Massive hole in Toronto park is starting to look like a real subway station
A giant open wound in a downtown Toronto park will soon be transformed into a key stop along the new $27 billion Ontario Line.
The 15-stop subway line will eventually connect Exhibition Place with the summarily shuttered Ontario Science Centre, along 15.6 kilometres of new rapid transit infrastructure, including tunnelled and elevated segments.
Six downtown stations will be situated along the Ontario Line's tunnelled run through the city core, including the future Moss Park station under construction within the public park of the same name at the northwest corner of Queen and Sherbourne.
Work at the station site kicked off in mid-2024 when crews drilled piles around the perimeter of the future station, a key step paving the way for excavation, which followed in 2025.
The pit at the Moss Park site has since bottomed out and is beginning to resemble an actual subway station as crews ready the enormous chasm for the arrival of tunnel boring machines.
Metrolinx shared a recent update on the project, outlining the current concrete pouring and installation of "skid plates" on which the tunnel boring machines will slide through station boxes between tunnelled sections.
The enormous tunnel boring machines, dubbed Libby and Corkie in a recent naming competition, were delivered to the future launch site from their manufacturing point in Germany late last year and will soon begin carving their way from the future Exhibition Station to Metrolinx's Don Yard.
Another tunnelled stretch will be excavated on the opposite bank of the Don River, while the northernmost reaches of the Ontario Line will run on an elevated guideway that includes a substantial bridge spanning the Don Valley.
The Ontario Line is expected to close a key bottleneck in the TTC's rapid transit network when it eventually welcomes riders in 2031.
Metrolinx
