Queens Quay.

It started with Metro Centre, a joint proposal by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways to redevelop the sprawling tangle of surplus downtown sidings, marshalling yards, and roundhouses owned by both companies into a massive "city-within-a-city." At the time, it was the largest single improvement scheme ever conceived in North America, possibly the world.

Unveiled in 1967 in a lavish ceremony at the Royal York Hotel, the unprecedented $1 billion proposal called for almost 200 acres of new downtown offices, hotels, residential buildings, and commercial centres between Bathurst, Front, Yonge, and the lake shore.

There would be a skyscraping broadcast tower and maybe even a sports stadium. Central to Metro Centre was a new transit centre that would integrate GO, TTC, inter-city rail, bus, and airport shuttles to be built at York and Lake Shore Blvd.

The catch? 45-year-old Union Station would have to make way for a cluster of office buildings.

CP and CN hoped the TTC would extend the downtown subway loop south to the waterfront, adding three new stops at Front and York, Queens Quay and Bay, and Yonge and Esplanade. The southernmost station, to be built roughly where the Queens Quay ferry docks streetcar stop is today, would serve the new transit centre and surrounding offices and residences.