Mud pit greets TTC riders
‘Eyesore’ slows the flow of people during rush hour at Queen’s Park station
TTC riders should watch their step going in and out of a busy downtown subway station to avoid a people-sucking mud hole.
Those who have seen the original Tarzan movies, produced in the 1930s and ’40s, will recall that one of the worst perils in a jungle filled with danger was a pit of oozing quicksand. About a dozen were made, starring Johnny Weissmuller as Ape Man of the jungle, swinging from the vines like a monkey. It seemed like bumbling bad guys were always stumbling into suffocating quicksand, requiring a dramatic rescue from Tarzan, unless they deserved it.
If Tarzan worked for the TTC, he’d be keeping an eye on the Queen’s Park subway station, where a muddy mess looks like it could swallow hapless riders while leaving no clues as to their fate.
Chris Goode first emailed us about it last June, saying the entrance at the northeast corner of College St. and University Ave. “seems to have been forgotten by the city and has turned into a mud pit.”
“It’s an eyesore and slows down progress into and out of the station at rush hour. When we have a rainstorm, it can make it difficult to navigate this area. It seems like it has been this way forever.”
We forgot about it (sorry about that) until Goode sent us an update last month, saying he’d spotted trucks and workers in the area, “and figured someone had finally decided to patch over this square of mud.”
It turns out “the work was another type of beautification project. I know this isn’t the most life-threatening of issues in the city, but ...”
Sure, not life-threatening until a TTC rider vanishes.
STATUS: The Queen’s Park quicksand should not be underestimated (are you listening, Doug Ford?), so we asked the TTC to hop on it. We got a note from spokesperson Stuart Green two weeks ago, saying they were trying to determine ownership of the property. He sent us a second note last week, saying “it may, in fact, be TTC property after all. It seems we may have acquired this land from the province in 2004 when the entrance was built,” adding they’re still trying to find the precise property line. “If it is entirely on our property, we will seek the necessary permits and get it remedied ASAP.” Please hurry, before somebody goes missing.