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Construction has entered a new phase on Ontario Line 3, with the Province of Ontario announcing last week the start of work on the tunnel launch shaft at the future Gerrard station. From this site, tunnel boring machines will travel three kilometres north under Pape Avenue before emerging at the edge of the Don Valley for extraction. The milestone marks the beginning of work on the last underground segment of Toronto’s Ontario Line 3, complementing work already well underway at the western launch shaft at Exhibition station.
A recently released aerial rendering of Gerrard station, also displays the proposed Gerrard-Carlaw North TOD in transparency, along with its raised deck over the tunnel portal.
Eight homes along Pape Avenue and one on Langley Avenue have made way for the southernmost extent of the tunnel portion, with the entirety of the southwestern corner of the intersection having been razed.
The rail viaduct over Gerrard and Carlaw has stood as a neighbourhood landmark for 95 years, completed in 1930 to replace an earlier grade separation that forced the street into an awkward jog. It forms part of a vital rail corridor that has long driven Toronto’s eastern growth and linked the city to its suburbs. For decades, the triple-tracked bridge easily accommodated the modest number of GO Transit and VIA Rail trains that passed over it, providing regional and national connections. Now with both the Lakeshore East and Stouffville lines undergoing major service expansion, and with a dedicated right-of-way required for the Ontario Line, the bridge the bridge is effectively being twinned, and will reach its centennial as part of a widened crossing over the two streets. To be constructed in a piecemeal manner, the new bridge will open in sections to ensure the continued ability of GO Transit and VIA Rail to operate rail service along the corridor while the second structure is built.
Early renderings for Gerrard station, to be located on the expanded northern side of the viaduct, were unveiled in March 2022, showcasing a bold architectural concept that placed the station within an open web girder bridge structure above the modest east-end intersection of Carlaw Avenue and Gerrard Street East.
The station has since been redesigned with a simpler expression, as part of the replacement bridge. This comes following a similar revision of plans for East Harbour station when recent renderings revealed the substitution of dramatic architectural flair for a utilitarian, value engineered design.
A notable omission in both the early and most recent renderings for Gerrard Station is any provision for safer, more convenient transfers between streetcar and subway. For much of the 20th century, Toronto’s rapid transit expansions routinely integrated in-station interchanges with the busy surface routes they intersected. When Ontario Line 3 opens in the 2030s, nearly a century after the city’s first subway–streetcar transfers were introduced, riders will likely still be forced to step directly from streetcars into active traffic lanes to access the new station.
While the highly visible elevated stations and viaducts that make up so much of Ontario Line 3's route are naturally major draws of attention, the largely hidden Gerrard tunnel portal will be a feat of engineering in and of itself. Travelling north from Gerrard station, Ontario Line 3 trains will have to descend rapidly while sharply banking left, travelling from the raised berm on which the mainline rail corridor sits into a tunnel deep under Pape Avenue, all in under 300 meters. The sharp turns trains will negotiate daily at the Gerrard portal, along with similar conditions elsewhere on Ontario Line 3, were reportedly a key factor in the decision to adopt light metro technology for the project. Unlike the heavy metro trains used on Toronto’s existing subway network, the smaller, automated vehicles to be built by Hitachi Rail are designed to handle tighter curves and steeper grades with ease.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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EDITOR's NOTE: The story has been corrected to reflect that the cuurent bridge over Carlaw and Gerrard is not being torn down.
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