bensouthwood•7h
Toronto’s underground labyrinthworksinprogress.news
76 comments
  • A_D_E_P_T•4h

    > Montreal has a similar system, while Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore and Houston have systems that resemble the Path in some respects. A few European cities also make considerable use of pedestrian tunnels, including Helsinki, Stockholm and Munich.

    Japan's northernmost major city, Sapporo, has a very extensive one -- of those I've seen, it's the one that's most comparable to Toronto's.

    The other Japanese tunnel/undercity complexes are mostly subterranean malls around subway stations. (This also applies to all of the ones in Hong Kong.) But Sapporo's is seriously huge.

    I think the common denominator is that people would rather walk in a heated underground space when it gets cold.

    • elthran•4h

      We were running late for our train in winter - the Sapporo underground system let us walk to the station so much faster than trying to navigate ice, snow and road crossings

    • hypertele-Xii•2h

      Helsinki's underground spaces exist for one reason: Russian bombs.

    • derr1•4h

      Sapporo's one stretches for a good mile in a straight line. Quite convenient when going from the entertainment district to the train station with a suitcase in heavy snow.

  • tenacious_tuna•4h

    Startling lack of mentions of Minneapolis and Chicago[1]! Minneapolis has an extensive "Skyway" at the ~third story of a bunch of downtown buildings. It's kinda one extensive mall, but also makes it possible to meander without freezing. I interviewed once many years ago during November-ish and it was quite lovely. It's the closest to cinematic urban cyberpunk vibes I've felt in the "real world", where you've got throngs of people transiting an enclosed space with food vendors and shops and a backdrop of terrible, terrible weather.

    Chicago also has an underground system ("the Pedway") that's also mall-ish, but it's in fairly crap condition. It's got incredible liminal vibes, but is not the most pleasant to exist in.

    [1]: To be fair, a commenter did mention Minneapolis

    • gdbsjjdn•4h

      Calgary also has a pretty extensive Skyway designed to avoid going outside during the frigid winters.

  • leviathant•3h

    Philadelphia has an underground pedestrian concourse in center city. It is, however, not clean, well lit, nor as actively policed. In some alternate timeline, the stalls would be filled with shops, and it would be a great alternative to walking the streets when it's too hot, too precipitous, too cold. But we struggle to even keep our public transit system funded, let alone something like this, which is a shame.

    I hope I live to see Philadelphia's infrastructure get rehydrated with some of that GDP it generates for the rest of the state, and region.

  • michaelmior•5h

    One thing that I was surprised wasn't mentioned is the impact that I believe weather must have had on the development of the Path. Winters in Toronto get rather cold and snowy. Even with a dense downtown core, walking a few blocks outside can be rather unpleasant.

    • yifanl•4h

      I've been told the intent of the PATH was to make sure that people from Montreal could take the train to Union, walk to Scotiabank Arena and watch the Habs beat the crap out of the Leafs without getting snowed on.

      • canucker2016•3h

        Toronto Maple Leafs played at Maple Leaf Gardens until Feb 1999. The PATH was created before then.

        The portion of the PATH connecting Union Station to the ACC is a few hundred metres at most.

        I can't see how anyone in Toronto would help people from Montreal enjoy a Habs win over the Leafs. :)

        Torontonians call it the "ACC", (short for Air Canada Centre, before its current rebranding to Scotiabank Arena - Google Maps knows both). Also, it's "Skydome", not Rogers Centre. :)

        • yifanl•3h

          I should clarify I was told this by a guy who lives in Montreal, who apparently was retelling the story he heard from a guy who lives in Toronto with minor editorializing.

          • canucker2016•3h

            Well, Air Canada's HQ is based in Quebec. So maybe the C-suite at Air Canada pulled some strings at Toronto City Hall.

            Not sure how the Habs have lost their way in the past few years. First-pick of Quebec's hockey players helped a lot I guess.

        • namibj•2h

          Tbf it said could, not would: the potential for watching the win is what entices; without game fixing it'd be good sportsmanship to not shit on a person's favorite if one wants anything from said person.

      • PlatinumHarp•3h

        There must have been something lost in translaction as the Soctiabank Arena is right beside Union station.

        Perhaps they were talking about Maple Leaf Gardens? It is a more substantial walk.

      • voisin•3h

        Top notch Canadian lore right here!

    • bregma•4h

      Toronto is relatively balmy compared with every other significant Canadian city east of the rockies and it's not in the snow belt.

      What it does get is vast seas of road snot a pedestrian has to wade through at every intersection. That alone is reason to stick to PATH between October and May.

      • wmoxam•4h

        There's rarely any slush on the streets before Christmas. Back when I lived in Toronto I used the PATH between January and March

      • veidr•4h

        the fuck is "road snot"?

        • yabones•4h

          Expanding on the other comment, it's the mixture of snow, slush, salt, and loads of sand/grit that gets churned up by car tires into a brown and sticky slime. It sticks to boots, gets caked on cars behind the wheels, and gets tracked shockingly far into buildings. It's sort of like a "slushee" consistency but made out of nasty brown goo instead of corn syrup.

        • paulryanrogers•4h

          Probably the slush and slurry from melting snow, salt, and road debris. It's often black once the debris reaches a certain density.

        • veidr•3h

              :-O
          sounds awful
          • tharmas•2h

            a.k.a. brown snow. And yes it is truly awful.

    • nchmy•4h

      as far as Canada goes, Toronto's winters are pretty mild. Still, it is, indeed, nice to be able to stay inside, as well as avoid traffic.

      • zikduruqe•4h

        I used to do business in Winnipeg. Those underground tunnels, especially when it is -40C/F outside, surely are nice.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Walkway

        • nchmy•1h

          Winnipeg is always my reference when I describe to people Canadian winters. I've never actually been, and absolutely never will in the winter!

          I dont know how people ever settled there.

        • macintux•2h

          I've long lamented that I'll never have grandchildren to tell true stories about walking a mile to kindergarten during Winnipeg winters.

      • canucker2016•3h

        The winters are variable.

        Some years they vacillate between -10C and 4C causing ice to melt to water and then refreeze, nature's jackhammer to any surface cracks in the asphalt road resulting in a city budget line item for "springtime pothole fixing".

        Once in awhile, the temps will drop to below -20C for several days/weeks. Not as bad as midwest USA/Canadian prairies winters requiring a heater for your car engine block, but going outside is laborious and painful for long periods.

        • nchmy•1h

          I only said it was mild compared to elsewhere in Canada, not that they were mild.

      • Insanity•4h

        Lol, I actually agree on the 'as far as Canada goes'.. but many of us in Toronto aren't Canadian. The winters are pretty bad to me as a foreigner. But to be honest, I'm not as impacted by the cold as I am by the darkness. I get pretty bad seasonal depression during the worst winter months and haven't found a great way to cope yet.

        • nchmy•1h

          I no longer live in Toronto - instead im somewhere somewhat equatorial. I actually miss the proper 4 seasons and large variation in daylight from june to december.

          Embrace the winter! skating, skiing, hiking, etc... Read more, cook more. etc..

        • tharmas•2h

          Hah! Try living in Scotland. Its gets dark before 5pm and stays dark until about 8:45am in the winter. So you never see daylight on weekdays.

          If you look at a map of Europe, Toronto's latitude is similar to Milan's. So most of Europe has more darkness in winter than Toronto.

          I would argue the darkness in winter in Toronto is pretty average compared to most places in "the West". Its the winters that are nasty, although by Canadian standards not too bad. That tells you a lot of about Canada regarding winter weather.

        • morkalork•4h

          The best way to cope is taking up winter activities that are outside like cross country skiing, but with the way winters are getting milder it's getting harder and harder.

          • Insanity•3h

            Yah, my partner and I decided to try some winter sports this year. We want to learn snowboarding, but let's see if we actually get to do this in practice.

    • bluGill•4h

      Many northern cities have the same thing, but it is above the streets not underground. Minneapolis has 15km of skyway (but note that the city mostly uses street level buses so this system isn't the direct connection to transit - it does have direct connections to parking garages though)

  • yabones•4h

    More northern cities like Montreal and Winnipeg also have very interesting indoor pedestrian systems. The one in Winnipeg is particularly useful, since there are approximately 72 hours per year that it's comfortable to be outside between the bone-chilling cold and the biblical swarms of mosquitos and flies in the summer.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City,_Montreal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Walkway

  • raudette•4h

    No one has mentioned Calgary's inter-office skyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_15

    10 miles/16 km.

    I've actually never been, but saw it featured in a CanCon movie, waydowntown, where a group of office workers wage a month's salary as to who can stay inside the longest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown

  • stego-tech•4h

    I love these little “reveals” of “secret architecture”. A lot of cities have them: the Minneapolis Skyway; underground cities in Toronto, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago; Boston’s Emerald Necklace.

    I think that’s a secret to continued, healthy city development, especially in an era increasingly marked by climate change and a rejection of car culture: how far can a pedestrian safely go within a controlled environment (climate controlled or controlled access, like a park system) in a city? Whenever I look at rankings of cities, I notice a consistent trend where cities with these sorts of features consistently rank higher than those without, because to build and maintain them requires cooperation between stakeholders rather than competition, and cooperation is at the heart of a healthy community.

  • err4nt•4h

    The PATH network is great, especially in Toronto's freezing cold and windy winters! The beautiful 'underpass' pictured in this article, with the white marble, is on my commute to work, and it really is breathtaking when you turn the corner.

    In the Financial District, the various bank towers can be told apart by the colour of the marble and other stones they build with. For an underground walkway, some parts of it are really beautiful, other parts are just what you'd expect for an underground passage in a big city (especially those parts connected to the subway transit system).

  • ChrisMarshallNY•4h

    I love the Toronto underground.

    It's been a long time (about 50 years), since I've been there, but it was one of the better memories, as a kid.

    I hear that Montréal has a similar setup.

  • rayiner•2h

    > The Path is unlike the gloomy and malodorous underpasses with which most of us are familiar. It is expensively decorated and feels like a high-end shopping mall, which in a way it is. It is extremely clean and closely policed by dozens of private security teams

    I love the commercial spaces in Tokyo’s underground subway/train network, which similarly are privately owned. It’s such a huge upgrade from the concourses in subway systems in the U.S.

  • fzwang•4h

    We also have a 5K race in the PATH! [1]

    In the winter the tunnels are amazing for commute.

    [1] https://www.bougebouge.com/en/shop/events/5km-bougebouge-tor...

  • bushbaba•4h

    Key word in the article “cold winters”. This is fairly common for cities with cold winters, it’s just Toronto’s network is one of the largest of its kind.

    It’s a big selling point for you to have a condo that can take you to the metro without needing to be in the cold.

    • canucker2016•3h

      One of the local newspapers had a story about one condo dweller who never had to go outside during the winter.

      He lived in a condo with a direct connection to the subway station, which he used to commute to his downtown job.

      He was able to do all his errands at the businesses located in the PATH.

  • tom_vidal•2h

    Just to get this straight… they built tunnels for people walking so they could continue to jam the streets aboveground full of cars?

    Maybe if people can’t walk around your city efficiently because there are too many cars, it’s the cars themselves which are the problem.

    • amiga386•2h

      While Toronto does have a lot of traffic, and certainly the suburbs are entirely car-centric... Toronto is ridiculously cold, snowy and icy in winter. Reducing cars on Yonge St (for example) wouldn't make winter go away.

      • nchmy•1h

        I see you havent been to Winnipeg, montreal, calgary, ottawa etc...

  • cootsnuck•3h

    Makes me think of all the abandoned mines turned into commercial space and the like in Kansas City:

    https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2022-07-02/kansas-city-underg...

  • baud147258•4h

    While not on the same scale as Toronto's underpass, the Université Laval in neighboring Quebec has an underground walkway linking many of the building, including some of the dorms. Once when I was studying there I went to class in slippers from my dorm, without stepping outside. Though even during winter I didn't use them much, I found a bit too depressing to stay cooped up inside all day long, plus a few parts were very crowded.

    • morkalork•4h

      Carleton university in Ottawa has something like 5km of tunnels connecting every building on campus. What can I say, Canadians have oddly dwarven compulsions to dig underground complexes?

      • bluGill•4h

        The university of Minnesota has a lot of tunnels. they were put into place because there is a central steam place and maintenance needs to inspect those pipes, but they are also open to anyone to use (or were when I went there year ago). When it was very cold it was nice to be able to get around - but often the tunnels were not very direct so I didn't use them much.

  • BXLE_1-1-BitIs1•3h

    Having worked in Toronto and Calgary, I vastly prefer Calgary's +15 system. Daylight in Calgary's +15 second floor retail spaces is the only daylight exposure an office worker gets in the depths of winter.

  • nick_•4h

    It's my understanding that underground walkways were created for motorists, not for pedestrians. To get pedestrians out of the way of motorists. An important distinction for understanding the effect car lobbies had on much of the world's urban development.

    • veidr•4h

      But "car lobbies" mostly implicitly includes "car drivers", right? So it's completely understandable from the universal "I'm rich (initially required to have a car), so get the fuck out of my way" perspective. So it's kind of a self-own.

      I am originally from California, and spent some time in Los Angeles as a student. The insane parking-lot wastelands and 8-lane gridlock eventually destroyed the livabilty of that city for everybody — even for people with cars (which, out of necessity, became mostly everybody).

      • throwway120385•3h

        It's kind of a different attitude. When these were built there was some consideration that pedestrians needed a place to get where they were going. Whereas now it's "I'm rich please stop existing."

    • bluGill•4h

      Nothing to do with motorists. When the weather is "bad" (cold, hot, rain...) it is uncomfortable go go outside and so a way to travel that isn't at street level is desired. Since there is an underground subway system why not just go down the the basement of the building you are in to access it instead of walking outside?

      It is nice for motorists, but it is useful even if there are no cars.

    • tylerflick•4h

      The photo in the article looks to predate the mass adoption of cars. Maybe it was because of new engineering capability + attempting to avoid the elements?

      • hylaride•4h

        It's probably both. The picture in the article is very early days and was then a proto-PATH that was probably first built to deal with an acute problem (probably crowding on the sidewalks as the streets started to be taken over by vehicular traffic).

        Toronto's PATH doesn't have a central control or planning system. It is literally a series of 1-1 agreements between buildings that build tunnels under streets to connect themselves. The main benefit to each building is that they can charge retail rents in their basements for through traffic. The system map was terrible and even had a planned route prematurely showing a way to the Eaton centre from the south for a building that was left uncompleted for almost 30 years (work stopped in the early 1990s recession and was only finished right before COVID hit).

        Avoiding the weather for commuters coming in on the subway and GO train (suburban commuter rail) was a nice benefit, though only very recently was Union station fully separated from the elements. The one problem with PATH is that the shops are completely targeted to 9-5 work commuters, particularly to finance workers; think coffee/business suits/lunch/etc. Though portrayed as a giant mall, almost all the shops are closed on weekends and don't stay open much into the evenings (Montreal's is more dynamic comparatively). COVID of course upended the business climate of the shops, too. Some newer condo towers have been connected and there is some very early signs of something more dynamic, but the towers seem to still be holding on to the idea they can charge pre-COVID rents. My personal opinion is they should be seeing this as a loss leader to convince people to want to come in 5 days a week (cheap, good lunches, etc).

        Anyways, we'll see how it continues to evolve.

  • voidmain0001•4h

    Don't forget Calgary, AB and this film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown

    • mmastrac•4h

      Ha. I live in Calgary and had never heard about this one.

      The +15 network is reasonably good but it seems to have stalled out 20-30 years ago.

  • FuriouslyAdrift•4h

    Chicago also has a fairly extensive underground tunnel system open year round.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pedway

  • mikrl•5h

    Once on a lunch break I walked from St Andrew to King (parallel stations on the horns of line 1) in the tunnels and took the TTC back.

    Going overground is usually faster and easier to navigate, buts impressive how far you can go underground.

    One of these days I’ll need to try an extreme point hike.

  • ape4•4h

    Since its extensive there are multiple ways to get somewhere. So I see it as a shortest path algorithm. Some tunnels are smaller, some are larger (but sometimes congested, etc)

  • maxglute•60m

    That ecumenopolis feels of weaving through built environment without ever stepping outside. Big fan of skyways as well, too bad there aren't many examples of cities with enough density with overlapping underground and skyway pedestrian networks. There's a few CBDs with underground commute concourses and elevated skybridges that makes you wonder if you really need to touch grass.

  • willvarfar•4h

    Are they open in the summer too?

    I was recently in Toronto and can see where I was on the map, but I had no idea there was anything underground nor any obvious big accesses to it etc.

    • bparsons•4h

      Yes. PATH isn't particularly well marked or easy to navigate. It just feels like you are walking through a series of interconnected malls and hotel basements.

      • canucker2016•3h

        It's also useful during the summer if it gets unbearably hot outside (for me, over 25C). The PATH is typically much cooler than that.

  • LurkandComment•4h

    I use to love exploring Path as a teenager.

  • danslaboudoir•4h

    I stayed in TO for a year back in 07. The PATH was my favourite feature of the city. Part of it was under construction and, late at night, entirely free from other pedestrians. Felt like I was alone in a dystopian sci-fi horror film. Wonderful, terrifying memories.

  • ww520•4h

    Is there a way to use Google Map to navigate the Path from one place to another?