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'Culmination of a dream'

Broadcast Date: Sept. 8, 1949

"This day is the culmination of a dream that has existed for years in the minds of many Toronto citizens," exclaims Ontario's lieutenant-governor, Ray Lawson, in this CBC Radio clip. As part of the official groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the new subway system — Canada's first — Lawson gives an uplifting, exciting speech about what the subway will mean to the city: better living conditions, improved traffic conditions and a more vibrant downtown core.

Then, to make it official, Lawson pushes the lever to drive the first vertical support beam into place. Thousands of excited Torontonians attend this groundbreaking ceremony on Sept. 8, 1949, and the event is widely broadcast on radio stations across the city.

'Culmination of a dream'

• While the notion of constructing a Toronto subway was frequently discussed throughout the first half of the century, the idea wasn't seriously revived until the 1940s. In the 1946 municipal election, the ballot included a plebiscite on the issue. Citizens voted strongly in favour of constructing a subway — by a vote of 79,935 to 8,630 — and plans for the project officially began shortly after.

• Although the Toronto Transportation Commission (renamed the Toronto Transit Commission in 1954) did plan to eventually build a more extensive subway network, the initial plans were for one line stretching 7.4 kilometres along Yonge Street, from Front Street to Eglinton Avenue. Construction of this line took four and a half years. It was originally expected to cost around $28 million, but the final price of the first stretch ended up totalling approximately $59 million.

• Toronto's subway was built using the "cut and cover" technique. Workers drove vertical steel piles into the ground every 180 cm along both sides of the road and then began to dig downward from the street, making the "cut." When the excavation was deep enough, they rested horizontal steel beams on the steel piles and huge planks were set across the beams, forming a temporary street-level surface — the "cover" — to accommodate traffic while work continued below.

• The first subway system in the world was built in 1863 in London, England. It took several decades before anyone else followed England's lead: Glasgow and Budapest each got subways in 1896 and then Boston built North America's first subway in 1898. Paris built its metro in 1900, followed by New York City in 1904 and Philadelphia in 1907.

'Culmination of a dream'

Medium: Radio

Program: CBC Radio News Special

Broadcast Date: Sept. 8, 1949

Guest(s): Ray Lawson

Reporter: Byng Whitteker

Duration: 6:16

Last updated:
Sept. 23, 2008