On April 9th, 2024, I took a “me day”. A day off work to go explore Toronto.

My destination: a subway extension that opened in 2017, connecting the city to York University and the City of Vaughan to the North.

I wanted to go to as far as that line would take me, surface in Vaughan and just sorta … look around. Another goal was to experience the comfort of arriving at York University on the subway train. I did my undergrad degree at York before the line was built and getting there on transit was brutal. This is a tangible improvement and I wanted to feel it.

We’ll be visiting these stations, going from North to South:

Here’s our soundtrack for this post:

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

As the subway raced North from Downsview, the last station of the old line, I felt the first big difference with this new addition. The train accelerated to a much faster speed on the new stretch. It screamed in the tunnel. And not figuratively: something about the aerodynamics of the tunnel literally makes a steady piercing sound.

When you disembark at Vaughan Metropolitan Station, you see sleek polished glass and curved shapes. But each impressive moment is marred by an elevator bank, a big red community billboard (blank) or an overhead sign. The hum-drum machinery of the station just squats there and ruins the magic.

At the surface, here is what the exterior looks like:

It’s reaching for an aesthetic design… but things like the bog-standard bike stands and the green winter-salt storage box really mess with the futuristic feel.

Click for an immersive view of the station’s surroundings:

At 10am on a Tuesday, the area is desolate.

A little North of the subway station is a bus terminal, built in a similar style. A neat touch. Too bad that street-lights are in a spot where they intrude on every picture. I know – I’m nitpicking. But there’s a special type of person who’s paid to think about stuff like “making a building photogenic”. They’re called Architects.

A bit further North, we get this beautiful multi-layered view of condominiums:

Now, what you need to know about the City of Vaughn is that it is a supremely suburban place. There are vast spaces up there, filled with 1-storey warehouses and light-industrial enterprises. In theory, there is no need to build these skyscraper condos. Just demolish the 1-storey warehouse across the road and build the same amount of units as a nice 5-storey mid-rise.

I’m not sure why they’re building such tall buildings in Vaughan, instead of short-and-wide buildings. I’m familiar with the artificial pressures that drive vertical construction in Toronto, but I’m sure a lot of them don’t apply in Vaughan.

You keep going and, just a block Northwest of the station, the sidewalks disappear. A simple indication of who matters in the city: “This here’s Car Country son. Don’t you forget it!“

Google Maps shows a large building with murals all around. I go there, curious. But all I see is the view below – a construction fence shrouds the rest. The art is being demolished to to build a condominium named ARTWALK.

I finish this part of the day by grabbing a coffee from Balzac’s Coffee. A cute cafe with absurdly tall 4-storey ceilings.

Inside Highway 407 Station

Dear Reader, Highway 407 Station is the highlight of the day.

Strike that – it is the best station on the entire subway network.

At the subway platform level, there is cheerful stained-glass that ricochets colourful rays into the underground. Twisting angular staircases add an industrial flair.

I want you to contrast this ethereal feeling at Highway 407 Station with how Union Station feels. Union is a major regional hub that connects several train lines with the Subway system. It is part of the morning commute for hundreds of thousands people. Those commuters have to look at this every morning:

This mural, which spans both subway platforms, is called “Zones of Immersion“. A little drop of acid in an already-miserable day. A reminder of the negative qualities of Torontonians and their subway. Just… a crime of a station.

Anyway, back to the wonderful Highway 407 Station. Up top, where the bus terminal is located, the place just feels good. It is so comfortable and calm. There are interesting architectural elements to look at, like this donut hole:

I have to give kudos to Aedas architects who designed the station. It is very well thought out.

Outside Highway 407 Station

The station sits in an electrical corridor surrounded by grassland. Nearby to nothing. This station’s odd location is due to a network of deep political corruption and organized crime linked to the for-profit Highway 407. Corruption that’s just under the surface everywhere in Toronto.

Which is to say: Yipee! Nature!

I head out of the station. Down a chalky gravel path – it is still puddly at the edges from the rain last night. On the side of the path is a decomposing corpse.

Some sort of long weaselly creature, gnawed to the bone, but head still intact. Centimetres away is scat from another creature. Probably from whoever ate it.

I walk down the path to that white feature from the satellite photo. It turns out to be a gravel-topped bridge across a stream. Nothing special after all. But beyond that…

Beyond is a large grassy meadow with signs of human habitation:

We’re talking sleeping bags, chairs, an overturned grill and some sort of wood-burning space heater made of metal. This looks like an abandoned encampment for 6 individuals.

Overhead, a soft electrical crackle from the high-voltage wires.

There’s an interesting thicket nearby and I go over to check it out. Along the path, there are many lengths of pipe. I bet that the homeless were trying to set up a sort of water-delivery / shower system using water from the stream:

Arriving at the thicket, I see water tanks and sheds. I go nearer and something big tears out from the bushes on the right: a large deer jumps out of hiding and runs away.

Click below to see what was in the bushes. Note the large water tanks, and second shed to the right of the blue one:

I head back, and at this point I start noticing the turds. Turds everywhere. It’s odd. They’re large, they’re near the sleeping bags and in other spots where a human won’t “go”.

Looking closer at them: there’s hair, white crunched up bones, orange-coloured teeth. Like those teeth from large rodents. I’ll spare you the picture.

Hmm… What’s the largest predator in the Toronto area, who is known to kill people?

I nervously make my way back to the subway station, glancing into the tall grass behind me.

Pioneer Village Station

The next station to the South is “Pioneer Village”. The name refers to Black Creek Pioneer Village – a recreation of village life from the late 1800s. It’s a nice day out for the heritage-breed goose lover (look at those absolute units in the picture) but not a major tourist draw that would call for its own station…

The station platform is bare-bones with some sort of large number-display running along the top.

Closer to the sruface, light rays fall from a mysterious source:

Up at the surface, strange rusty-metal shapes form a Mad Max tower. This is heady stuff for Toronto – a city that thinks gray concrete is just the bee’s knees and where a utilitarian public-bathroom-meets-clapboard-hut aesthetic dominates the transit network.

But, at every turn, a jarring wayfinding sign always gets in the way of that “wow” moment…

York University Station

The station at the University is probably one of the higher-traffic stations in the set, but it looks unimpressive. However, as a York student years ago I would’ve killed for the comfort of riding to school on a subway.

The one beautiful part of this station is the large window you see as you exit the station. It curves around like this:

Once at the surface, I headed to the Archives of Ontario. They have a rotating exhibition that’s open to the public and this April it was “Animals in the Archives” (turned out it was not my jam). I wanted to speak with a staff member about the kinds of digital preservation they do. I was left with the impression that the Archives are waaaaaay behind the ball on preserving web content. Which is a shame because digital content is constantly decaying: according to Pew Research, 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were not accessible 10 years later.

This, dear Reader, means that archiving digital media is up to you and I. Send me an email at jacob @ this site to learn how to start preserving the content you like.

I left the Archives and headed past Teaching Assistants on strike. After a delicious goat roti at Lena’s Roti and Doubles and a walk in the industrial area by the University, it was time for my last station:

Finch West Station

Finch West looks like a utilitarian box during the day, but apparently has cheerful lighting in the evening. This station makes a big difference to the people who live along the Finch West corridor. I remember speedwalking in the snow from that intersection to York University, because the miserable walk would definitely get me to class on time while waiting for the bus was a gamble. With a subway station in that spot, so many people would be spared the walk and the stress…

Inside the station, there is at least one interesting visual moment created by an architect:

Downsview Park [Nov. 2024]

I originally missed visiting Downsview station, because I thought this was the old familiar Downsview station. Turns out that this is a new station, and Downsview got renamed to Steeles West.

This station is in the middle of a desolate field called Downsview Park. I get why it’s there: there are some very large music festivals that happen in Downsview, and a few neat sports-related spaces nearby. But, on a wind-lashed night in November, it felt like this station could’ve been located just a little bit closer to amenities.

Final Remarks

From a practical perspective, this subway extension was much needed. Connecting York University to the rest of the city, and tying the cities of Vaughan to Toronto are a big deal. The downside is that there were clearly backroom shenanigans leading to the 2 “stations to nowhere” at Black Creek and Highway 407.

From a design perspective, I’m happy to see that there was a lot of effort put into making the stations appealing and into having a common design aesthetic. I just wish that more compromise was made on wayfinding signage and street fixtures. You can almost feel the frustration of the creative architect as they battled – and lost – against the bureaucrat insisting that a regulation size “EXIT” sign of type 32-A must be placed right in front of that beautiful rusted-metal sculptural ceiling at Pioneer Village Station…

Overall, this outing had Toronto serving up 2 things it has in spades:

• Spaces. Desolate, depopulated, vast spaces.
• Nature. Nature in every urban gap, just waiting for you to notice it.

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Can’t get enough of TTC Subway station coverage and photos? Visit Nathan Ng’s Station Fixation blog.

Bonus pictures:

Credits: the Panorama icon overlaying several images is from Freepik on Flaticon.com