The Toronto Coach Terminal is a decommissioned

bus station A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

for

intercity bus service An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public t ...

s in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Ontario, Canada. The building was the central intercity bus station in Toronto until mid-2021, when it was replaced by the Union Station Bus Terminal. It is located at 610

Bay Street Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District, Toronto, Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Economy of Canada, Canada's financial services indust ...

, in the city's

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. Opened in 1931 as the Gray Coach Terminal, the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style structure was the main hub for Gray Coach, an interurban coach service then owned by the

Toronto Transportation Commission Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC) was the public transit operator in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, beginning in 1921. It operated buses, streetcars and the island ferries. The system was renamed the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 1954. H ...

(later renamed the

Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the primary public transport agency in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, operating the majority of the city's transit bus, bus and rail services. It is the oldest and largest of the urban transit service providers ...

) (TTC). It replaced an earlier open air depot, the Union Coach Terminal.

History

In 1927, the TTC signed a contract with Trinity College leasing a parcel of land at Bay and Edward Streets for an open air coach terminal. GClayout

After purchasing the Bay/Edward property, construction on a permanent terminal building began in July 1931. The building officially opened on December 19, 1931 as the Toronto Motor Coach Terminal, to serve as the terminal hub for the

's (TTC) Gray Coach intercity bus service, replacing an open air terminal that had operated at the same location. Known as the Gray Coach Terminal until 1990, the

building is a two-storey historic building with

Travertine Travertine ( ) is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and rusty varieties. It is formed by a process ...

limestone. Designed by architect Charles B. Dolphin it was originally built with five platforms (four departure and one arrival platform) and later expanded to nine bus platforms. Its final form consisted of seven bus platforms, accommodating two numbered bus bays each. The building has been listed in the

City of Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

's heritage buildings register since May 19, 1987. An annex, the Elizabeth Street Terminal located at 130 Elizabeth Street, is located to the west of the main terminal. It was originally built in 1968 and was used for bus charters and sightseeing buses and, beginning in 1970, it was a hub for

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 mil ...

bus arrivals and departures. Five diagonal bus bays on its south side were used for departures and the north side of the building opening onto a covered two-lane driveway acting as an unloading area and space for bus layovers and parking. In 1990, the Elizabeth Street Terminal also began handling arrivals for the main terminal's bus lines with departures leaving from the main coach terminal across the street, which is rather unusual for bus terminals or other passenger transportation infrastructure."Battered old Bay St. bus terminal restored to past glory after facelift", by Jim Byers, ''Toronto Star'', 11 Dec 1990: A1. Through the 1990s, GO Transit bus services gradually relocated to Toronto Union Station, first to seven curb-side bus stops along Front Street in front of the railway station, and then to the original Union Station Bus Terminal on Front Street, across Bay Street from the rail terminal. GO's Toronto to Hamilton Express bus route was the last to use the Elizabeth Street Terminal until Labour Day weekend of 2002 when it moved to the original Union Station Bus Terminal on Front Street. After the departure of GO Transit, the Elizabeth Street terminal only handled arrivals for the remaining bus lines. The bus bays on the south side of the building were decommissioned and the area converted into a Green P paid parking lot. The waiting area and newsstand in the Elizabeth Street Terminal were closed in 2010 with only the bus platform on the north of the building remaining open to the public for bus arrivals. Due to limited space, buses would park overnight along Edward Street and Chestnut Street. A renovation of the main terminal building occurred in 1990, tripled the main terminal's floor space to 2,500 square metres, creating more seating for waiting passengers (250 seats rather than 100). This was done by demolishing the interior wall separating the main building from the bus bays and replacing it with a glass wall several metres to the west, reducing the space allotted for bus bays. The bus shed is configured into seven lanes, with room for two buses in each lane. The 40-seat

lunch counter A lunch counter or luncheonette is a small restaurant, similar to a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server serves food from the opposite side of the counter, where the kitchen or food preparation area ...

-style restaurant which had been on the main floor was removed and replaced by an upstairs restaurant and bar seating 150, with railings overlooking main floor enclosed with glass. The restaurant was unable to attract enough passengers to sustain itself and the vendor instead was given space to run a snack bar on the main floor and a passenger lounge and bar in the basement, leaving the upstairs area to be converted to office space. An enclosed pedestrian walkway, with lockers lining the south wall, was built on the south side of the bus shed connecting the main terminal building with Elizabeth Street allowing passengers to walk from the main building to Elizabeth Street, and then cross the street to the Elizabeth terminal, without having to walk through the bus bays in the main terminal. The dispatch office is located along the west wall of the terminal, overlooking the bus bays. As part of the renovation, a tunnel was built under Bay Street at the cost of CA$4 million connecting the main terminal to the Atrium on Bay and, through it, to Dundas subway station as well as to the PATH network. A newspaper stand was located in the basement along with, over various years, a shoeshine stand (in earlier decades), a travellers' lounge called Kramden's Kafe (after it moved from its original location as the upstairs restaurant) serving snacks and alcohol and equipped with a

pool table A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, pool, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that ...

, and finally a bakery. In 2012, the coach terminal's board proposed that a new facility be built at the terminal's current location combining the original terminal and the Elizabeth Street annex into one structure that could fit double the current number of bus bays. However, in September 2014

Metrolinx Metrolinx is a transportation agency in Ontario, Canada. It is a Crown agency that manages and integrates road and public transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). It was created as the Greater Toronto Transportation Au ...

announced plans to relocate its GO Transit Union Station Bus Terminal to a new terminal in the then under-construction

CIBC Square CIBC Square (known during early stages of development as Bay Park Centre) is an office complex in the South Core neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The complex, located on Bay Street south of Front Street, is a joint development between ...

office development located at 81 Bay Street and move the bus lines that serviced the coach terminal there. This new terminal opened in December 2020. TorontoCoachTerminal

Greyhound Canada suspended service in May 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, and announced on May 13, 2021, that they were permanently ending Canadian operations. Coach Canada/ Megabus relocated to the new Union Station Bus Terminal, effective June 8, 2021. Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services, the last remaining bus line that used the Toronto Coach Terminal, relocated to Union Station effective July 4, 2021, bringing the Toronto Coach Terminal's role as a bus depot to a close after almost 90 years of service.

Redevelopment

On October 29, 2019,

Toronto City Council Toronto City Council is the governing body of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario. Meeting at Toronto City Hall, it comprises 25 city councillors and the mayor of Toronto. The Toronto City Council 2022–2026, current term began on Nove ...

identified the Bay and Elizabeth Street terminal properties as an asset that is underutilized, "with an opportunity to unlock value and address City needs and City building objectives, such as affordable housing, employment uses and community infrastructure." Despite its age, the structure is only a "listed property" in the City's Heritage Register, offering a 60 day window that the property owner has to notify the City before moving or demolishing the structure. In April 2022, Toronto City Council approved a plan to redevelop the site into a mixed-income, mixed-use development that includes affordable housing, and a paramedics multi-hub, and office spaces for the life science and biomedical sectors. According to Vic Gupta, CEO of CreateTO, the city's real estate arm, "approximately 750 homes could be included in these sites with approximately 250 being affordable homes.” Create TO announced in November 2022 that it is seeking bids from developers. In June 2023, CreateTO announced its

shortlist A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

of bidders submitting proposals to redevelop 610 Bay Street and 130 Elizabeth Street: *Capital Developments *Hines Canada *Kilmer Group & EllisDon Inc. *MOD Developments *TAS Developments *Tricon Residential *Tridel Group & Woodbourne Capital Management On November 21, 2024,

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Olivia Chow announced that the site, including both the former Bay Street and Elizabeth Street terminals, would be redeveloped as a mixed-income, mixed-use development that is to include affordable housing, a paramedics hub, and new public plaza. Two towers are to be built and will include residential, retail and public space. The residential component is to consist of 873 homes, 290 of which will be affordable rental units. There is to be "adaptive reuse of the existing heritage building as well as streetscape improvements", and the project is to include an organ repair centre for transplants, operated by the University Health Network, and housing options for health workers. Kilmer Group and Tricon Residential (Kilmer-Tricon) were announced by the city and CreateTO as the developers. Due to the cooling market for rental apartments and rising construction costs, city staff recommended in June 2025 that the city agree to amend the redevelopment plan to remove two dozen

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median, as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on ...

units from the originally proposed 290 units and also offer the builder an additional $36.8 million in order to keep the developers on board. Construction is to begin in December 2025.

Ownership

The terminal was originally owned by Gray Coach Lines when it was a Toronto Transit Commission subsidiary. When the TTC sold Gray Coach in 1990, it retained the terminal, transferring ownership to Toronto Coach Terminal Inc. (TCTI), a wholly owned subsidiary of the TTC. The TTC managed the station directly until July 8, 2012, when it was leased out in its entirety to bus lines Coach Canada and Greyhound Canada for annually, in what was initially a five-year contract. As a result, the coach lines took over the operational control of the terminal and opened their own ticket booths, where previously TTC employees had handled ticket sales and taken a commission in addition to platform fees charged to the coach companies. The lease, which was last renewed for a year in 2020, expired on July 7, 2021. In April 2017, TTC staff proposed for the terminal to be declared surplus when Coach Canada and Greyhound Canada vacated the terminal. The board of the TCTI on June 16, 2021 voted to accept a recommendation to transfer the property to the City of Toronto, effective July 8, 2021, in exchange for payment by the city of million so that TCTI could pay back the balance of a loan made to TCTI by the TTC when TCTI was created in 1990.

Location

The Toronto Coach Terminal is located one

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

west of Dundas subway station and was connected to it via the underground PATH network. It is also about the same distance from St. Patrick subway station. The bus platforms are located on Edward Street, on the west side of the terminal building. A small side entrance on the west side of Elizabeth Street is connected to the main concourse area on Bay Street by a corridor behind the bus platforms. Nearby landmarks include the

Toronto Eaton Centre CF Toronto Eaton Centre, commonly referred to simply as the Eaton Centre, is a shopping mall and office complex in the Downtown Toronto, downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named ...

, the Atrium on Bay, the Hospital for Sick Children, and the

Toronto City Hall The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in ...

and

Nathan Phillips Square Nathan Phillips Square is an city square, urban plaza in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It forms the forecourt to Toronto City Hall, or ''New City Hall'', at the intersection of Queen Street West and Bay Street, and is named after Nathan Phillips ( ...

. It is also within walking distance of

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

References

External links