Royal York is a subway station on

Line 2 Bloor–Danforth Line 2 Bloor–Danforth is a subway line in the Toronto subway system, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It has 31 stations and is in length. It opened on February 26, 1966, and extensions at both ends were completed in 1968 a ...

of the

Toronto subway The Toronto subway is a rapid transit system serving Toronto and the neighbouring city of Vaughan in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is a multimodal transport, multimodal rail network consisting of three Pa ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Ontario, Canada. It is located just north of

Bloor Street West Bloor Street is a major east–west residential and commercial thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River (Ontario), Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it e ...

on the east side of

Royal York Road Royal York Road, historically known as Church Street or New Church Street, is a north-south arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a concession road, 5 concessions (10 km) west of Yonge Street, and runs through many residential ne ...

. Wi-Fi service is available at this station.

History

The station was opened in 1968 in what was then the Borough of

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

. The original plan for the Bloor-Danforth extension to Islington had different stations than what was eventually built. The stations were to be at "Montgomery" and "Prince Edward", instead of Islington and Royal York. This was probably because these two streets were the ends of the Kingsway shopping district. However, it was decided to include only one station in the Kingsway, at Royal York. Until 1973 the buses and the subway trains serving the station were in separate fare zones and so the turnstiles and collector booths were on the mezzanine level between the bus bays and the subway platforms. When the zones were abolished, they were moved to just inside the street entrance, bringing the buses inside the station's fare-paid area. A local "zone 2" bus service continued to run along Bloor Street west of Jane, paralleling the "zone 1" subway, from the station's opening through the zone abolishment in 1973, and continued to run even after the bus and subway were in the same zone. The success of the bus service may be attributed to the distances between subway stops in Etobicoke; Royal York is over 1 km west of Old Mill, and Islington is over 1 km west of Royal York. (By comparison, stops at Montgomery, Prince Edward and Old Mill would all be within 1 km of each other, as are all stops on the Bloor-Danforth from Old Mill through Main Street, an east-west corridor served almost entirely by the subway line.) The local bus service was discontinued in 1984, although the long station spacing remains; only at night are buses still seen along this stretch. Construction began in mid-2017 to make the station fully accessible, including the addition of three elevators and accessible fare gates. On December 16, 2019, the station became accessible with the completion of the elevator construction.

Nearby landmarks

Nearby landmarks include Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church in

the Kingsway Kingsway or King's Way may refer to: Places Australia *Kingsway, Glen Waverley, a shopping strip in Melbourne, Victoria Canada *Kingsway (Edmonton), a road in Edmonton, Alberta (aka Kingsway Avenue) *Kingsway (Vancouver), a road in Vancouver, Br ...

and

Mimico Creek Mimico Creek is a stream that flows through Brampton, Mississauga and Toronto in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. It is long, is in the Great Lakes Basin, and is a tributary of Lake Ontario. The creek's name is derived from the comm ...

Surface connections

TTC routes serving the station include:

References

External links

{{TTC lines and stations Line 2 Bloor–Danforth stations Railway stations in Canada opened in 1968 Transport in Etobicoke Toronto subway stations located underground