Welcome to Osgoode Station - one of my favourites along the Yonge/University Line.
Osgoode is one of the downtown subway stations on Line 1 Yonge–University. The station, which opened in 1963, is located under University Avenue where it meets Queen Street West and is named for the nearby Osgoode Hall, (the naming coming from William Osgoode, the first chief justice of Upper Canada).
I've come to appreciate this station for many years due to the many attractions in close proximity to it, like City Hall, the Entertainment District, Four Seasons, numerous hotels and Chinatown being closeby. Now that I work nearby, I've come to further appreciate how much variety is in the area, and how convenient it all is being so close together. (Both pictures on this page are from 2015, when I first explored this station in earnest*)
When Osgoode was built, work was made in anticipation of a possible "Lower Osgoode" station on the projected but never-built Queen Street subway.
This planned subway has been studied decade after decade under different plans, starting with a plan in 1915 to go under Queen and link numerous areas, like City Hall and the warehouse district along Spadina, but it was never able to be tabled to a fulfilling vision.
Only in the last few years has the VERY delayed Downtown Relief Line come into focus, and was finally combined with the Queen Subway idea into a fully fledged transit line, which is now under construction throughout the city. The Ontario Line is a 15 kilometre transit line (its unknown if its a subway, but apparently it uses subway like technology!) connecting the Exhibition Grounds to the city core, then weaving through to the Distillery District and up the east end until it hits Flemingdon Park, near to where the former Ontario Science Centre was.
A tentative completion date of 2031 is set for this line, which will be known as Ontario Line (Line 3), and will make this station one of the busiest interchanges in the entire transit network.
Until 2007, all entrances to this station consisted of open stairways from the sidewalk - a new entrance, with elevator access to the concourse level, was integrated into the construction of the Four Seasons Centre, on the southeast corner of Queen and University.
The station may look different than it did ten years ago, but I fondly remember there being more colour here...
About SideTracked Caches
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. It's a distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and find it too. More Information can be found at the SideTracked Website
Please Bring your own Pen and tweezers. Please exercise caution as this is a very muggle heavy area. The cache itself is a typical urban hide, and unorthodox for a DreamMachine cache.