If you’re familiar with Toronto’s financial district and downtown Toronto as a whole you may have some understand of an entire underground community that connects most of the tall towers that dominate the skyline. But many walk right over this warren of pedestrian tunnels without even realising that the employees can quickly move between buildings, access services and even grab a bite to eat without stepping outside. Known as the PATH, the system is one that I’ve been in before and quickly got lost and locked out of, but having some time, I decided to go on a mission to try and explore and photograph this secret world by walking from Toronto’s Union Station to the Eaton’s Centre without having to step foot outside. I selected my Minolta Dynax 600si Classic with the Maxxum 50mm f/1.4 lens for this mission. I loaded it with Kodak TMax P3200, rated it at ASA-1250, and developed it in Diafine.
The earliest example of an underground pedestrian tunnel was in 1900 when the Eaton’s Company built a single tunnel connecting their store at Queen & Yonge (where the Eaton’s Centre is today) with their Annex shop behind (Old) City Hall under James Street. This tunnel allowed shoppers to quickly move between the main store and the Annex. Through the first two decades, additional tunnels and underground passages were constructed. By 1917, there were five pedestrian tunnels in downtown Toronto. The final tunnel in this system was the tunnel between the newly completed Union Station and the Royal York Hotel, allowing passengers to quickly move from their trains to the grand railway hotel and back again. The system remained largely independent of each other throughout the remainder of the first half of the century. It was in 1960 that the idea of unifying the tunnels into a single system started to take form. The streets above were beginning to get overcrowded, and many small businesses that operated downtown were being overtaken as more skyscrapers and taller ones started to change the skyline. City planner Matthew Lason began to approach the builders to transform their underground spaces into malls, transforming low-value spaces into high-value retail areas. The Toronto-Dominion Centre, completed in 1967, would be the first to feature such an underground mall. The city encouraged others to do the same, promising funds to build a fully interconnected network. The council did help at first until a change in direction, where many councillors started to push back against the idea of underground malls, desiring more street-level shops to help with the vibrancy of the downtown. However, the people who worked in the building loved the idea, and through the 1970s, the network only continued to expand, allowing many to move quickly from Union Station to their offices and have access to a tonne of retail options. The rapid expansion and the tying of the entire system brought out the need to provide better directions. In 1987, Gottschalk+Ash and Muller Design Associates won the contract to design a unified signage system. The design included the now-famous logo and colour-coded directional arrows to help users determine if they’re going north, south, east or west. The final gap in the north/south route was closed in 2007, and in 2011, the entire system began a period of construction and revitalisation, which resulted in a new navigation method being put in place in 2014 and southward expansion to Toronto’s waterfront. Today, the PATH connects seventy downtown buildings, has thirty kilometres of pathways, covers 371,600 m2 and has 1,200 retail fronts.
The first thing you must realise about the PATH is that it is primarily designed for those working downtown. Being underground, it is easy to get turned around quickly if you don’t know where you’re going or are unfamiliar with it. They used to be colocolour-codedectional arrows, but these were switched to landmarks. And while I did have a map with me, there is an area right at the centre of the network where you can end up in the wrong direction. Let’s say we didn’t start off too strongly; after getting out of Union Station and making it through the Royal Bank Plaza, we hit our first problem, accessibility. It mainly involves stairs that go through significant routes. It took a while to find the right elevator, the right path through a parking garage, and another elevator before returning to the right path. We were able to move quickly at that point. There were some ramps to help move us along, and the buildings were clearly marked. We saw some maps along the way, which helped. However, things ended up going sideways after getting through to the middle, around First Canada Place. It is right there that the PATH network goes in a big loop. We looped back on ourselves and found ourselves part-way back to Union Station before a pair of folks who work in the area got us pointed in the right direction again. We eventually made it to our final destination at the Eaton’s Centre. The way back was also tricky as I misled us to the wrong exit, where the accessibility elevators were not functioning. Thankfully, we did make it all the way back, albeit by a different route.
Travelling by the PATH was both fun and frustrating; we hit a lot of roadblocks on the trip and got lost. The PATH is not tourist or visitor-friendly. It also isn’t pleasant to those needing mobility devices as there is no straightforward way to move through the system without taking side trips and going off the map occasionally. Travelling to and from Union without having to get outside in the weather was fun. But it is nice to know that the PATH is there, especially if you need a place to sit and get out of the weather or grab a quick bite. The one area I do recommend visiting is the area under Commerce Court North.