Toronto Railways and Highways

Railways and highways have shaped Toronto into what it is today. They were pivotal in the city’s history, defining the industries and work that located here, and the struggle of how we plan infrastructure and communities.

Toronto continues to struggle with the legacy of its railway and highways. Railways have become constrained in space when expansion is sorely needed, and efforts to tear down or improve highways comes with stiff opposition.

But a common issue between them that often gets overlooked is how they are long, restricted corridors that cut off access across, over or under them for large distances, creating increased travel times for pedestrians and cyclists. Improved access across these corridors, especially in Canada’s largest city, is low hanging fruit to improving a city’s broader active transportation network. Furthermore, they often sever natural and open spaces in a similar manner, making it a double whammy on the public realm.

Check out some stats and an interactive map below. Links to explore Toronto’s railways and highways more in-depth are at the bottom.

1. Railways
   1. A Brief History
   2. Railway Corridors
      1. Union Station Rail Corridor
      2. Oakville Subdivision
      3. Galt Subdivision
      4. Weston Subdivision
      5. MacTier Subdivision
      6. North Toronto / Belleville & Havelock Subdivisions
      7. Newmarket Subdivision
      8. Bala Subdivision
      9. Kingston Subdivision
      10. Uxbridge Subdivision
      11. Canpa Subdivision
      12. Halton / York Subdivisions
2. Highways
   1. Highway 401
   2. Highway 427
   3. Highway 403
   4. Gardiner Expressway
   5. Highway 27
   6. Highway 409
   7. Highway 400 / Black Creek Drive
   8. Allen Road
   9. Don Valley Parkway
   10. Highway 404
   11. Highway 2A
3. Crossings
   1. Ranking
   2. Featured Collectives
      1. #1: West Canyon
      2. #2: Highland Creek Wedge
      3. #3: Lower Don Valley
      4. #4: North York Wall
      5. #7: Warden Greenway
      6. #8: East Danforth – Beaches
   3. The Rest of the Top 20
      1. #5: Mimico Split
      2. #6: East Beach
      3. #9: North Malvern
      4. #10: Finch Hydro
      5. #11: Highland – Malvern
      6. #12: Lambton Lead
      7. #13: Brookhaven – Mt Dennis
      8. #14: Upper Liberty
      9. #15: Parkwoods – Don Mills
      10. #16: Corktown Corner
      11. #17: East Queensway
      12. #18: West Toronto Diamond
      13. #19: The Malls
      14. #20: East Point Edge
4. Stats and Mapping

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Railways

Downtown Toronto is built on the legacy of railways. Railways were the main mode of transporting goods and people in and out of the city for a time, and this created Union Station and a vast amount of yards and industry surrounding it. It became a hub of economic activity that anchored an entire region.

While the city is less dominated by railways than it used to be, they are still critical freight corridors and remain a very space and energy efficient mode of transporting people. Below is a brief history and a profile of the main railways in Toronto.

A Brief History

Railways arrived in Toronto in 1853, providing both critical transportation of freight goods and people into, out of, and through the city. With it came patronage of local businesses, new residents and tourists, as well as industry. The Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railway was the first railway that came to town, but competition soon followed: Great Western Railways, Grand Trunk Railway, and Canadian Pacific Railway.

The multiple railways created the need for a “union station” where they could jointly operate their services, so passengers could conveniently transfer between them. Toronto’s first and second Union Stations were built in 1858 and 1873, respectively, and both were was quickly overloaded by demand. In 1906, the Toronto Terminals Railway (TTR) was incorporated as a joint 50/50 venture between Grand Trunk Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway to build, operate and maintain a third new Union Station and the tracks into and out of it.

The station building was completed in 1920, and is the Union Station that currently stands today . The track system and other key system elements (e.g. the train shed, road underpasses, concourse) weren’t completed for another decade. It was during this time that Grand Trunk Railway fell into financial difficulty and was nationalized by the federal government, becoming part of Canadian National Railway (CN). This industry trend continued, and while several other railway companies used to operate in Toronto, all rail lines were eventually consolidated (through nationalization, mergers or acquisitions) into ownership by either CN or Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). TTR remained as the 50/50 joint owned company between them.

As time went on, the rise of the automobile reduced the importance of railways (a wrong path that many large North American urban centres are still stuck on, in my opinion, but I digress). At the same time, Toronto’s downtown core grew with businesses and residents. These forces pushed land values up, and shifted freight railways, their large yards, and associated industries out. It also increased the number of workers and visitors moving throughout the Greater Toronto Area, raising the importance of transporting people by rail.

Yet railway passenger services were not as profitable as they were before the age of the automobile, or were even losing money, which led to private railways reducing passenger services or abandoning them altogether. This drove governments to intervene, so that some of these critical transportation corridors could be maintained, and urban centres still had an option for efficiently moving people.

After various initiatives to improve CN passenger services, VIA Rail was spun off as its own Crown corporation in 1977 to take care of passenger services entirely. The following year, VIA took over CP passenger services as well, and became the national passenger train service resembling what we know today.

GO Transit was created before this in 1967, as an “experiment” to provide commuter services in and out of Toronto. As the need of running freight rail services into downtown Toronto declined and the need for commuter services increased, GO Transit (and it’s successive parent agency Metrolinx) began obtaining ownership of these lines. This afforded GO more control over operation and maintenance of the lines.

Railway Corridors

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The Union Station Rail Corridor (USRC) is the corridor where many railway lines into Toronto merge into a single corridor flanking each side of Union Station. It is technically defined as starting at Strachan Avenue in the west, and ending at the Don River in the east.

The USRC includes two yards for GO Transit to store their trains after the morning weekday rush, so they are ready to go back into service for the evening rush. These yards are beside the Don River (the Don Yard) and between Spadina and Bathurst (North Bathurst Yard).

The USRC used to be part of larger rail yards and roundhouses south of front street. This land was converted as CN and CP abandoned these freight yards in favour of new ones, and the accompanying industrial and shipping businesses left.

These former “Railway Lands” are now home to a number of landmarks, most notably the CN Tower. CN originally stood for “Canadian National”, in reference to the railway that built it to improve communication signals and demonstrate the strength of Canadian industry at the same time. Other places include the Skydome (aka the Rogers Centre), Scotiabank Arena, and numerous condos part of CityPlace and the Southcore District.

This development ate up much of the land formerly used by the freight railroads. What remains is still a very complex and busy area: 9 to 16 tracks totalling 40 km  of rail, 7 diagonal connecting tracks of “ladders”, 80 signals, and 250 switches. This immense piece of infrastructure moves a quarter of a million people in and out of Union Station daily, making it the busiest transportation hub in Canada, and therefore making the USRC the busiest national transportation corridor.

Note: Aerial images are courtesy of the City of Toronto, either via interactive map or the historic aerial photo collection. Other historical photos are courtesy of the city archives.

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The Oakville subdivision connects to the USRC at Strachan Avenue, and heads southwest along the lakeshore to the city’s west border by Long Branch Station. The corridor was originally owned by CN, and was purchased by Metrolinx in 2012.

The sub carries GO Transit’s Lakeshore West line to Hamilton / Niagara, and VIA Rail’s Corridor services to London / Windsor (through Brantford) and Niagara. The corridor also handles a lot of GO and VIA traffic going between Union Station and maintenance yards at Islington Avenue (Willowbrook Yard and the Toronto Maintenance Centre, respectively). So it’s fairly busy.

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The Galt sub is part of CP’s main east-west route across southern Ontario. The sub enters Toronto where it crosses Etobicoke Creek north of the Queensway. It then makes a large arc until meeting the Weston, MacTier and North Toronto subs at West Toronto Junction.

The Galt sub used to designate the eastern tarcks continuing parallel to the Weston sub to Union Station, but this ‘Lower Galt’ can be considered merged with the Weston sub after upgrades for the Union Pearson Express. The corridor is completely owned by CP, and is around 3 tracks wide to carry CP freight and rush hour Milton GO trains. The Galt also is adjacent to CP’s West Toronto / Lambton Yard, which stretches from West Toronto Junction to Scarlett Road. It also meets the Canpa sub in Etobicoke.

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The Weston sub connects to the USRC at Strachan Avenue, immediately north of where it connects to the Oakville sub, and heads northwest to Highway 427 north of Pearson Airport.

The sub is 4 tracks wide to carry GO Transit’s Kitchener line and the Union Pearson Express. It widens to 5 tracks south of Dupont to carry GO Milton line trains, and 6 tracks east of Lansdowne to carry GO Barrie line trains. Future expansions will see these segments widened to 7 and 8 tracks, respectively. VIA Rail Corridor services to London / Windsor (through Guelph and Kitchener) also find space on here.

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The MacTier sub is CP’s main route to and from northern Ontario, and eventually western Canada. From West Toronto Junction, it parallels the Weston sub until Weston Road, where it splits and heads due north to the city limits at Steeles. It is a single track, and carries CP’s freight only. It interconnects with the Weston sub at Rogers Road. Like the Weston sub, some at-grade crossings were eliminated as part of upgrades for the Union Pearson Express. Old Weston Road is the one crossing that remains at-grade, as it has to fly over the Weston sub.

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The North Toronto sub (from West Toronto Junction to just east of Bayview Avenue) and the Belleville sub (from Bayview to the east city limit) are basically an extension of the Galt sub, CP’s main east-west route across southern Ontario. This also takes CP trains to and from its Toronto Yard in Agincourt, between McCowan and Markham Roads, south of Finch Avenue. This yard stretches over 2 kilometers long and nearly 1 kilometre wide.

From the yard, the Havelock sub splits off and heads northeast to the city limit, but this line is of relatively low importance as it leads to Havelock (east of Peterborough) and goes no further. There is an interconnecting between the Belleville and Havelock subs northeast of the yard. The North Toronto and Belleville subs are two tracks west of the yard, and the Belleville and Havelock are a single track east of the yard.

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The Newmarket sub is GO Transit’s Barrie Line. It splits off from the Weston sub east of Lansdowne, and heads due north to the city limit. It has long been a single track shot with occasional passing tracks, but is eventually being widened and improved to two dedicated tracks to allow two-way all-day GO service. One major project was a grade separation with CN’s York Sub (formerly known as the Snider Diamond) completed in December 2006. In the future, another grade separation will occur at the CP North Toronto Sub. It crosses 15 roads, one expressway, one bus transitway, a pedestrian overpass, and three lost rivers (Lavender Creek, North Park Creek, Dufferin Creek).

There are big moves to be made in the junction area of Toronto, as this sub will be converted to an elevated guideway to grade-separate it from the North Toronto sub. This will open up a great deal of opportunity for public space under and parallel to it.

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The Bala sub was CN’s main route from downtown Toronto to Northern Ontario until a bypass was built in the 1960s. Within Toronto, the line no longer served CN’s purposes, which paved the way for GO to start service on the line in 1978, and Metrolinx purchasing that segment of the line in 2012. Despite that, the Richmond Hill line has the lowest ridership and fewest stations in the network. One significant factor is that the line winds through the Don Valley between Union and Lawrence Avenue; it makes for a beautiful ride, but poor ability to serve commuters. It’s also the main route for VIA Rail’s The Canadian, the super long tourist train from Toronto north and west to the Prairies and BC, which again is fitting given the valley sights.

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The Kingston sub is also steeped in history, acting as CN’s main route from downtown Toronto to, you guessed it, Kingston. From there, lines lead onto Ottawa and Montreal, making it part of the network that stitched the nation together. Like the Bala sub, the portion of the line in Toronto no longer served CN’s purposes after a bypass was built in the 1960s. And like the Oakville sub, it was part of GO’s inaugural service in 1967, and came under formal Metrolinx ownership in 2011.

The odd CN freight run still happens along here, but it is otherwise busy with GO Lakeshore East trains to/from Oshawa, and VIA Corridor trains to/from Ottawa and Montreal. Much like the Oakville subdivision, it is also busy with GO trains deadheading between Union Station and a maintenance facility.

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The Uxbridge sub branches off of the Kingston sub near Midland Avenue and St Clair Avenue East. After performing an S-bend, it goes straight north to the city limits.

Once part of the Toronto and Nipissing rail line built in the late 1860’s, it became part of Grand Trunk Railway and subsequently Canadian National at the turn of the century. With dwindling freight traffic, northern parts of the original Toronto and Nipissing line were eventually abandoned. GO Transit service along the Stouffville Line started in 1982, and the entire remaining line between Toronto and Uxbridge was purchased by the Ontario government in 2001. The section north of Stouffville is leased to the York-Durham Heritage Railway.

Much of the historical info is courtesy of the York-Durham Heritage Railway.

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The Canpa sub is a small connecting track between CN and CP subs, allowing for interconnections between the two freight companies. For some time, the Canpa was only notable for a) serving local business spurs, b) an intermodal yard north of North Queen Street, and c) deliveries of new GO coaches from Thunder Bay. But in 2012, the intermodal yard was shut down. In 2015, it was purchased by Metrolinx despite not being part of their current or future regular service. Rather, it was used as a detour for Lakeshore West trains for various work on the Oakville sub between Union and Mimico. It may serve this purpose again in the future.

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Strictly within the City of Toronto borders, the Halton and York subs are a small footnote in their physical footprints, sweeping through northwest Etobicoke and Rouge Park. However, as noted in the sections above, they are part of CN’s bypass of downtown Toronto that has allowed for the takeover and expansion of the Oakville, Weston, Bala and Kingston subs for GO service.

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Highways

Below is a brief listing of the highways within the City of Toronto.

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Crossings

This was originally a blog post published in December 2020.

Getting around Toronto on foot or by bike can be an ordeal. Some major barriers that often get overlooked are the city’s railways and highways. They are long, linear corridors cutting through the city, often dividing it by severing roads and communities. For railways, this is a legacy of building before the city became dense and built out. For highways, this is a legacy of autocentric planning.

In most cases, it created long uncrossable walls, literally or figuratively. Local roads provide many of the spots to overcome this, and there are a few bridges or tunnels dedicated to those on foot or using pedal power. However, there are parts of the city where it’s a very long way between these crossings.

It’s not a big deal in a car, and maybe less so on a bike, but it could add many minutes to a one-way trip on foot. This makes neighbourhoods less walkable and can hold them back from their fullest potential.

Many of these railways and highways are not going away anytime soon, and while the pandemic has fuelled much discussion about adequate walking and cycling space on the city’s streets, I feel like this aspect gets forgotten. There should be an effort by the city to build bridges and tunnels across these facilities, better connecting neighbourhoods and decreasing walk and cycle times.

Ranking

I tried to come up with a way to rank all 291 segments in a systematic way, giving weight to:

• Length (duh);¹ ²
• Land use;³ and,
• Feasibility to create a crossing.⁴

1. Anything that was less than 240 metres (5 minute walking distance from midpoint to midpoint) was discounted.
2. Average walking speed is often cited as 5 km/h, However, this may be considered quite fast. City of Toronto Standard Operating Procedures for signal timing cite a speed of 1.0 km/h for able-bodied pedestrians, and 0.8 km/h for areas where a significant number of pedestrians use assistive devices. The latter speed was used in the length scoring.
3. Scoring was ranked (in descending order): Residential or mid- to high-density office, parkland, commercial, industrial. This was a rough estimate based on satellite imagery, and where a mix of uses was present, the two dominant uses on both sides was recorded.
4. Feasibility was judged by whether public land (a park) or rights-of way (e.g. a road or road allowance) was available on either side of the corridor. Scoring was assigned to whether or not this was present on both, one or neither side.

The result is not perfect, of course. It doesn’t account for residential or employment density, socioeconomic needs, the road or trail network leading from the crossing, or the costs / length of a crossing itself. Not to mention that some may find it inappropriately weighted. But like anything on this site, it’s more of a conversation starter than a definitive conclusion. Anyone can download the data themselves, create their own formulation, and come to their own conclusions.

I have taken this exercise and featured 6 collections of segments (with 1 or more segments in the top 20), and listed 14 more individual segments to make a top 20.

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Featured Collectives

#1: West Canyon

It’s kind of funny to see this on here, because I identified the 401 / 427 interchange as an issue area long ago. It was #2 in my ranking of public golf courses that should be converted to parkland.

However, this analysis makes it clear that the issue extends further south. The segments of the 427 between Dixon Road and Rathburn Road are 1.85 kilometres on average, which can add up to 30-40 minutes to a trip. This can discourage active transportation in the adjacent neighbourhoods of Renforth-West Mall, Markham Wood, Eatonville, Eringate-Centennial, West Deane, Princess Gardens, Willowridge, Richview Park, Martin Grove Gardens and Richmond Gardens.

One notable opportunity towards the north end is to extend the Mimico Creek Trail throught the interchange, and perhaps convert the city-owned Royal Woodbine Golf Club to parkland one day. Further south, plenty of opportunity exists to establish crossings between The West Mall and The East Mall.

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#2: Highland Creek Wedge

From the far west side to the east side. This one didn’t stick out to me until I took a walk following Adam’s and Smalls Creeks in May 2018. Both the 401 and Highway 2A (a stub of the planned East Gardiner) act to box in the Highland Creek neighbourhood from adjacent Port Union and Rouge Hill. Though it only involves three segments, the two 401 segments are 1,280 and 1,720 metres long (21-27 and 29-36 minutes), and Highway 2A is 2,420 metres long (40-50 minutes).

There are easy opportunities to establish some crossings by joining the dead ends of Meadowvale Road (2A), Centennial Road (2A) and Morrish Road / Sudbury Hall Drive (401). There’s also parklands to link to, namely Dean Park and the corridors / headwaters of Adam’s and Smalls Creeks.

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#3: Lower Don Valley

This should not be surprising. Establishing connections across this segment of the Don River valley has been a big part of Toronto’s history. Many 19th century crossings existed and many bridges seen today are second or third replacements, but photogenic monuments from the 1921 old Don Mills Road bridge to the 1918 Prince Edward Viaduct live on.

East-west crossings of the valley east of downtown are now plentiful, with the 5 bridges from Eastern Avenue to the Riverdale Park Bridge averaging 325 metres. But north of here, the gaps are 1.15 km (19-24 minutes) on average. But this also exposes a major flaw in my methodology, in that it does not account for the lateral gap across a corridor. To say the lack of corridor crossings has an impact on neighbourhood walkability would be a huge stretch, as some parts of the ravine stretch 400 to 800 metres across, at minimum.

That said, I’ve left it up here because it does impact connections to and within the parkland. Though there are large feasibility, cost, ecological and natural hazard aspects to creating new connections into the Don Valley, it’s a conversation worth having. The pandemic should have made that clear.

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#4: North York Wall

I’ve known the 401 to be a wall in this area, but it wasn’t until doing this project that I realized how many significant barriers all clump together here. Overall, there are and one railway segment, and taking out , they average 1.83 kilometres long (30-38 minutes walking). This acts like a huge wall between over 20 neighbourhoods in the former cities of North York and York.

There are plenty of roadways to act as abutting links. In addition, some green pathways could be forged by restoring some lost (buried) creeks, including Meadow (Keele to Dufferin), Yellow and/or Mud (401/Allen interchange), Wilket (Yonge to Bayview), and Vyner (Bayview to Leslie). Converting another golf course to parkland (Don Valley, #1 in my ranking of public golf courses) would greatly improve the stretch between Avenue Road and Yonge Street.

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#7: Warden Greenway

Yet another seemingly no-brainer of a connection I identified in my many walks, and it’s great to see the numbers backing it up. These are two segments that are west of Warden Avenue, one being Canadian Pacific’s Belleville Subdivision and the other being the 401. Both are around 1,275 metres (21-27 minutes).

What’s notable about these two segments, and the reason they rank so high, is because there is one easy opportunity to link them via the Warden Hydro Corridor, which runs up through both of them. This is not just a typical hydro corridor however, as it appears to no longer be in use. It presents a huge reforestation and trail opportunity, and crossing these corridor segments could be part of it. It has even been proposed to re-align Taylor Massey Creek through this corridor to improve its health.

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#8: East Danforth – Beaches

This one flew under the radar for me. I had noticed the parallel alleys and the lack of grade-separated connections over the cross streets, but not the significance of the distances between. This railway corridor is part of GO Transit’s Lakeshore East Line, and VIA Rail’s route between Toronto and Ottawa/Montreal. The four segments in question are between Coxwell and Warden Avenues. The average distance between streets here is just over 1 kilometre, or 18-22 minutes.

There are a few adjacent dead ends or parallel roadways to make a connection. However, one significant opportunity is the Small’s Creek Ravine, which is one of a couple small East York creeks that have not been buried yet. Parkland flanks both sides, separated by the railway berm. However, recent Metrolinx expansion work has failed to establish this as a bridge that it should be.

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The Rest of the Top 20

Stats and Mapping

	Railways	Highways
Length	194 km	130 km
Area	587 ha	1,582 ha
Average Width	30 m	122 m

• There were a total of 307 “segments” analyzed. 187 were railways, 97 were freeways, and 20 were combined/parallel
• The median distance between crossings was about 800 metres. This was larger for highways (969 metres highway vs. 745 metres for railways).

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