Case in point: Who among us has not declared, “What a farce!” while transferring at Bloor-Yonge, or enduring the madness of St. George? The chaotic crowds, the squeeze of a couple thousand passengers milling in different directions—you don’t need a Master’s degree in Planning to conclude that these two choke-points frequently operate beyond their desired capacity.
Yet long before the Bloor-Danforth and University routes were ever constructed, transportation engineering luminary Norman D. Wilson foresaw the overcrowding mess. What’s more, he presciently designed a solution—the infrastructure for which the TTC actually built and which still exists, but which we only partially use today.
Wilson’s controversial approach was known as interlining, and Bay Lower—the not-so-‘secret’ platform beneath Bay—holds the key to understanding how his thwarted scheme was supposed to work.
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| The cliché Bay Lower platform photograph that every visitor takes: also the backdrop for a plethora of movies and television shows. |
The commemorative plaque hanging in the mezzanine at St. George alludes to Wilson’s intention: it proudly announces the opening of the “University Section of the Bloor-Danforth-University Subway”. In Wilson’s startling vision of commuting flexibility*, there was no need to change trains when travelling between the suburbs and downtown: every station was accessible from every other station, with a single ride—as long as you boarded the correct train. An intricate wye interchange track structure would link Bay, Museum, and St. George allowing this integration to happen.
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| Feb. 1966 TTC pocket map depicting the Integrated Subway Service trial. Bay station was a key nexus point, an inverted mirror of St. George. |
Yet Bay Lower, located directly beneath the existing Bay platform, was almost never built in the first place. In early 1960, with the start of construction for the Bloor-Danforth subway looming, TTC staff (led by W.E.P. Duncan, General Manager: Subway Construction, and J.C. Inglis, Operations General Manager) argued forcefully against interlining. They were supported by influential Metro Toronto Planning Board consultant Hans Blumenfeld (who prepared the 1959 Metro Official Plan, and who later pushed forward the Spadina line alignment), and Metro Planning Commissioner Murray Jones. The financial expense of constructing the eastern leg of the wye structure (connecting Bay with Museum), and the additional cost burden of the extra subway cars and motor-upgrades required to run an integrated system was too high, they argued, and the eastern part of the wye could be dropped from the design. Consequently Bay (at the time called ‘Bellair’ in planning documents) could be simplified into a single-deck station. Adios Bay Lower!
The anti-interlining faction also predicted serious physical operational problems, and furthermore wanted to potentially connect a future Spadina line to the University line via St. George—an unworkable configuration with interlining in place (Wilson meanwhile, favoured a Christie connection). On May 25, 1960 the five-man TTC Board voted not to construct the easterly leg of the wye (this was despite the backing for the full wye of two of the commissioners, Allan Lamport and Ford Brand).
An exasperated Wilson resigned his position as a member of the TTC’s Board of Engineering Consultants. Then the obstreperous Frederick Gardiner (Chairman of the Metro Council) stepped in, and convened a June 10 meeting with Mssrs. Duncan and Wilson to knock heads and discuss the matter again.
‘Big Daddy’ Gardiner proceeded to override the TTC's objections; his June 28, 1960 report to the Executive Committee of Metropolitan Toronto Council recommended the completion of the contentious and costly wye track structure, per the original September 5, 1958 Order No. PFE 287-38 of the OMB for an ‘integrated’ subway. Two days later the Commission voted to resume work on the interchange, and Bay Lower was saved from the chopping block.
From the day after the official opening of Bay on February 25, 1966, through to September 3, 1966, trains running from the termini at Keele and Woodbine alternated between: running crosstown along the Bloor-Danforth route; and looping through downtown to wind up at Eglinton (the rectangular ceiling ‘Next Train’ destination flip signs found in many stations are a quaint legacy of this.) Imagine a world where you could skip the transfer at Bloor-Yonge...
The 2nd platform at Bay, officially known as Bay Lower (though often casually referenced as ‘Lower Bay’), allowed passengers to access trains going to or from Museum.
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| Station identification tiling at Bay Lower: same as upstairs, just dirtier. |
Unfortunately, various intractable issues arose from the setup. It produced confusion for passengers who wanted to travel east from Bay station, as a Woodbine-bound train might arrive on either the upper or lower levels (a similar conundrum existed at St. George, for people heading west). This induced rushing behaviours by passengers who would wait mid-stairwell for the next train.
Meanwhile, the TTC’s operational staff lacked confidence that integrated service could succeed. They felt it was too finicky to handle the inevitable hiccups and snags of real-time operations. Delays around the evening rush hour were common; a single stalled train could easily jam up the entire network. On the labour front, 25% of subway crews asked to be transferred as the rigid integrated schedule gave no time for washroom breaks. Lastly, on the financial end, separate line operations would be cheaper, as service on the Bloor line could be reduced to match its lower passenger traffic.
After the six month interlining trial, the TTC switched on September 4, 1966 to the simpler segregated lines with which we are familiar—ostensibly for another six month trial to gather contrasting data. That 2nd experiment never really ended: Citing a ridership origin-destination survey (that some suggest was deliberately interpreted to produce a particular outcome), the TTC ditched Bay Lower for general revenue service and stuck with segregated lines. The stairwells leading down to the lower platform were closed off to the public and tiled over (and St. George became the terminal again for the University line).
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| Cross-corridor between platform sides at Bay Lower |
Bay Lower nevertheless remained an active, powered facility, used for: staff and emergency services training; shuttling trains between the now-separate lines; maintenance runs; and installations for test equipment and station finishes. The platform has witnessed frequent rental for Hollywood film shoots, music videos, and TV commercials. Whenever you catch a subway scene in the movies, take a closer look: you might be seeing Bay Lower!
Bay Lower sports the same tiling colour plan as the upper level, and its station identification tiling is the same. Although not technically a separate station from Bay, Bay Lower can be regarded as a University-line platform—a mirror of St. George (except at the latter, the University-line platform is on the upper level).
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| The platform at Bay Lower is distinguished by its high ceilings. Shown here, the west end ‘hall’. |
The failure of Wilson’s interlining solution (whether due to design, implementation, politics, or a sour mixture of all three) had lasting ramifications that were central to the clumsy manner in which our city’s rapid transit network subsequently developed. Yet like heads of the Lernaean Hydra, proposals to re-implement interlining (and make use of Bay Lower) have periodically sprung forth anew. In the early 1970s, the torrid battle over the Spadina extension alignment partially hinged over the wye and its proper use. The prominent activist Jane Jacobs argued (to no avail) that the misrouting and connection of the Spadina line with the University segment was a strategic error that would ring the death knell for Wilson’s dream:
We should be completely clear in our understanding that a straight-through run from Downsview down the University line is at the price of never being able to achieve a straight-through downtown run from either the east or the west of the Bloor line. - Jacobs, in The Globe and Mail, February 1, 1972; also in her paper with Nadine and David Nowlan, The Downsview Subway Alignment.Indeed, the far-flung location—and existence!—of the Lowther platform of Spadina station can be somewhat understood as the TTC’s desire to maintain flexibility for an interlining revival, in case it was decided to run the Spadina line as an independent route (the Lowther station would have been the southern terminal station). In the mid-1990s, interlining was proposed for special trains departing from Kennedy and Kipling; the idea was later quietly shelved. Lastly, 2014 saw an independent engineer’s proposal (never taken seriously by the TTC), to reactivate Bay Lower during rush hour, with northbound University trains short turning at Bay, in order to reduce headways and to relieve congestion south of Bloor.
In recent years, the general public has eagerly taken advantage of any opportunity to see Bay Lower. The TTC diverted trains through Bay Lower to Museum during structural repairs to the main tunnel roof, from February 24 to March 11, 2007, and during the 2010 Victoria Day long weekend, and again May 14-15, 2011 during track switch replacement. The platform has also been occasionally accessible during Doors Open, Nuit Blanche and a few private events. If you’re heading west from Bloor-Yonge on a T1 train, ride the first car and look through the front window to the left to catch a glimpse of this now-restricted facility.
In hindsight, Jacob’s lament has proven correct: the melding of the University-Spadina route renders interlining too complicated logistically, to be implemented on anything other than an exceptional basis. Bay Lower serves as a poignant, vestigial reminder of ‘what might have been’—something to consider the next time you’re caught in the crowd at Bloor-Yonge.
* see Wilson’s Report to the Toronto Transit Commission on Bloor-University rapid transit subway, Jan. 1957, City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 2221, File 12. There is also a copy at the Toronto Reference Library. A fascinating historical document!
Photo Gallery
Thanks to Spacing magazine and TTC spokesperson Brad Ross, I was able to photograph Bay Lower on the evening of November 15, 2015. Tour the platform with me, and view captioned historical images from its past:
Transfer:
Bay Lower isn’t really a discrete station from Bay, nor does it have its own transfer machine, so I didn’t take a transfer. This post is out of order from my actual chronology of visits, but in my opinion pairing Bay Lower with its upstairs sibling is not unreasonable.
More about Bay Lower
Map | Wikipedia: Bay LowerBonus links: many articles have been written online regarding Bay Lower and the interlining failure; here are the informative ones:
- Subway interlining - Jamie Bradburn
- The Truth Behind the Interlining Trial & Toronto’s Lost Subway Stations (Lower Bay) - James Bow
- Wye Didn’t Subway Integration Work? A Look Back at Subway Operations - Steve Munro
- That time the subway went from anywhere to anyplace - Chris Bateman
There are two key primary source documents concerning interlining that I recommend examining: Wilson’s 1957 report as mentioned above, and the TTC’s 1963 Report on integrated or separate operation of Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University subway routes, which chronicles staff opposition to interlining, Wilson’s response, Brand and Lamport’s minority support, and Metro Council’s ultimate decision to build the wye, as pushed through by Frederick Gardiner. I have also put a number of media articles from the period in the photo gallery, to give context for the back-and-forth debate over the wye.
My historical discussion skips entirely the huge preceding (and overlapping) battle concerning the (TTC-preferred) University alignment versus the ‘Big U’ proposed by Metro planners. I also largely elide the also overlapping, and subsequent struggle over the Spadina line alignment. These tussles involved many of the same parties, and the simplification here should be acknowledged. The short summary is, ‘it was complicated’. The best attempt at the history is probably Edward Levy’s Rapid Transit in Toronto: A Century of Plans, Projects, Politics and Paralysis.
Bonus videos:
Behind the Scenes at Bay & Queen Stations (TTC)
See also Byford doing essentially the same spiel 3 years later. Gosh, don’t we all wish he was still at the helm!
A Trip Through Lower Bay Station (Torontoist)
See also this.
My next stop: Broadview
Previous station: Bay
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