Toronto-York Spadina subway extension lures crowds with station sneak peeks
TTC holds open house at three of the new stations on the long-awaited Toronto-York Spadina subway.

TheStar.com and CBC.ca
Oct. 29, 2017
Lisa Wright

Dazzling. Thrilling. Breathtaking.

You wouldn’t normally associate such adjectives with a TTC station. But that was actually the typical reaction Saturday when the public got a sneak peek at three new stations on the long-awaited Toronto-York Spadina subway extension, on track to open Dec. 17.

“It’s just so unique; it really stands out,” said Israel Mbevi, while outside the new Pioneer Village station on Steeles Ave. W. in the rain with his 12-year-old son Baraka.

“We came here from Mississauga on a rainy day just to see this. He loves anything to do with trains,” Mbevi said.

The trains aren’t in service yet, so shuttle buses ferried droves of curiosity seekers, transit buffs, train fanatics and long-suffering commuters from Sheppard West station, on the western side of the Yonge-University line, up to the Pioneer Village, Highway 407 and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre stations.

Officials said by the halfway point of the four-hour open house that more than 2,000 people had already visited the stations.

The six-stop, 8.6-kilometre extension has been in the works for over a decade and was beset by a two-year delay and cost overruns that ballooned to $3.2 billion from $2.63 billion.

Gary David Brown said he was “attracted by the novelty of it, and just curious to see how our tax dollars are being spent.”

Spectators were wowed by the ultra-modern architecture and design touches including huge skylights, reflective ceilings, a giant stained-glass mural, terrazzo flooring and slanted columns on the platform and brass railings that include a ledge for cyclists to just glide their bikes down the stairs beside them to get to the train.

Each has a dramatically different design to reflect the character of the nearby community, said project director Keith Sibley, whose project management firm Bechtel took over in 2015.

“I’m happy to say we’re in position to open Dec. 17th,” he said.

Sibley noted how people told him that the massive brown chandelier at Pioneer Village station resembles “the sesame seed bun on a Big Mac, or a very big mushroom.”

“People are saying the 407 station looks like a spaceship has landed,” noted Sibley, who was thrilled with the turnout and all the questions he was being asked.

With less than 50 days to go before opening day on the line, visitors were scooping up TTC memorabilia for sale at Pioneer Village station while a two-piece band played “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” for all the kids running around. People talked to the architects and transit officials while York University had recruiters on sight and of course there was an information stand for Black Creek Pioneer Village, a 10-minute walk from the station.

The other three stops on the highly anticipated extension will include Finch West, Downsview Park and York University.

With his two children in tow, Toronto shop teacher David Hann said he was pleased to see it all finally come to fruition, though oo late for his sister, who endured the dreaded commute to the remote York University campus where she attended school.

“It was one of the reasons I went to U of T,” he said with a laugh.

“It’s also been . . . years since we saw the last subway line built, and I was in high school then, so it’s been a while,” he said, referring to the Sheppard subway line.