St. George Subway Station

St. George Subway Station

 The St. George subway station is part of both the Yonge-University-Spadina Line and the Bloor-Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  The Yonge-University line was opened in 1963, followed by the Bloor-Danforth line in 1966 and finally by the Spadina line in 1979.  St. George has four parallel tracks, two above two.

St. George subway is extremely busy, ranking 2^nd of the 69 stations as far as pedestrian traffic goes totaling a quarter of a million people a day.  It’s situated right in the heart of the vibrant and colourful Toronto neighbourhood called “The Annex”, populated primarily with young people from the University of the Toronto campus, called St. George Campus.

University of Toronto

Sir Sandford Fleming

The University of Toronto, originally named ‘Kings College’ was founded in 1827.  At that time it was the first institution of Upper Canada that offered advanced learning. It changed its name to the University of Toronto in 1850, once the Church of England no longer had control over and today it all 12 colleges are collectively known as the ‘Toronto School’. 

The U of T Pub Crawl

Each of the 12 colleges under the U of T umbrella all have their own history and purpose.  Publicly owned and funded, the University of Toronto has long had a history of innovations in literature, communication theory (psychology, sociology and anthropology) science (insulin and stem cell research) and the first practical electron microscope was discovered at the U of T in 1938 by Eli Burton.  Two independent researchers (Louise Webster and Paul Murdin) both working at the University of Toronto announced the discovery of the first black hole using measurements from the the Doppler shift which showed a mass that was three times the mass of the sun.

The University of Toronto had employed and educated Sir Sanford Fleming who was known as the Inventor of standard time.  He did this after missing a train in 1876 in Ireland.  He realized this happened because the schedule printed was in p.m. time instead of a.m.,  hence the birth of the 24 hour clock.  He linked this proposal to suggest that standard times zones could be used all over the world and in 1929 all major countries of the world accept time zones.  Today the University of Toronto, has the Sir Sandford Fleming building on its location.

Sir Sandford Fleming Building

Off campus within close proximity there is a pumped up nightlife, excellent local shopping, and many great places to eat and shop.  It’s just after midnight and University students are just coming out of the Duke of York pub.  They do the pub crawl along Bloor Street on a Friday night into the Bar Mercurio, Regal Beagle, the Fox and Fiddle and the Pauper’s Pub and settle at the Brunswick House for some good music. The street is alive again the next day with restaurants serving organic foods to sushi and coffee houses like Starbucks and Timmy’s are everywhere. 

St. George subway, in the heart of the Annex takes you within the reach of Uptown, Downtown and Midtown, making it among the city’s most desirable place to live.

Union Station Subway

Union Station Subway (TTC)

Union Station is on the Yonge University Spadina line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  The station opened in 1954 and today serves well over 100,000 a day.  Union station ranks 5^th out of 69 subway stations as far as traffic goes, but that is not including the entire building which is separated by a moat that brings you to the other segment of Union which saw its first passenger train departure in 1853.  I would have liked to know where that train went to.  If any anyone has better luck in researching this, feel free to drop me a line in the comment block.

Street CARS

75 years later, Edward, Prince of Wales opened Union Station in 1927 with a gold key that unlocked the doors.  He was sold the first ticket from Toronto to Alberta at a cost of $70 (today’s cost would be over $1000.00).  Shortly after that Union station was in full swing sending and receiving passengers.  A few more years ahead of that and in 1929 the Royal York hotel was built (and still stands). A tunnel was bored under the hotel linking it to Union station.  Actually the first of its kind and the new CN tracks were laid between Hamilton and Pickering. GO transit followed a couple years later with its first time to leave Oakville east bound to Toronto.

Union Station-Go Station

Today the Great Hall in Union Station sees arrivals and departures used by Via Rail, Amtrak and Ontario Northland for inter-city train passengers.  There is a concourse for GO Transit commuter train passengers, as well as access to the TTC subway and streetcar station.  The tunnel I spoke about underground linking Royal York Hotel has been extended to other buildings in the central business district. Union Station also features office space used by the TTR, GO Transit and CN and CP.

Great Hall - Union Station

“Transit City” (currently on hold) has plans to further extend Streetcar loops from Union along the Waterfront hoping to unclog congestion along the lakeshore.