Sheppard Avenue is an east–west principal arterial road in Toronto , Ontario , Canada . The street has two distinct branches near its eastern end, with the original route being a collector road leading to Pickering via a turnoff, and the main route following a later-built roadway which runs south to Kingston Road . To avoid name duplication, the Toronto portion of the northern branch was renamed Twyn Rivers Drive . The section of the street entirely in Toronto is (34.2 km) in length, while the Pickering section and Twyn Rivers Dr. is (5.4 km) long.
29-565: Sheppard was a sideroad between lots 15 and 16 York Township In the former Scarborough municipality, Sheppard was once called the Lansing Sideroad . A post office known as "Lansing" occupied the corner of Yonge and Sheppard. East of Yonge Street, Sheppard travels east through North York to Highway 404 . Historically, it continued straight to Victoria Park Avenue at the Scarborough border, where drivers then turned south to meet up with
58-405: A crossover just beyond the platforms, with Line 1's being to the south and Line 4's to the east. As Sheppard-Yonge is a terminus for Line 4, its crossover is used to regularly reverse trains, with Line 1's being used only for occasional short turns . Trains normally pull into the south platform on Line 4 to allow passengers to board and alight before returning in the direction from which they came;
87-474: A single-front survey, lots were measured from one side of the concession to the other. Any errors in the survey became apparent at the road junctions, with the side roads being offset. Example Jogged Intersection in Single Front Township In a double-front survey, lots were measured from the front of the concession to a midpoint, and then from the back of the concession to the midpoint. This makes
116-718: A common square grid layout known as a 1,000-Acre Sectional System, adjacent parallel roads were 100 chains or 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 miles (2.0 km) apart, and arranged as ten 100-acre lots each 20 chains by 50 chains so that two consecutive concession roads and two consecutive side roads enclosed a square of 1,000 acres (4.0 km ). Another system used 100-acre lots each 30 by 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 chains, again arranged in 1000-acre blocks. Concession roads were 5 ⁄ 6 mile (1.3 km) apart, while sideroads were 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 miles (3.0 km) apart. Other plans used during colonial surveying used different layouts and lot sizes of 100, 150, 160, 200 or 320 acres. In
145-458: A few of the "sideline" roads in urban areas still retain their historic numbered lines or use "Line" for their street designations: Brown's Line , Ninth Line , and Guelph Line are important thoroughfares in Toronto and its western suburbs. Sheppard%E2%80%93Yonge station Sheppard–Yonge (formerly Sheppard ) is an interchange station on Line 1 Yonge–University and Line 4 Sheppard of
174-542: A row of lots that spanned the entire length of a new township was "conceded" by the Crown for this purpose (hence, a "concession of land"). Title to an unoccupied lot was awarded to an applicant in exchange for raising a house, performing roadwork and land clearance, and monetary payment. Concession roads and cross-cutting sidelines or sideroads were laid out in an orthogonal (rectangular or square) grid plan , often aligned so that concession roads ran (approximately) parallel to
203-490: Is located on the upper (Line 4 Sheppard) platform level. The Sheppard line tracks cross above the Yonge line. Line 4 has side platforms (unique among TTC terminal stations), but there is also a roughed-in centre platform. Should the station become a busy transfer point, this platform will be opened and trains will open all their doors, allowing riders to enter on one side and exit on the other to improve efficiency. Both lines have
232-616: Is located under Yonge Street at Sheppard Avenue , and is built on five levels. All seven entrances are located at street level, as is the bus platform. The three levels below are concourse levels, which provide access to the bus platform and the two subway lines. The subway platforms are on the two lower levels, with the Yonge–University line on the bottom and the newer Sheppard line crossing above. There are six entrances – five automated entrances (all of which are only accessible by Presto card ) and one staffed entrance: The station on
261-459: Is the (former) Second Concession road, between concessions 1 and 2 (forms the front of the second concession of land). There is no "first" concession road. In some townships, the baseline passed through the middle, with concessions numbered on each side. In some townships, such as those in Bruce County , each side of each successive concession road comprised a separate numbered concession. Thus,
290-500: The Barrie line , on Sheppard between Keele Street and Allen Road . 43°45′42″N 79°24′36″W / 43.76167°N 79.41000°W / 43.76167; -79.41000 Concession road In Upper and Lower Canada , concession roads were laid out by the colonial government through undeveloped Crown land to provide access to rows of newly surveyed lots intended for farming by new settlers. The land that comprised
319-517: The Rouge River valley presents steep grades 43°48′33″N 79°09′58″W / 43.80917°N 79.16611°W / 43.80917; -79.16611 , and so Sheppard curves southwards to meet Kingston Road just north of Highway 401 . At that junction, it also meets Port Union Road, which heads south into the Port Union neighbourhood. However, the street originally continued straight east into
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#1732855326156348-533: The Sheppard–Yonge (at the junction with the Yonge section of Line 1 Yonge–University ) and Don Mills termini. Sheppard West station is located at the corner of Sheppard and Allen Road , and Downsview Park station is located between Keele Street and Allen Road . The extension of the Line 2 Bloor-Danforth subway will have the line terminate at Sheppard Avenue, where a future extension of Line 4 could meet with it in
377-468: The Toronto subway . The station is located at the southern end of North York City Centre . It is the fourth-busiest station in the system, after Bloor–Yonge , St. George and Union , serving a combined total of approximately 92,828 people per day in 2023–2024 . Sheppard–Yonge first opened as Sheppard in 1974, when the Yonge–University subway line was extended north from Eglinton to Finch . The extension
406-711: The Rouge valley, but that section was renamed Twyn Rivers Drive after the connection to Port Union Rd was made in the early 1950s, though Twyn Rivers becomes Sheppard again (thus officially giving the street its two branches) at Altona Road just east of the Toronto-Pickering limits in Durham Region . It continues farther east as a collector road until it ends at Fairport Road just north of Kingston Road. 43°49′28″N 79°06′26″W / 43.82444°N 79.10722°W / 43.82444; -79.10722 This routing parallels
435-582: The Sheppard line was designed by architectural firm NORR Limited. The construction of the Sheppard line included the integration of the bus terminal at street level into the fare-paid zone. The artwork in the station, entitled Immersion Land and created by the artist Stacey Spiegel , consists of panoramic posterized murals created from 150 digital photos rendered onto single-colour mosaic tiles. The artwork depicts rural scenery along Yonge Street or Highway 11 somewhere between Lake Ontario and North Bay , and
464-509: The Sheppard section through Scarborough. However, a new section called the Lansing Cutoff was constructed joining the two disconnected pieces. The orphaned section of Sheppard between the 404 and Victoria Park was renamed Old Sheppard Avenue. 43°46′34″N 79°20′13″W / 43.77611°N 79.33694°W / 43.77611; -79.33694 Sheppard continues straight east through Scarborough until just east of Meadowvale Road, where
493-576: The alignment for Highway 401 and serves as an alternative if the highway is closed or congested. West of Yonge Street, Sheppard travels west across the Sheppard Avenue Bridge over the Don and past Bathurst Street and Wilson Heights Boulevard. Further west, the road allowance became blocked in 1939 by the appropriation of land for a De Havilland aircraft plant and, after World War II , Canadian Forces Base Downsview . A crescent-shaped section of road
522-536: The future. Six bus routes run along Sheppard Avenue in Toronto from Sheppard–Yonge station: Three express routes runs along Sheppard Avenue: Historical routes since 1990: GO Transit has stations at Agincourt on the Stouffville line , on Sheppard between Kennedy Road and Midland Avenue, Oriole on the Richmond Hill line , southwest of the intersection of Leslie Street and Sheppard, and at Downsview Park on
551-412: The north platform is used only for passengers disembarking from trains that are going out of service. A connecting track from the southbound Line 1 track south of the station, used only if non-revenue trains or work cars need to be transferred between the two lines, curves around to a point 500 metres (1,600 ft) west of Yonge on Line 4's single tail track , slightly more than one train-length east of
580-474: The north shore of Lake Ontario, or to the southern boundary line of a county. Unlike previous American colonial practice, land in Ontario was surveyed first before being allocated to settlers. The provision of road allowances was an advance over earlier survey systems which allocated no roadways. Waterloo township, for example, had no road allowances. In some townships, the " line road" name (e.g., Ninth Line)
609-862: The numbers of odd-numbered concessions would appear only in property records (e.g., Lot 18, Concession 11, Brant Township , which would be on the north side of Concession Road 10). Many concession roads retain their original names. Less developed areas are often referred to as "back concessions". Side road or sideline numbering varies depending on the township. Some examples: Many side roads are no longer numbered, but have been given names. For example, most of Renfrew County's side roads are given names such as Stokes Road, Patterson Road, Dillabough Road, Cheese Factory Road. The naming process has been underway for many years. In most of Upper Canada this layout of roads preceded urban development, so that most Ontario municipalities now have grid patterns of streets. In cities, many concession roads have become major streets. However,
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#1732855326156638-572: The road junctions even, but any errors result in jogs at the midpoint of the side road. Example Even-Intersection Jogged-Sideroad in Double Front Township There is considerable variation in concession road nomenclature. Markham, for example, has both "Ninth Line" and "11th Concession Road". [1] In some townships, numbering is sequential, starting from one side. For example, in King Township, concessions start from Yonge. Bathurst
667-441: The south side of a road might be Concession 2 and the north side Concession 3. In this system, for the purposes of road signing only even (or, sometimes, odd) numbers were used, so that concession roads were successively numbered, e.g., 2, 4, 6, etc. This simplified the address numbering of farm lots, especially along township boundary roads where opposite sides of the same road were in different townships. Where even numbers were used,
696-465: The station were changed to give the new name. At that time, this station became accessible with elevators. When the automated announcements were installed on Toronto's subway trains, Line 1 trains referred to the station as "Sheppard" while Line 4 trains referred to the station as "Sheppard–Yonge", the new Toronto Rocket subway trains refer to the station on both Lines 1 and 4 as "Sheppard–Yonge" followed by "Change for Line 1/4" respectively. The station
725-616: The wide valley at the confluence of the two branches of the Humber River , preventing it from continuing further west. The Line 4 Sheppard subway runs under Sheppard Avenue East from Yonge Street to Don Mills Road , with proposals to continue the line farther eastwards to the Scarborough Town Centre and westwards to Sheppard West station at Allen Road. There are five stations on the line providing access to Sheppard Avenue, including Bayview , Bessarion , and Leslie , as well as
754-628: Was applied to the roads that elsewhere were called "concession roads", i.e., roads that ran between two adjacent concessions. By one count, there were five major Ontario survey systems, with 166 variations, resulting in a "crazy quilt" of surveys. In many cases special colonization roads ran diagonally across the grid. Survey lines referenced back from the Great Lakes ran at different angles, forming triangles and other irregular shapes. Some townships had more than one survey. Holland , Nelson and Toronto Township (today Mississauga ) are examples. In
783-428: Was expanded and renamed "Sheppard–Yonge" in 2002 with the opening of the Sheppard subway line, for which this station became the western terminus. The renaming was similar to that of Bloor–Yonge station . Unlike Bloor–Yonge, where the signs on Line 1 platforms still read "Bloor" and those on the Line 2 Bloor–Danforth read "Yonge", Sheppard–Yonge is given its full name on both sets of platforms; all existing signs within
812-475: Was finally constructed along the northern edge of the now former base in the 1970s, connecting Sheppard at Wilson Heights to Keele Street . 43°45′17″N 79°28′42″W / 43.75472°N 79.47833°W / 43.75472; -79.47833 Today, Sheppard also intersects Allen Road on this section, but the intersecting portion of Allen Road was not constructed until 1982. Sheppard Avenue continues still further west to Weston Road and ends there due to
841-428: Was planned to open in two stages with Sheppard as the temporary terminus, but construction north of York Mills was delayed by various problems and in 1973, York Mills was opened as the temporary terminus instead; Sheppard and Finch stations opened in 1974. The H-2 class subway cars delivered in 1971 included destination signs for "Sheppard via downtown" on the expectation that it would be a terminal station. The station
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