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In Toronto's Greektown, work on Ontario Line 3's future interchange with Danforth Line 2 has made dramatic progress at Pape station, where major excavation is now underway. Before construction could begin on the new transit hub configuration, a variety of commercial properties and homes at the intersection of Danforth and Pape avenues were expropriated and demolished.
Pape station has served the commuters of East York for decades following its opening in 1966 as part of the initial construction of Bloor-Danforth Line 2. Initially built as just one of many local stations on the east-west transit line, the provincial government's announcement of Ontario Line 3 in 2019 revived long-speculated plans to see the bustling east end intersection become a major subway interchange, akin to Bloor-Yonge.
Retrofitting an over half-century-old subway station with a new tunnel and series of platforms — all while maintaining service for the hundreds of thousands of riders who pass through the station daily — is no easy feat. To facilitate this act of subterranean surgery, a vast station box was excavated, with space cleared around it for construction staging and material removal.
In Greektown, dense clusters of shops and apartments line Danforth Avenue, while a variety of rowhouses, detached homes, and small multi-family buildings dot the side streets. To make way for the gargantuan feat of engineering about to occur, select blocks of the neighbourhood were put to the wrecking ball. For those whose homes were lucky enough to be spared from the expropriations, a far from bucolic vista would soon wall off adjacent streets and lots for some years.
Once the typical obstacles of an urban infrastructure project were cleared, excavation began in Fall, 2025 on a 150-metre-long station cut stretching north from Danforth Avenue to Gertrude Place.
Following nearly a year of constant digging, material removal and retaining wall reinforcement, significant progress has been made on the station box that will one day contain passenger concourses, platforms and subway trackage.
While hard to imagine in the site's current state, once complete, Pape station is designed to be one of North America's most modern, and high capacity, transit facilities. The fully automated and driverless Ontario Line 3 platforms will feature glass doors along the platform edge, with trains stopping precisely to line up their doors with the platform doors. This system, in use at Union Station and Pearson Airport on the UP Express Line, and in an increasing number of transit systems around the world, will allow trains to enter stations more quickly and safely, providing a barrier between passengers and an unwanted fall onto the tracks.
Above the platform levels, a new provincially coordinated Transit-Oriented Community (TOC) split into north and south blocks is set to rise on the lands expropriated for the station's construction. Preliminary plans brought forward for the site by Infrastructure Ontario propose 440 residential units — a portion of which will be allocated to affordable housing programs — alongside the reconstruction of commercial spaces along Danforth Avenue. However, as Toronto's ever-tumultuous real estate market continues to evolve, it is a near certainty that this TOC proposal will change along with it before ground is broken, a milestone for the housing that may be a decade away.
With the intensive work of the initial station excavation nearing completion, construction will soon shift to the long process of building out the complex signalling and rail technology required to operate an automated subway line, one anticipated to carry over 330,000 riders a day.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on Pape station and Ontario Line 3, 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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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
