The station opened in 1978, as part of the subway line extension from St. George to Wilson station.
In 2008, the Toronto Star reported this station, along with Lansdowne, Kennedy, and Warden to be a "known problem area" in terms of crime in the subway system.[4]
In 2014 an elevator, automatic sliding doors and an accessible fare gate were installed in the main part of the station on the south side of Lawrence Avenue, to make the station wheelchair accessible.[5] In addition, repairs were made to the sawtooth bus platforms and the roadway was repaved for low floor buses.[6] The northside entrance remains inaccessible due to space restrictions and generally used as drop off point by car.
On 6 January 2019, this station discontinued sales of legacy TTC fare media (tokens and tickets), previously available at a fare collector booth. Presto vending machines were available to sell Presto cards and to load funds or a monthly Metropass onto them.[7][8]
On 5 April 2019, Lawrence West and Yorkdale stations became the first two locations to sell single-use Presto tickets, which are sold from the stations' Presto fare vending machines.[9]
Architecture and art
Main station skylight structure and bus platformsMain station structure and bus platforms, on the south side of Lawrence Avenue West, depicting Spacing... Aerial Highways
Dunlop Farrow Aitken was the firm responsible for the station's architecture.[10] The structure is composed of an enclosed train platform area in the median of Allen Road, which is bridged by a bus loop and waiting area on the south side of the Lawrence Avenue bridge. Staffed entrances on both sides of the street connect to a transfer area which links the train platform and the bus area.[11]
Upon entrance from the Lawrence Avenue bridge over Allen Road, the bus waiting area and the train platform are apparent. This openness is achieved through glazed walls and a large stairwell.[12] The glass is framed with distinctive orange-painted metal. The platform level features exposed concrete walls, with a long strip of skylights above the tracks with the same orange framing used throughout the station. Rectangular prism benches with rectangular tiles of yellow, orange, and brown hues are unique to the station. Similar tiles are used on the floors and centre pillars.
Spacing... Aerial Highways, a large 300 foot ceramic tile mural designed by Claude Breeze,[13] spreads across the north face of the main station building above the bus platform.
Eastbound to Eglinton station and westbound to Pearson Airport (Rush hour service; eastbound buses stop on Lawrence Avenue West outside the station.)
352
Lawrence West
Blue Night service; eastbound to Sunnybrook Hospital and westbound to Pearson Airport. (Overnight service stops on Lawrence Avenue West and does not enter the station.)
^"Subway ridership, 2023-2024"(PDF). Toronto Transit Commission. Retrieved 12 November 2024. This table shows the typical number of customer-boardings made on each subway line and the number of customers travelling to and from each station platform on a typical weekday in Sep 2023-Aug 2024.
