Museum
General information
Location	75 Queen's Park Toronto, Ontario Canada
Coordinates	43°40′01″N79°23′36″W / 43.66694°N 79.39333°W /43.66694; -79.39333
Platforms	Centre platform
Tracks	2
Construction
Structure type	Underground
Accessible	No
Other information
Website	Official station page
History
Opened	February 28, 1963; 62 years ago (1963-02-28)
Rebuilt	April 2008, 2024
Passengers
2023–2024[1]	9,604
Rank	56 of 70
Services
Preceding station Toronto Transit Commission Following station St. George towardsVaughan Line 1 Yonge–University Queen's Park towardsFinch
Track layout Legend toVaughan to viaLower Bay toFinch viaUnion
Location

Museum is a subway station onLine 1 Yonge–University inToronto, Ontario, Canada. It opened in 1963 and is located under Queen's Park at Charles Street West, beside theRoyal Ontario Museum (ROM) after which it is named.

The station structure was created in the middle of the road usingcut and cover, while immediately south of the station the line goes into abored tunnel to run underQueen's Park, passing east of theOntario Legislative Building to reachQueen's Park station. The concourse is located under the roadway, one level above the north end of acentre platform, with entrances from either side of the road. There are two stairways on the west side adjacent to the southern end of the Royal Ontario Museum and two on the east, just south of Charles Street. Pedestrians are encouraged to use the station as apedestrian underpass to cross Queen's Park, a wide and busy thoroughfare without a centre median. There is also a stairway from Queen's Park leading directly to the southern end of the subway platform. This station does not yet have an elevator and is not wheelchair accessible.^[2][3]

When theMcLaughlin Planetarium was being designed in the mid-1960s, a tunnel connecting the station to the planetarium was considered. This feature was abandoned due to budget constraints.^[4]

Bay andSt. George stations each have four parallel tracks, two above two. Between these stations and Museum is a full double-track, grade-separatedwye junction. The tracks to and from Museum connect to the upper St. George andLower Bay stations, while the tracks along Bloor use lower St. George and upper Bay.

The decision by Metro Council in 1960 to build a wye from the University line to the eastbound Bloor line between Museum and Bay stations was a controversial one. TTC Chairman Clarence Downey opposed the construction, estimated to cost about $10 million, saying that $10 million would build an extra mile of subway on the Bloor–Danforth line. The construction was estimated to cost $3 million for the basic interchange, and $7 million for the “intricate trackage system”.^[5]

From February to September 1966, all three sides of the wye were used in regular service: from each of three terminals—Eglinton,Keele, andWoodbine—trains ran alternately to the other two (between Eglinton and Museum viaUnion). Thereafter,Line 2 Bloor–Danforth became a separate route, Lower Bay was closed, and upper St. George became a terminus for the Yonge–University line until it was extended toWilson in 1978. The tunnel to Lower Bay is visible from northbound trains shortly after they leave Museum Station.

In August 2022, construction started on a second entrance via an exterior staircase at the south end of Museum station; it was opened in May 2024. The staircase is located at the north end of Queens Park Circle on the south side of the War Memorial monument. It leads down to platform-level turnstiles, located at the site of a former storage space.^[a] For station accessibility, there will also be an entrance via elevator to a new concourse level providing access to a second elevator to the platform level; these changes were expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2026.^[7][8][3]

The station opened with the same tile scheme which would become standard onLine 2 Bloor–Danforth, whose first phase was completed three years later in 1966. Smooth, unadorned cream-coloured rectangular tiles were predominant, with a strip of narrower blue tiles near the ceiling. The uniqueToronto subway typeface was used for the station name, sandblasted into the wall and painted in the same shade of blue as the narrower strip of tiles.

In April 2008, a major renovation byDiamond and Schmitt Architects and Jeviso Construction Corporation transformed the platform level to mirror exhibits in the Royal Ontario Museum. This renovation replaced the original tile scheme. Supporting columns were redesigned to evoke various historical and cultural figures, including theEgyptiandeityOsiris,Toltec warriors,Doric columns,Forbidden City columns, andIndigenous Northwest Coast house posts.^[9] The walls were reclad with mauve aluminum panels by Ontario Panelization, which incorporated painted 1/4" fire-ratedLexan into the panels composing the large "MUSEUM" lettering on the walls with a historicalhieroglyphic inscription from the ROM.^[10]

Before and after

Original platform design with unadorned tiles

Museum-inspired columns after the makeover

In addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, nearby landmarks include theGardiner Museum of Ceramic Art,the Royal Conservatory of Music, the defunctMcLaughlin Planetarium, and the northeast corner of theUniversity of Toronto'sSt. George campus (which includesTrinity College,Victoria University,St. Michael's College, theHenry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law, and theFaculty of Music).

A transfer is required to connect between the subway system and these surface routes:

TTC routes serving the station include:

Media related toMuseum station (Toronto) at Wikimedia Commons

• Official station page

• Line 1 Yonge–University stations
• Railway stations in Canada opened in 1963
• 1963 establishments in Ontario
• Royal Ontario Museum
• Railway stations in Canada at university and college campuses
• Railway stations located underground in Canada

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2025
• Coordinates on Wikidata
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• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Pages using the Kartographer extension