Getting around the 6ix
Toronto Transit: The TTC
Canada's first subway, a streetcar network locals fought to save, and North America's largest underground pedestrian city — how Toronto actually gets around.
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The TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) runs the subway, streetcars and buses that most Torontonians mean when they say the Rocket — and getting around downtown often means going underground in more ways than one.
The subway: Canada's first (1954)
Toronto's subway opened on March 30, 1954 — the first in Canada — running under Yonge Street with 12 stations across 7.4 km. It has since grown to three lines, 70 stations and 70.1 km of track. The nickname the Rocket dates to the red-painted original subway cars.
Streetcars older than the subway by nearly a century
Toronto's streetcar network is much older than its subway — the first line, along Yonge Street, opened in 1861, making it the first streetcar line in Canada. By 1972 the city had actually planned to phase streetcars out entirely in favour of buses, until a citizens' campaign called "Streetcars for Toronto," led by urbanist Jane Jacobs and transit advocate Steve Munro, successfully pushed the city to keep them. Toronto now runs one of the only surviving major streetcar networks in North America.
The PATH: the world's largest underground shopping complex
Beneath the Financial District sits the PATH, a climate-controlled pedestrian network connecting dozens of office towers, hotels and shopping concourses — officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest underground shopping complex on Earth by total retail floor space. In a city with genuinely brutal winters, it lets a meaningful chunk of downtown commute and shop without ever stepping outside.
Late nights and the vomit comet
When the subway shuts down overnight, the TTC's Blue Night bus network takes over — see the Vomit Comet for what locals actually call it, and why.
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Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia — Toronto Subway
- City of Toronto — Canada's First Subway
- Wikipedia — Yonge streetcar line