Guide · Toronto subway history

Toronto subway history, from 1954 to today

In 1954 Toronto opened Canada's first subway: one straight line under Yonge Street. Seventy-two years later the map has five lines and more than a hundred stations. Here is how it grew, decade by decade, and how each step changed the shape of the map.

One line.
A U and a cross.
Five lines today.

We drew every one of those lines for the Toronto Live Map, a wooden map of Toronto with a light in every subway station. Drawing a network station by station teaches you its history. This is the short version.

Toronto subway timeline at a glance

Lines got their numbers and today's names much later; the names above are the ones used at the time.

1954: Canada's first subway

On 30 March 1954 the Yonge subway opened between Union Station and Eglinton Avenue: 7.4 km and 12 stations, running under or beside Yonge Street. It took over from the Yonge streetcar, Canada's first streetcar line, on the city's busiest street.

On a map it was the simplest possible shape: one straight line from the lake to midtown. Ten of its stations still carry their 1954 names: Union, King, Queen, College, Wellesley, Rosedale, Summerhill, St Clair, Davisville and Eglinton. The other two are known today as TMU (once Dundas) and Bloor–Yonge.

The 1960s: a U and a cross

In February 1963 the line turned the corner at Union and ran north under University Avenue to St George. The straight line became the first half of a U, the shape that still defines the Toronto subway map.

Three years later, on 25 February 1966, the Bloor–Danforth subway opened from Keele to Woodbine, crossing the U at St George and at Bloor–Yonge. St George was built as a double-deck station, one line above the other. East of Castle Frank, the trains cross the Don Valley on the lower deck of the Prince Edward Viaduct, a bridge finished in 1918 with space set aside for trains decades before there was a subway to run on it.

For about six months in 1966 trains even switched between the two lines through extra tracks at Bay station. The trial ended, and Bay's lower platform, Lower Bay, has been quiet ever since, apart from film crews and the odd special tour. In May 1968 Line 2 reached Islington in the west and Warden in the east.

1973 to 1987: further out

The Yonge line pushed north into what was then the borough of North York: to York Mills in 1973 and to Finch in 1974. In January 1978 the west arm of the U grew too, as the Spadina line ran north from St George to Wilson, partly in the median of the Allen Road.

In November 1980 Line 2 reached its present ends, Kipling in Etobicoke and Kennedy in Scarborough. From Kennedy, the Scarborough RT opened in March 1985: a light, mostly elevated line with small trains, running to McCowan by Scarborough Centre. In 1987 North York Centre opened between two existing stations on Yonge, an infill station built for the new downtown of North York.

1996 to 2017: Sheppard and Vaughan

Downsview station (now Sheppard West) extended the Spadina arm by one stop in 1996. In November 2002 the Sheppard subway, today's Line 4, opened: five stations under Sheppard Avenue East, from Sheppard–Yonge to Don Mills by Fairview Mall. On the map it is a short branch off the top of the Yonge arm.

On 17 December 2017 the west arm made its longest jump: six new stations from Sheppard West through York University to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. For the first time, the subway ran past Steeles Avenue and out of the city, into Vaughan.

2023 to 2026: light rail joins the map

Line 3 Scarborough closed for good in July 2023, a few months before its planned retirement that November. Buses carry its riders until the Line 2 extension into Scarborough opens.

Then two new lines arrived two months apart. Line 6 Finch West opened on 7 December 2025: 18 stops, mostly in the middle of Finch Avenue West, from Finch West station to Humber College. Line 5 Eglinton followed on 8 February 2026, after more than a decade of construction: 25 stations and stops across midtown, from Mount Dennis to Kennedy, crossing Line 1 twice and meeting Line 2 at Kennedy.

Both are light rail lines, and they changed the look of the map more than anything since 1966: a long line straight across the middle of the city, and a new arm in the northwest. Our guide to the Toronto subway map lists every station on all five lines.

What comes next

• The Ontario Line. A new 15.6 km line from Exhibition through downtown and up to Don Valley station on Line 5, scheduled for 2031. The plan is to give it the number 3.
• Line 2 into Scarborough. Three new stops from Kennedy to Sheppard Avenue and McCowan, by Scarborough City Centre, planned for the 2030s.
• Line 5 west. About 9 km more, with seven new stations out to Renforth, near Pearson airport, also planned for the 2030s.
• Line 1 north. An extension up Yonge Street towards Richmond Hill, with five new stations.

How the map's shape grew

Put the dates side by side and the Toronto subway map tells its own story:

1. A line (1954): Yonge, from the lake to Eglinton.
2. A U (1963): back up University Avenue to Bloor.
3. A cross (1966): Bloor and the Danforth, from west to east.
4. Long arms (1968 to 2017): north on both sides of the U, and out to Kipling and Kennedy.
5. A branch (2002): Sheppard, east from the top of Yonge.
6. A second cross and a new arm (2025 and 2026): Eglinton and Finch West.

That is why the map still reads best as a U with lines crossing it. Each new line was drawn onto the shape that came before.

Seventy-two years on one wooden map

The Toronto Live Map holds all of it: the 1954 stations on Yonge, the 1966 viaduct crossing, the 2017 stations in Vaughan and the new stops on Eglinton and Finch West, engraved into natural wood at 20 × 16 inches, with the lake, the islands and the ravines around them.

Behind the wood are 108 small lights, one per station. In Live mode, a station glows as a train arrives, from live TTC subway data. Lines 1, 2 and 4 are live today; Lines 5 and 6 glow in every colour mode and join Live mode as soon as their live data is published. How it works has the details, and the design story shows how we drew it.

Keep exploring

• Toronto Live MapThe engraved wooden map that glows as trains arrive, and the VIP reservation.
• The Toronto subway mapLines 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6, station by station.
• The design storyHow we drew Toronto in wood.
• Gifts for someone who loves TorontoOur 2026 guide, for every kind of Torontonian.

A friendly history from public records. For routes, hours and service changes, the TTC's own website has the official, up-to-date information.