cityscape
Urban Toronto: Pioneer Village Station Shaping Up Nicely
Scheduled to open in 2016, the new station just off Steeles Avenue West is part of the TTC's Spadina Subway Extension.
The cladding on Pioneer Village Station’s power substation. Photo courtesy of Urban Toronto.
Construction is continuing on the Toronto Transit Commission’s Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, and today we take a look at the fourth of the six new stations on the extended Spadina subway line: Pioneer Village Station. The station is situated on Steeles Avenue West east of Jane Street at Northwest Gate on the York University campus, straddling the border between the cities of Toronto and Vaughan.
The main entrance will be situated in Vaughan, across Steeles Avenue from York Stadium. North of the main entrance, in the hydro corridor, there will be a YRT bus terminal and a massive, 1,850-space commuter parking lot, providing a convenient link for those travelling between the Toronto and York Region.
South of Steeles and just east of York Stadium will be a TTC bus terminal with an automatic entrance integrated into the south end, and another automatic entrance in a separate building off Northwest Gate.
The station was originally to be called Steeles West, but in 2012 it was renamed Black Creek Pioneer Village Station after the heritage attraction located about 800 metres to the west. It is expected that the proximity of the station to the attraction will raise its profile and boost attendance.
In 2013, the name was chopped further to just Pioneer Village, after it was found that the full name did not work well with the planned design element for the entrance buildings, which will feature the station name wrapped around the roofs.
A visit to Pioneer Village Station at the moment reveals how construction is progressing, with a few of the buildings already taking shape. The skeletal frame for the automatic entrance by Northwest Gate looks to be nearly complete. To the east of the Northwest Gate entrance lies the construction site for the bus terminal, still in its beginning stages.
Head over to UrbanToronto.ca to learn more about the project.