By Meg Campbell

The CRTC announced today that 437 will be Toronto’s new area code, joining its more-established peers, 647 and 416. The code will be added to new Toronto-area phone numbers starting on March 25, 2013, and another, 387, will be kept on deck for “subsequent relief.” The CRTC’s decision was spurred by an assessment from the Canadian Numbering Administrator, which found that, using just the 416 and 647 area codes, Toronto would likely run out of phone numbers by July 2015; more recent data suggested that could happen as soon as May 2014. For 647, this must be like graduating to your second year of high school, looking at a fresh-faced area code setting up its locker next to yours and knowing you finally have someone to pull rank on.