St. Clair West station

St. Clair West
Location	370 St. Clair Avenue West Toronto, Ontario Canada
Coordinates	43°41′02″N 79°24′54″W / 43.683888°N 79.415113°W / 43.683888; -79.415113Coordinates: 43°41′02″N 79°24′54″W / 43.683888°N 79.415113°W / 43.683888; -79.415113
Platforms	side platforms
Tracks	2
Connections	TTC buses and Streetcars  7  Bathurst  33  Forest Hill  90  Vaughan  126  Christie  307   Bathurst  312   St. Clair-Junction  512  St Clair
Construction
Structure type	underground
Disabled access	Yes
Architect	TTC in house architects[1]
History
Opened	January 28, 1978
Traffic
Passengers (2015[2])	28,110
Services
Preceding station   TTC   Following station Eglinton West toward Sheppard West Yonge–University Dupont toward Finch Bathurst Street toward Gunns Loop 512 St. Clair Tweedsmuir Avenue toward St. Clair

St. Clair West is a subway station on the Yonge–University line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It spans the block north of St. Clair Avenue West to Heath Street, between Bathurst Street and Tweedsmuir Avenue. The station serves the local communities of Forest Hill South, Humewood, Bracondale Hill and Casa Loma.

Although the station is not wheelchair-accessible, there is an elevator at the Heath Street exit. Work is underway to make the station wheelchair-accessible by 2017. This work will include three elevators to access street, bus and streetcar level, concourse, and northbound/southbound platforms, automatic sliding doors and an accessible fare gate.^[3] Wi-Fi service is available at this station. ^[4]

As of January 2017, the elevators from bus/streetcar to subway platform are now completed and began in service but an elevator from bus/streetcar to street level is still under construction.

History

This station was opened in 1978, as part of the subway line extension from St. George Station to Wilson Station. Its south end was then in the City of Toronto while its north end was in the Borough of York.

The sports field of St. Michael's College School is directly above the length of the station and a Loblaws supermarket is located over the entrance on the north side of St. Clair Avenue.

The 1995 Russell Hill subway incident occurred on August 11, 1995, between this station and Dupont Station to the south on the southbound line. The impact site was closer to Dupont Station than to St. Clair West Station.

Architecture and art

St. Clair West, designed by the TTC's in-house architects,^[5] is a colourful station featuring a wide variety of interior finishes such as ceramic tiles, brick and sculptural concrete surfaces. Backlit orange panels and an abstract tile pattern resembling a barcode at platform level distinguish the station from others in the system. The TTC built its first underground streetcar loop at this station circling an exceptionally spacious waiting area for connections to surface routes. Buskers often take advantage of the acoustics caused by the station's open architecture. Wilson is the one other station on the line which, due to its complexity, the TTC chose to design themselves.^[5]

The abstract enamel mural Tempo by Gordon Rayner^[6] is on the mezzanine-level bridge crossing the tracks.

The station has a second artwork, The Commuters by Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, installed during the 2016/17 station renovations.^[7] The artwork consists of many bronze snails of about 50-centimetres in size clinging to the walls of a staircase leading from the bridge over the subway tracks to the streetcar/bus platform. The work was inspired by Pierre Berton’s book for children: The Secret World of Og.^[8]

Detail of Tempo by Gordon Rayner

The Commuters snails climbing the walls

Subway infrastructure in the vicinity

South of the station, the subway tunnel cuts southeast through the Nordheimer Ravine, where the emergency exit used in the Russell Hill accident is located,^[9] then continues in a bored tunnel south beneath Spadina Road and under Casa Loma to Dupont Station.

Also constructed by cut-and-cover north of the station, the tunnel runs northwest through the Cedarvale Ravine to Eglinton West Station.

Connections

These routes can be boarded in the underground loop:^[10]

To connect to these bus routes, passengers can walk outside the station to Bathurst Street and use a valid paper transfer:^[11]

References

External links

Media related to St. Clair West Station at Wikimedia Commons

• St. Clair West Station at the Toronto Transit Commission