The Bloor-Yonge subway—a hellishly crowded station which easily sees over 204,630 passengers a day—will be getting some welcomed investments to help with overcrowding, as the federal government looks to put over $1 billion in Toronto transit projects.
The whopping sum will be spread out between Bloor-Yonge’s stations, as well as welcomed investments to the SmartTrack Stations Program, which will help set up sho for six new stations; including Stouffville, Lakeshore East, and Kitchener GO rail corridors.
According to their website, SmartTrack aims to be a “new transit solution that uses existing track to link Scarborough to Etobicoke via Downtown.”
Both projects were approved by Toronto city council in April, where funding was requested via the federal Public Transit Infrastructure Stream.
The province and City of Toronto will provide any additional funding.
So, what’s to be expected for Bloor-Yonge? For starters, the construction of an additional Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) platform, as well as new modifications to “improve safety and capacity” on the existing Line 1 platform.
The investments are being received, generally, with open arms. With about 204,630 average weekday boardings for the Line 1 platform, and over 196,460 average weekday boardings for the Line 2 platform at Bloor-Yonge, “both stations rival the average weekday boardings of the NYC subway’s Grand Central Station (155,345) and Times Square (204,017), according to MTA data.“
Toronto Mayor John Tory stressed the importance of a strong and capable subway station, as the city’s population continues to boom, and their transit systems continue to lag behind.
“By 2041 the region will have a population of more than 10,000,000 people and that’s a great news story … but we’ve got to make sure the infrastructure is in place to deal with those people and support that growth,” said Tory at a Monday news conference.