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Queen subway line

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The Queen Street subway line was one of many subway lines planned for Toronto, Canada, but never built by the Toronto Transit Commission.

Contents

1911 proposal

It began with a streetcar subway line proposal by the Department of Railways and Bridges of the City of Toronto Engineers in 1911, but it was not until the 1940s that the line re-emerged.

Post-World War II plans

The 1944 TTC Rapid Transit Proposals for a Queen Street route and a referendum on January 1, 1946, brought the Queen subway line back to life. The line called for an open-cut with right of way and built to the north of the existing Queen streetcar line.

The Yonge line was built first and subsequently, it was decided to build an east-west subway line along Bloor-Danforth instead of Queen due to changes in traffic and population patterns.

The existing Queen Street streetcar line remains one of the longest and most heavily used, running double-length ALRV streetcars (one of only two lines that does so) at six-minute intervals. However, the volume of riders did not justify a subway line in the 1960s.

Stations

A rough platform, partial station is all that remains of a station and the proposed Queen subway line with access from a door from the existing Queen station.

Stations on the proposed Queen line:

  • Trinity Park
  • Bathurst
  • Spadina
  • Grange
  • York
  • City Hall
  • Yonge (Lower Queen)
  • Church
  • Sherbourne
  • Parliament
  • Don
  • Broadview
  • Logan

    • Proposed routes

    Later changes to the line would have extended the subway to the Humber Loop in the west and Eglinton-Don Mills to the north-east end:

  • 1960 - subway from Sunnyside to Greenwood, then from Greenwood to O'Connor Drive and connect with the Bloor-Danforth subway at either Greenwood or Donlands stations
  • 1964 - an underground streetcar line from Greenwood to McCaul to replace the existing surface route.
  • 1964 - a route was to have the underground section from Jarvis (Sherbourne in 1968 plan) to Spadina. The route re-surfaces between Spadina to Humber Loop and from Jarvis to either Broadview or Pape.
  • 1968 - Queen from Humber to Victoria Park
  • 1968 - Greenwood and O'Connor to Queen; Queen from Dufferin; Dufferin north to Weston rail corridor to Islington
  • 1968 - Greenwood and O'Connor to Queen; Queen from Dufferin; Dufferin north to Weston rail corridor to Eglinton; Eglinton to Martin Grove
  • 1968 - Greenwood and Danforth to Queen; Queen from Dufferin; Dufferin north to Weston rail corridor and Eglinton
  • 1972 - GO-Urban route using railway corridors - from Eglinton and Kennedy to Don Valley; Don Valley to Union; Union to Dundas West
  • 2016 - Yonge/City hall along Queen to Carlaw, then North to Pape Station, with potential for future northward extension

    • The Queen route was not removed from plans until 1975, but a portion of Lower Queen station now contains an elevator shaft due to elevator construction in Queen station in the 1990s.

    References

    Queen subway line Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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