Museum (TTC)
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| Museum 75 Queen’s Park |
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| Opened | February 28, 1963 |
| District | Old Toronto |
| Line | Yonge-University-Spadina line |
| Next station | Yonge-University-Spadina line: ≅0.7 km northwest to St. George 1 min ≅0.9 km south to Queen’s Park 1 min Lower Bay tunnel: |
| Daytime Connections | 5 Avenue Road, 142 Downtown/Avenue Road Express |
| Night Connections | 300 Bloor-Danforth |
| Daily Boardings | 8,500 |
| Rank 2007-08 | 55th busiest out of 69 |
| Platforms | Centre platform |
| Accessibility | 0 elevators |
Museum is a station on the Yonge-University-Spadina line of the subway system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 75 Queen's Park at Charles Street West. It opened in 1963 and is named for the nearby Royal Ontario Museum. Other nearby landmarks include the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the defunct McLaughlin Planetarium, the northeast side of the University of Toronto, and Victoria University.
The two surface exits for the station are both adjacent to the southern entrance for the Royal Ontario Museum. When plans for the adjacent McLaughlin Planetarium were drawn up in the mid-1960s, a tunnel that would lead directly to the Planetarium was contemplated, but this plan was scrapped as being too expensive.[1]
South of the station, the line goes into a bored tunnel to run under Queen’s Park (the park), passing to the east side of the provincial legislature itself.
Renovations to the station were completed on April 8, 2008, to resemble exhibits in the Royal Ontario Museum. Supporting columns have been remade to resemble the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, as well as Toltec warriors, Doric columns found in the Parthenon, China's Forbidden City columns, and First Nations house posts. The Museum station's classic TTC style cream and blue tile colour scheme [1] has been purged from the platform and replaced by a mauve-like colour.
[edit] Connection to Bloor-Danforth line
Bay and St. George stations each have four parallel tracks, two above two. Between these stations and Museum is a full double-track, grade-separated wye junction. The tracks to/from Museum connect to the upper St. George and Lower Bay stations, while the tracks along Bloor use lower St. George and upper Bay.
The decision by Metro Council in 1960 to build a wye from the University line to the eastbound Bloor line between Museum and Bay stations was a controversial one. TTC Chairman Clarence Downey opposed the construction, estimated to cost about $10 million, saying that $10 million would build an extra mile of subway on the Bloor-Danforth line. The construction was estimated to cost $3 million for the basic interchange, and $7 million for the “intricate trackage system”. [2]
From February to September 1966 all three sides of the wye were used in regular service: from each of three terminals — Eglinton, Keele, and Woodbine — trains ran alternately to the other two (between Eglinton and Museum they went via Union). Thereafter the Bloor-Danforth line became a separate route, Lower Bay was closed, and upper St. George became a terminus for the Yonge-University line until it was extended along to Wilson. Lower Bay is sometimes used as a movie or TV set representing various other cities, and has been used for platform-surface experiments.
During repair work to the Bloor-Danforth line's tunnel in 2007, for three weekends (February 24 – March 11), all eastbound and westbound trains were diverted to Museum, terminating in the southbound track. Passengers had to exit the train and cross the centre platform to continue their journey, with northbound, eastbound, and westbound trains all departing from the northbound track.
[edit] Surface connections
(A transfer is required to transfer between surface routes and subway at this station.)
- 5 Avenue Road
- 142 Downtown/Avenue Road Express
