The newest addition to Toronto subway system has entered the final testing phase before it opens to public in mid December, but even when it does, there will be at least one major component that remains sealed off for the foreseeable future.
Buried beneath the brand new Finch West subway station is a roughed-in terminal that's waiting for the arrival of the new LRT line that's scheduled to open in 2021 (don't hold your breath on that date).
"At Finch West, buried in the new station, is the new light rail terminal," TTC Chief Operating Officer Mike Palmer told CP24. "So when that’s built, you just literally break out a wall and there will be a light rail platform there."
This isn't the only secret station in Toronto's subway system. Most people know about Lower Bay, which was actively used for a period in the 1960s, but it's Lower Queen that recalls the TTC's forward thinking in this case.
What Lower Queen Station looks like today. Photo by Derek Flack.
When the original Yonge Line was built in the mid 1950s, there was a good chance that a streetcar subway would be built along Queen St. In anticipation of its construction, the shell of a station was built under the current platform at Queen.
It's unfinished, but easy to see where streetcars would have arrived and departed. While there aren't pictures floating around of the roughed in station at Finch West, the idea behind preparing the space for an eventual connection is the same.
Let's hope the outcome is different, though. The streetcar subway never did arrive at Queen Station, leaving the space to sit mostly empty since the late 1950s. Let's hope our newest ghost station is brought to life on schedule.
by Derek Flack via blogTO
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