SPADINA: 6.17 miles of super rapid transit

BACK TRACK: 39 years ago …

Official Opening – Spadina Subway (St George to Wilson)

The dust has finally settled on the Spadina Subway project. Now, our people can get down to the day-to-day job of operating the new line. After almost four years of intensive effort (construction started on May 3, 1974), “Spadina” was officially opened on Jan. 27 (St George to Wilson).

Following Mr. Davis’s (Premier Bill Davis) remarks at the opening ceremonies, TTC Chairman G. Gordon Hurlburt noted that “the opening of the Spadina Line expands Metro’s rapid transit network to 33 miles (53.1 kilometres), opening up the northwest sector of Metro and the Spadina corridor to mass transit.” He pointed out that while the approved budget cost of the project was $220 million, “the final figures are closer to $215 million.”

The Chairman also acknowledged the work of the contractors, suppliers, TTC workmen and staff “as they pushed to have this new subway line opened for the public. Their work has been doubly difficult during these winter months. It’s been tough, demanding, arduous work.”

Providing a backdrop for the ceremonies, in the spacious upper mezzanine level at St Clair West Station, were three streetcars spanning 56 years of TTC operation: the brand new CLRV 4002; PCC 4527, (built in 1951); and a Witt (circa 1922).

Further subway extensions are two years down the pike, when the Kennedy and Kipling legs to the Bloor-Danforth line are completed.

From the February 1978 Coupler, Vol. 53, No. 2