Radial Car on Old Kingston Road, West Hill, c.1915

“A long term T.T.C. plan calls for construction of an eight-mile line into Scarborough that would use streetcars of the type running on Queen Street. The line would form an eastward extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway … passing close to the (Scarborough) Town Centre on Ellesmere Road and ending near Malvern.”

An interesting plan in contrast to the current plan for a subway extension to Sheppard, except the above paragraph appeared in the Globe and Mail on Sept. 18, 1969, forty-four years ago!! Now that’s a “long term TTC plan” for sure.

Historically speaking, street cars came to Scarborough back in 1898 when the “radial line” ran along Kingston Road as far as the Hunt Club. By 1906 these street rail cars had been extended to West Hill with 45 stops along the way. The radial line was a boom to the area adjacent to the Kingston Road which had previously been the summer resort location for wealthy Toronto entrepreneurs such as Henry Pellatt (builder of Casa Loma) and Donald Mann (railway builder). Within a few years, Birch Cliff was born and Scarborough began its slow transition from a rural farmland community to a suburban community likely to welcome rapid transit to the downtown Toronto core.

The T.T.C. city streetcar service replaced the radial cars to Victoria Park Avenue in 1921. Passenger stops were then renumbered and the new stops developed a community-like image. Residents living near the old Halfway House (Cliffside) often referred to their area as Stop 14. Those near the Scarborough High School were Stop 17 residents and those out in West Hill were at Stop 35.

In July, 1936, the radial car line along the Kingston Road was abandoned and replaced with buses and although the street cars were extended to Birchmount from 1928 to 1954, rapid rail transit in Scarborough ceased until 1967 when GO-Transit began along the lakeshore.

The following year, 1968, the Bloor-Danforth subway was extended as far east as Warden Avenue, slightly more than one kilometre into Scarborough and it would be another dozen years (1980) before the subway would be extended as far as Kennedy, four kilometres east of Victoria Park. The rest of Scarborough and its half-million residents would still have to rely on buses and the cold-winter bus shelters while T.T.C. planners debated the future of streetcars and/or subways extending beyond the former City of Toronto.

Back in 1969, T.T.C. planners stated: “The alternative to use of street cars would be some sort of monorail… but huge outlays would be needed for new vehicles and it would be almost impossible to convert to full subway service without enormous construction costs and headaches. Since Toronto’s street car and subway tracks are the same gauge, the tram service could be converted into a subway operation by adding a third rail and installing automatic signals.”

So much for those plans as a Light Rapid Transit (L.R.T.) line was extended north from the Kennedy subway station to the Scarborough Town Centre in 1985 leaving the bulk of the Scarborough population still relying on buses to get them to the subway or L.R.T. from their homes north of 401 and east of McCowan where more than half of the Scarborough
population lived.

The Scarborough RT, 1990s.

Whatever happened to the Intermediate Capacity Rapid Transit line proposed by the T.T.C. Commission back in Sept.,
1969 which would extend from the subway up to Malvern and run westward across Finch to York University with possible extensions in Scarborough to the Zoo? That plan, four decades ago, also included a subway and street car
extension along Eglinton Avenue from Kennedy Road in Scarborough to Etobicoke. Now, forty-four years later, “the enormous construction costs and headaches” have been brought forward again and the residents of Scarborough, north of 401 or east of McCowan Road will likely wait another 44 years before they ever see rapid transit serving their communities.

For a more detailed history of the Radial Car in Scarborough, the Society has published a booklet on the topic: “The Scarborough Interurban/suburban (radial) car line, 1893-1936” (Notes and Comments, Volume # 24). It will be provided free to members shortly.

Copies of the booklet are also available from the Scarborough Archives @ $ 10.00 each (postage include).

Send cheque (payable to Scarborough Archives) along with your name and address to:
Scarborough Historical Society
6282 Kingston Road,
Scarborough, ON M1C 1K9.