Vaughan Metropolitan Centre station

Main station entrance building

Station concourse

Artwork Atmospheric Lense with coloured mirrored panels on the station dome

The subway station is located on the northwest corner of Millway Avenue and Highway 7, west of Jane Street, and is one of two new stations that are outside the City of Toronto in York Region. This is the northernmost station in the subway system.[7]

Grimshaw Architects designed the station, which has a domed ovoid entrance building just north of the Rapidway platforms on Highway 7. The building has four main entrances in an X pattern, plus an underground connection to two office buildings,[8] one of which contains the David Braley Vaughan Metropolitan Centre of Community, which houses a YMCA and the VMC branch of the Vaughan Public Library.[9] The main entrance features a cool roof, and a nearby electrical substation located on the south side of Highway 7 has a green roof.[10] Toronto-based Paul Raff Studio provided the station's artwork, titled Atmospheric Lense, consisting of coloured mirrored panels and windows located on the domed ceiling, and visible by looking up stairwells.[11][12]

Underground corridors lead both north and south from the station's concourse level to two York Region Transit (YRT) bus terminals. The north corridor leads to the SmartVMC Bus Terminal, where passengers can transfer to conventional YRT bus routes, and the south corridor leads to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Vivastation on the Highway 7 Rapidway, where riders connect to Viva and Züm bus rapid transit routes. The fare-paid area features a Gateway Newstands kiosk.[13]

On November 27, 2009, the official groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension (TYSSE), and tunnelling began in June 2011. The project was expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2016,[14] but the timeline was revised, with the station planned to open by the end of 2017.

The ceremonial opening of the extension to Vaughan took place at the station on December 17, 2017, attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne and Mayor of Toronto John Tory.[3] The station replaced Sheppard West as the northwestern terminus of Line 1.

While VMC, along with the five other TYSSE stations, had a fare booth installed as per original station plans,[15] it never housed collectors, as the station was among the first eight (along with the first two south of the extension) to discontinue sales of legacy TTC fare media such as tokens and tickets. Presto vending machines were available at its opening to sell Presto cards and to load funds or monthly passes onto them.[16] On May 3, 2019, this station became one of the first ten stations to sell Presto tickets via Presto vending machines.[17]

During the initial planning stages of the TYSSE, the City of Vaughan wanted the station named "Vaughan Corporate Centre", after the name of its proposed new downtown, and later requested "Vaughan Metropolitan Centre" after it changed the name of the development. On September 30, 2010, a TTC committee recommended that the name be changed to "Vaughan Centre", despite the City's desire for the full name. However, the TTC delayed a final decision on the committee's report[18][19] until February 2012, when Vaughan's preference for the full name was adopted.[20] The TTC originally rejected the name to avoid linking the station to a specific development. The length of the name was seen as an inconvenience and "Vaughan Centre" was more consistent with other regional centre station names (i.e. North York Centre and Scarborough Centre).[21] A survey was conducted between September 23 and October 21, 2011, by the TTC to determine the preferred name. 80% supported "Vaughan Centre", 5% supported "Vaughan Corporate Centre", 9% supported "Vaughan Metropolitan Centre" and 7% supported other names. Other discussed names were "Highway 7", "Highway 7 West", "Jane North", "Edgeley", "Creditstone", and "Applewood".[21] The new Toronto Rocket subway trains' exterior front and rear destination signs display simply "Vaughan" and, on trains with side exterior destination signs, "Line 1 towards Vaughan", rather than the full station name.

The station crossover with a departing train crossing into the southbound track

Looking north to the end of the west (southbound side) tail track

Photos taken in 2018, several months after the station opened. Note the clean tunnels still free of accumulated deposits.

As this is a terminal station, there is a diamond crossover to the south of the platform for arriving trains to cross over to the southbound track, and for departing trains on the northbound track to cross to the southbound track. There are also tail tracks beyond the north end for overnight storage for two trains, with a trackless extra tunnel between them for a future potential third.[22][23]

To avoid implementing a payment-on-exit system, the station is part of the Toronto TTC fare zone despite being located in York Region.[24] This is in contrast to TTC-contracted bus routes, where riders are required to pay extra fare (for YRT) when travelling beyond the municipal boundary at Steeles Avenue. This is analogous to the situation in 1968, when the TTC had an internal fare zone system and "Zone 2" fares were charged when crossing the zones on buses or streetcars, yet no extra fare was required to reach five new subway stations which opened outside the pre-amalgamation Toronto city limits in Zone 2 that year, although the Zone 2 fare was charged when transferring to connecting bus routes in the suburban municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto.[25] Similarly, at this (as well as at the adjacent Highway 407) station, separate fares are charged when transferring between the TTC subway and connecting YRT or Züm buses, which are the only surface routes serving it.

No TTC buses connect to this station, but the aforementioned two bus terminals serve regional buses:

SmartVMC Bus Terminal

SmartVMC Bus Terminal
SmartVMC Bus Terminal at night
General information
Location	173 Millway Avenue, Vaughan, Ontario Canada
Coordinates	43°47′47″N 79°31′41″W
Owned by	Regional Municipality of York
Operated by	York Region Transit, Brampton Transit
Bus routes	YRT buses  20  Jane  26  Maple  720  Wonderland / Vaughan Mills  M  Mobility On-Request  501  Queen
Bus stands	9
Construction
Accessible	Yes
Other information
Website	Official station page
History
Opened	November 3, 2019 (2019-11-03)[26]

SmartVMC Bus Terminal (previously known as SmartCentres Place Bus Terminal) is a YRT bus terminal north of the station to the west side of Millway Avenue,[27] outside the station's fare-paid area.[28][29] Diamond Schmitt Architects designed the terminal in a horseshoe shape. The building features open architecture that can be accessed from every direction. There is a passenger kiss-and-ride area on Millway Avenue and an underground walkway linking it with the subway station and Viva rapidway station on Highway 7.[27][30]

The total cost of the terminal was approximately $32 million. The terminal was named after its developer, SmartCentres REIT, who contributed $15 million in financing for an underground connection between the bus terminal and the station.[30]

The terminal was opened on November 3, 2019,[26] nearly two years after the station. It was expected to open in early 2018, shortly after the station itself, but it was delayed due to unspecified "unforeseen circumstances".[31] Prior to the opening of the terminal, buses used the current kiss-and-ride area.

The following YRT routes serve the terminal:[32]

Route	Name	Notes
20	Jane	Northbound to Teston Road via Vaughan Mills Terminal and Major Mackenzie West Terminal; southbound to Pioneer Village station via Highway 407 station
26	Maple Local	Northbound to America Avenue via Vaughan Mills (Rush hour service only between Vaughan Mills and this station)
720	Highway 407 / Wonderland	Northbound to Major Mackenzie West Terminal via Vaughan Mills Terminal; southbound to Highway 407 station
Mobility Plus

Since August 31, 2020, it is also served by a Brampton Transit bus rapid transit route, the 501 Züm Queen (which also serves the Vivastation on Highway 7):[33]

Route	Name	Notes
501	Züm Queen	Westbound to Brampton Downtown Terminal

The following YRT routes use an on-street stop at the station's main entrance on Highway 7 and do not stop inside the terminal or Vivastation:[34]

Route	Name	Notes
77	Highway 7	Westbound to The Gore Road
		Eastbound to Finch Bus Terminal (Finch station)

Vivastation

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Vivastation
Viva Orange bus at VMC Vivastation
General information
Location	Centre of Highway 7 Rapidway
Coordinates	43°47′36″N 79°31′40″W
Platforms	2 (1 eastbound, 1 westbound)
Bus routes	Viva Orange  501  Queen
Construction
Structure type	Covered transfer facility within dedicated right-of-way
Accessible	Yes
Other information
Website	Official station page
History
Opened	December 17, 2017 (2017-12-17)

The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Vivastation is a covered transfer facility in the centre of the Highway 7 Rapidway. It allows Viva Orange buses and Brampton Transit–operated 501 Züm Queen through-service buses to quickly serve the subway station without having to pull into the SmartVMC terminal, although the 501 does terminate there (though it formerly continued to York University) while also serving the Vivastation. The facility is located directly above the station's concourse and connects to it via escalators and elevators.[35] It is located south of the main station building and bus terminal, both of which can be accessed from the Vivastation either underground through the concourse or at ground level via a crosswalk and sidewalks.[27]

Vaughan plans to build a transit-oriented city centre from scratch around the station in what is a low-density area featuring big-box stores and vacant land. Vaughan projects that by 2031, the new downtown will have 25,000 residents and employment for more than 11,000 people. Vaughan planning commissioner John MacKenzie said that Mississauga took 20 to 25 years to build its city centre without a subway, but hopes to accelerate the process in Vaughan with the help of the subway extension.[36]

• Official station page
• Media related to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (TTC) at Wikimedia Commons
• Map indicating alignment of extension and location of stations
• Updated TTC Subway Map