The City of Toronto program allows visitors free access to properties that are usually not open to the public.

The TTC is opening two sites, but other significant venues that have played roles in transit and transportation history in Toronto will also be opening their doors.

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Toronto Transit Commission

The TTC will open Lower Bay Station and the Harvey Shops on Saturday, May 24 only.

Lower Bay Station (or “Bay Lower”)

Open: Saturday, May 24, noon to 5 p.m.; Last admittance: 4:30 p.m. Sunday: Not open

Regular Transit Toronto readers know that the TTC built lower Bay Station as part of the University ‘Y’ when it opened the Bloor-Danforth subway line in 1966. Lower Bay allowed the TTC to operate a fully integrated subway so that passengers could travel without transferring between the Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University lines, if they boarded the correct train. The TTC operated lower Bay from February 1966 to September 1966, when the current, non-integrated system began. Lower Bay Station is a fully operational station but today the TTC primarily uses it for work vehicles, moving trains from one line to another, training and filming.

In February and March, 2007, the TTC used the station to move paying passengers for the first time since 1966, when it detoured trains to repair tunnels near St. George Station. Trains passed through the station, but did not stop.

On Saturday, May 24, visitors will be able to walk straight along the subway platform from one end to the other.

You can read more about the history of the “Y” and integrated Bloor-Danforth Subway service through Lower Bay Station here.

You can read more about Lower Bay Station and other “lost” subway stations in Toronto here.

You can read more about Raymond Lee’s visit to Lower Bay during last year’s Doors Open here.

Harvey Shops, 1138 Bathurst Street

Open: Saturday May 24 noon to 5 p.m. Last admittance: 4:30 p.m. Sunday: Not open

The Toronto Transportation Commission named this one-storey, masonry and concrete streetcar maintenance facility and general repair shops after D.W. Harvey, the General Manager of the TTC from 1924 to 1938. Harvey Shops is part of the TTC’s historic Hillcrest Complex and opened in 1923. It is still one of the TTC’s major maintenance garages, where TTC crews maintain and repair buses and streetcars.

Visitors will be able to see cranes, hoisting equipment, air and lube systems, vacuum and washing systems, repair bays and the transfer table which transports the streetcars from the entrance track to the work bay.

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Other transportation or transit-related sites

Union Station (Bay and Front Streets)

Although both this Union Station and an earlier station further west along Front Street have served as downtown Toronto’s main railway passenger entrance into the City, both stations also have a long association with public transit. Horse cars on the Toronto Street Railway’s Yonge line from Yorkville operated to the first Union Station as early as 1884. Both stations remained as the terminus for streetcars on the Yonge and other lines until 1954. In that year, the TTC opened Toronto’s first subway line between Eglinton and Union Stations, and, since 1967, the station has also served as the hub of GO Transit.

Find out about the TTC plans to add a second platform to the Union Subway Station here.

Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) — the former Canadian Pacific Railway North Toronto Station, 10 Scrivener Square, across Shaftesbury Avenue from Summerhill subway station.

The former railway station only regularly served train passengers from 1915 until 1927, although it re-opened temporarily in 1939 for the Royal Visit of His Majesty King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and in World War II to welcome home returning troops.

Although not specificlly a public transit site, the neighbourhood is important in the transit history of Toronto. The Yonge Street car line ended at Price Street — a block to the south from 1885 to 1916. Passengers would cross the railway tracks to reach radial cars of the Metropolitan Railway Company, whose single line stretched northward — mostly along along Yonge Street — to Newmarket and beyond.

The transit future of Toronto may be at the North Toronto Station, too. Transit Toronto has an article on the proposed Midtown GO Transit line here. (The article has a brief history of North Toronto Station, too.) The Midtown line may be closer than ever: in 2007, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that the Midtown GO Line was part of his MoveOntario 2020 list of transit projects.

John Street Roundhouse — Toronto Railway Historical Association and John Street Roundhouse — Steam Whistle Brewing, 255 Bremner Boulevard (near the Rogers Centre).

The former Canadian Pacific Roundhouse and future home of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre.

Lambton House, 4066 Old Dundas Street.

Originally built as a stagecoach stop on the old Toronto-to-Dundas Highway, the hotel also has a public transit association. Streetcars on the former Toronto Suburban Railway Company’s Lambton carline ended their trips near the hotel in Lambton Park. From 1917 until 1935, they could also wait in the hotel for the next radial car to Guelph.

Lorraine Kimsa Young People’s Theatre, 165 Front Street.

The Young People’s Theatre seems to be an oddity on this list, but it definitely belongs here. It may be the only structure standing in Toronto that has served all four of Toronto’s major transit services: the Toronto Street Railway (1861 until 1891), the Toronto Railway Company (1891 to 1921), the Toronto Transportation Commission (1921 to 1954) and today’s Toronto Transit Commission (1954 - ). Built in 1887, over the years, it has served as a stables for the horses that pulled the cars, a generating plant for electric streetcars and a warehouse.