Sunnyside Bus Terminal was an
interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...
bus station
A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is l ...
located in
Sunnyside in the west end of Toronto at the foot of
Roncesvalles Avenue
Roncesvalles Avenue is a north–south minor arterial street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It begins at the intersection of Queen Street West, King Street West and the Queensway running north to Dundas Street West. At its southern starting point ...
and its intersection with
King Street and
Queen Street West
Queen Street is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east-w ...
(and later
The Queensway
The Queensway (or Queensway) is a major street in the municipalities of Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is a western continuation of Queen Street, after it crosses Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in Toronto. The Queensway is ...
) in
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 was across from
Sunnyside Amusement Park
Sunnyside Amusement Park (also known as Sunnyside Beach Park) was a popular amusement park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that ran from 1922 to 1955, demolished in 1955 to facilitate the building of the Metro Toronto Gardiner Expressway project. It w ...
and beside the
Roncesvalles Carhouse
The Roncesvalles Carhouse is a storage and maintenance facility for the streetcar network of the Toronto Transit Commission. Located at the northwest corner of The Queensway and Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, west of its downtown core, ...
.
The station was owned and operated by
Gray Coach
Gray Coach was a Canadian inter-city bus line based in Toronto, Ontario, from 1927 to 1992. It was founded and initially owned by the Toronto Transportation Commission, until sold to Stagecoach in 1990. In 1992 the business was sold to Greyhoun ...
bus lines, a subsidiary of the
Toronto Transit Commission
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and largest ...
, that operated interurban bus routes connecting Toronto with outlying areas throughout southern Ontario. No route actually began or ended at the terminal, which was used as a rest stop and drop off and pick up point by Gray Coach and
Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
routes heading west from Toronto to locations such as
London, Ontario
London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...
,
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...
,
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 88,071 at the 2016 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census M ...
, or
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
. The terminal was also a point of departure for shuttle buses to various racetracks, such as
Fort Erie
Fort Erie is a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is directly across the river from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
Fort Erie is one of Ni ...
,
Long Branch or
Woodbine. The terminal declined in usage following the creation of
GO Transit
GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...
in 1967, particularly after GO stopped contracting several of its routes to Gray Coach in the 1980s.
The station was opened in 1936, on what was then the western edge of Toronto, and was constructed in an
art deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style, including a steel
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...
. The station had a ticket booth, restrooms, a waiting room, and, at its opening, the B&G Coffee Shop and Milk Bar. The coffee shop was operated by a succession of tenants throughout the station's existence and later housed the TEOEL Travel Bureau. The Edgewater Hotel was built next to the bus station on the north-west corner of the intersection in the 1930s, opening in 1939. Edgewater is now a
Howard Johnson motel.
![Sunnyside Coach Terminal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Sunnyside_Coach_Terminal.jpg)
The station was also served by both the
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
and
Queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
streetcars. Until its closure in 1967, the
Sunnyside railway station across the street provided commuters with a connection to the
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN i ...
.
GO Transit
GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...
was created in 1967 and took over CN's Toronto to Hamilton route replacing it with the
Lakeshore West line
Lakeshore West is one of the seven train lines of the GO Transit system in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Union Station in Toronto to Hamilton, with occasional trips extending to St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.
Hi ...
which bypassed Sunnyside rail station thus reducing the use of Sunnyside as an intermodal transfer point between rail and coach routes. The rail station closed entirely in 1971 and was demolished in 1973.
Sunnyside Bus Terminal did not have any
bus bay
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
s. Buses serving the station stopped at the curb, on Queen Street (later known as the Queensway), outside the station, beside the Roncesvalles Carhouse.
Gray Coach was sold in 1990 to
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
and in 1992 was acquired by Greyhound Canada. The Sunnyside Bus Terminal was closed around the same time. The building still stands and retains its steel canopy. Still owned by the Toronto Transit Commission, the building was rented out as a donut shop for several years after Gray Coach's closure before becoming a
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
.
See also
*
Toronto Coach Terminal
The Toronto Coach Terminal is a decommissioned bus station for intercity bus services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was the central intercity bus station in Toronto until mid-2021, when it was replaced by the Union Station Bus Termin ...
, also built for and originally operated by Gray Coach in 1931.
References
{{TTC
Bus stations in Ontario
Transport in Toronto
Art Deco architecture in Canada
Buildings and structures in Toronto
Transport infrastructure completed in 1936
1936 establishments in Ontario
1991 disestablishments in Ontario
Former bus stations
Toronto Transit Commission