The demise of the depressing bus station at Dundas and Bay could be at hand

Tuesday’s headlines about a planned new office-tower complex near Union Station tended to focus on the fancy elevated park and new GO bus terminal that are coming as part of Metrolinx’s deal with developer Ivanhoé Cambridge. But it turns out that this cloud of real estate PR may have yet another silver lining: it could spell the end of the Toronto Coach Terminal, one of the city’s more depressing pieces of transit infrastructure.
The coach terminal, located just north of Dundas and Bay streets, is where generations of Torontonians have gone in order to catch buses out of town. The building’s 1932 art deco facade is nice enough, but a 1980s reno has left the interior looking a little tired, and the layout forces passengers to line up in what amounts to an open-air parking garage. The TTC owns the building through a subsidiary corporation, but in 2012 it leased the place out to Greyhound and Coach Canada. For the past few years, Metrolinx has been looking for ways of bringing the operation closer to Union Station.
Word as to whether the new GO bus terminal would include space for Greyhound and Coach Canada was conspicuously absent from Tuesday’s big announcement, but Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins confirmed that her agency is in talks with the city about the possibility of moving private intercity bus service to the new space. If this were to happen, the TTC would finally be able to get the coach terminal—an operational headache and a poor moneymaker—off its books. It could declare the building surplus, turn it over to Build Toronto and then use 75 per cent of the sale proceeds to fund transit upgrades.
An outcome like that could make a lot of people—including riders and transit officials—very happy. At the moment, though, Metrolinx isn’t offering any guarantees. “If [the city] would like to sell the Bay-Dundas terminal…we would be happy to work out an arrangement,” Aikins wrote in an email.
Ugh but Union station though
Yes, what better location could there possibly be?
I use both VIA and Gray Coach from London to Toronto. Having it directly at Union Station is an excellent proposal. Union is the hub bus transit into and out of Toronto. From Go transit, to VIA RAIL transit to TTC transit. It makes sense to include the bus station.The ideal portal.
Maybe they can use the current space for Go buses when the new space opens. They can’t use their double decker GO buses at the old location because they don’t fit under the train bridge
Why would your reaction be “ugh” having it near Union Station? Proximity to other forms of transit (i.e. easy access to subways, streetcars, GO trains and GO buses) is a bad thing?
Oh please let the city get something done in a timely fashion and make a deal about this. No dithering or squabbling, for the love of the gods.
It makes complete sense. Just sucks for me, a boring North Yorker.
The new bus terminal on the south side of Union Station would also accommodate double-decker buses. Something the current bus terminal at Dundas & Bay can’t do.
It’ll be a four-year pilot project.