Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Today, I’m going to show you guys around Islington
station, the second last station on line 2 westbound of the Toronto subway, and where
you can find me on weekdays catching a bus to work. Located at the intersection of Bloor
Street West and Islington Avenue, Islington is one of the westernmost stations on the
TTC subway system, and besides the TTC, it also serves as the eastern terminus of some
of Mississauga’s MiWay services. Come along for the first video on a line 2 station!
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We’re just arriving at Islington on a MiWay bus right now, and we’ve been dropped off
at the station’s entrance on Islington Avenue. Let’s head into the station now, and take
a look at the concourse of the station. Islington station opened in 1968 as the western terminus
of the line as part of the line’s extension westwards, and most of the station has stayed
relatively unchanged since then, besides the integration of fare areas of the TTC buses
and the subway. This does mean that the whole station is a bit beaten up and grimey, but
it still gives off that nostalgic feeling of a generation gone.
The concourse is spacious albeit a bit empty, with staircases and escalators heading down
to the platform level. The fare gates have been upgraded to the new presto gates, with
a collector’s booth as well as numerous presto machines available.
Heading through the fare gates, we see the wide-open concourse, an entrance leading to
the bus terminal that we will explore later, as well as various other amenities such as
shops and magazine. The most interesting aspect of the concourse, however, is this
wall of payphones that looks wonderfully nostalgic. The weird thing is, even though only half
the spots have telephones, there’s another cluster of phones right on the other side,
and in my opinion, it would look so much better if this wall is completely filled up.
The far corner of the concourse has long been covered up by a giant blue construction tarp
as part of the Islington upgrade project from 2008 that includes a new bus terminal, accessibility
upgrades, a new entrance and kiss-and-ride, as well as overall modernization, but you
can tell given the fact that it’s been ten years with little progress that it has unfortunately
been put off indefinitely.
Let’s head to the bus terminal now and check it out. The bus terminal consists of multiple
bus bays that are connected to the station via this corridor, which features a few shops
and many more pigeons. The Mississauga MiWay buses share the bus bays with the TTC buses,
although they are all the way down at the end. This is a fun design for a bus terminal,
although it does remind me of a bowling alley, and it’s not very convenient if you do want
to transfer buses. After the new bus terminal at Kipling station is complete, all MiWay
buses will be moved over there, and this station will be left with only TTC buses as companions
to the pigeons. I would also highly recommend the patties at this coffee shop as well as
any pastries they sell.
While we’re out here, let’s check out the surroundings of the stations as well.
Besides the street level entrance that we came from, there are two other entrances to
the station. One of the exits leads you across the street to Bloor Islington Place, where
you can find numerous corporate offices, a supermarket, a gym, as well as other stores.
The last exit takes you out to the attached parking lot of the station, where you can
find around 500 parking spaces, as well as go train tracks at the very back where you
can catch a glimpse of the Milton line trains passing through. There are other parking lots
in the vicinity as well, for a total of about 15 hundred parking spaces. Islington is also
one of three stations on the TTC network that is running the PC Express program, which allows
you to order groceries in the morning and pick them up in the evening after you come
back, which I am quite curious to try out if I ever get the chance.
For the last part of our journey, we will make our way down to the platform. This is
a pretty classic island platform that looks similar to any other island platform in the
system, with special details such as the two-toned colour palette as well as the classic TTC
font decorating the walls. A little surprise for transit fans like us is this exposed signal
all the way down at the east end of the platform, which is one of only three that you can find
on the system, and a must-see if you are interested in the inner workings of the system.
Alright, this concludes our tour of Islington station, a charming little station filled
with history, despite its age showing through in different ways. We really hope you can
come out here to check this fantastic piece of TTC history.
If you enjoyed this video, leave a like, subscribe, and comment down below
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watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!