Yorkdale (TTC)

Yorkdale
File:YorkdaleTTC.JPG
Location	Yorkdale Road at Yorkdale Service Road, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto, Ontario Canada
Coordinates
Platforms	centre platform
Tracks	2
Connections	TTC buses YRT buses Yorkdale Bus Terminal
Construction
Structure type	at grade
Parking	1144 spaces, closed January 2014
Architect	Arthur Erickson
History
Opened	28 January 1978
Traffic
Passengers (2013)	25,500
Services
Preceding station   TTC   Following station Wilson toward Downsview Yonge–University Lawrence West toward Finch

File:Yorkdale TTC Escalators.jpg

Escalators to the train platform level from the southerly Ranee Avenue entrance

Yorkdale is a station on the Yonge–University line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the median of the William R. Allen Road just south of Highway 401. It opened in 1978 in what was then the Borough of North York, and is named for the nearby Yorkdale Shopping Centre to which it connects by an enclosed walkway.

Connections to GO Transit commuter and Greyhound intercity buses are available at Yorkdale Bus Terminal, immediately west of the station.

Entrances

• Yorkdale Mall west entrance, next to Yorkdale Bus Terminal
• Ranee and Allen Road south entrance
• Onramp to Highway 401 and Allen Road

Architecture and art

Yorkdale was designed by Arthur Erickson. The station is above ground, and also above street level. It has two tracks: northbound and southbound. A dramatic vaulted glass roof spans the length of the single centre platform. It terminates symmetrically at escalators and stairs at both ends of the platform, creating the appearance of a glass dome. The interior walls of the station at platform level are unfinished concrete, but artistically cast, and curve over the tracks to form the ceiling. The shape of the windows on these walls recalls the oval windows of subway trains. On the exterior, these concrete walls are clad with stainless steel.

Handrails on stairs leading to the platform are backlit. Platform shelters are unique to the station, designed in the oval shape which dominates many features in the station, with large windows. Like the centre pillars which hold X-shaped structural supports—distinctive in Toronto's rapid transit system to the station—they are clad in unpainted metal panels.

Yorkdale station won a Governor General's Award for Architecture in 1982, and is listed as a heritage structure in Toronto's inventory of heritage properties.

The station's glass roof originally featured an artwork by Michael Hayden—also responsible for the Sky's the Limit installation at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport—called Arc en ciel (French for "rainbow"). This piece consisted of a large number of mercury-vapor lamps painted in various colours that would light in a pattern, running along the station in the appropriate direction whenever a train went through. In the mid-1990s, it stopped working because of damaged transformers caused by water leakage. Each transformer would have cost just $28 to repair at the time; however, because the TTC had not budgeted for its continued maintenance, it was removed at the artist's request.

At a TTC meeting in September 2010, a deal was made for Oxford Properties, owner of Yorkdale Mall which connects to the station, to pay for the restoration of the installation. The plan calls for the rebuilt piece to use LED lights, allowing for a broader range and customization of colours and patterns. Hayden requested that a maintenance contract be included, and for the piece installed by a Toronto-based company. The cost of such a reinstallation is not known (the original installation cost $100,000).

Subway infrastructure in the vicinity

South of Yorkdale station, Allen Road descends into a shallow open cut below the surrounding ground level, and the subway descends with it until Eglinton West Station. North of Yorkdale the tracks remain elevated and cross Highway 401 to Wilson Station.

The late 2013 the entrance at Ranee Avenue is being altered with the south and north driveways being removed and curb being added to run parallel with the support pillars. In future bus will no longer drop passengers off directly at the doors. This project is in conjunction with resurfacing of Ranee to remove asbestos and the future construction of residential buildings along Allen Road on the south side of Ranee.

In January 2014, the parking structure connected to the subway, which can accommodate 1144 cars, will be demolished for mall expansion and future parking structure will replace it in fall of 2015.

Surface connections

Toronto Transit Commission

Main article: List of Toronto Transit Commission bus routes

A transfer is required to connect between the subway and surface bus routes.

• 47B Lansdowne to Queen via Bridgeland and Caledonia

47C to Queen via Orfus and Caledonia

• 109B Ranee northbound to Neptune Drive and southbound to southbound to Eglinton West via Marlee Avenue and Flemington Road

York Region Transit

• 360 Vaughan Express YRT to Vaughan Mills Terminal (north entrance at Yorkdale Road)

Yorkdale in the movies

Yorkdale station was used as the Transit Hub station in the film The Last Chase (1980) because of its futuristic look. It also appears in the movie, Scanners (1981).

External links

• Yorkdale Station at the Toronto Transit Commission