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If you are caught in a rip, as any beach-loving Australian will tell you, the trick is to stay calm. Those sudden, wily currents sweep people right out to sea and panic only makes things worse. Angle yourself toward land, edge your way out of the worst of the pull and eventually you should wind up, if not where you started, at least on safe ground.
As a torrent of commuters floods the tunnel from Union Station, my mind is dredging up beach advice from childhood. But this isn't Down Under. These are the convoluted bowels of Toronto's financial district, and I am clearly going against the tide.
According to senior planner Al Rezoski, the city's mandate for PATH right now is to make it more tourist-friendly, attempting to capitalize on the city's already strong draw (according to a report this week, Toronto had 10.6 million overnight visitors last year.) As such, two major extensions – one connecting to the future Bay Adelaide Centre tower and the other joining the Air Canada Centre to Maple Leaf Square – are due by 2010, the same time that the Trump Tower will be completed and linked in as well. Mr. Rezoski says there will be an effort to “add more public art to make the PATH experience more pleasurable,” and that the extension at the ACC will feature skylights and glazed glass walls to bring the sunlight in. Besides adding a touch of nature, Mr. Rezoski says the openings “will help people with wayfinding,” as they can use the skyline above to help situate themselves. “It can be very confusing down there,” he admits.
But even with aesthetic improvements planned and a few more connections, the question remains: Is there anything on offer down there, or is it just a warm, dry place to pass through on your way somewhere else?
It's rush hour in PATH, and I will be spending the next eight hours exploring life inside this teeming warren – if I can survive the morning commuter crush, that is.
The labyrinth
I find some space to breathe beside a Starbucks with 10 workers satiating the caffeine lust of a seemingly endless queue.
I almost didn't make it this far. Self-congratulations for finding PATH's most westerly entrance, tucked below King Street behind Metro Hall – no mean feat, thanks to the system's so-unobtrusive-it's-almost-invisible signage – were quashed within minutes. I faced a doorway that will one day give entry to Simcoe Place and the future Ritz Carlton Hotel, but today is a paper-covered panel apologizing for the inconvenience. I cursed the piped-in Muzak and frowned at the PATH map, which shows that, to go south, one must first trek north and then east.
“That's one of the secrets: All of the little paths on the map aren't necessarily real.” Tim Radford gives me some insider tips to PATH during an impromptu, 9:40 a.m. tour of Commerce Court North, under King, between Bay and Yonge. We are inside a terrazzo, granite and wood-panelled cavern that was once a bank vault and is now arguably the most beautiful part of PATH. Working for Tidy's Flowers in this charming patch for three years has taught Mr. Radford a few things: You never know if it snowed during the day; one regular customer always asks for orchids on Friday afternoons; and almost everyone gets lost on the way to the Eaton Centre.
“The PATH map shows a link from Scotia Tower [at Adelaide and Yonge] through to the Hudson Bay Company to the Eaton Centre that doesn't exist. You have to go around, and it ends up being about 16 or 17 blocks,” he warns.
Those ghost paths are slowly becoming real, though. Besides the Bay-Adelaide link and the extension to Maple Leaf Square, an environmental assessment of a western connection from Union Station up to Wellington and York will go to council in April. That major connection aims to capitalize on the planned $388-million renewal of Union Station, which could include a new underground retail concourse.
As it is, the PATH system is the world's largest underground shopping mall, stretching 27 kilometres under the city. (While Montreal's system may be longer, it is not one continuous entity.) It all began when Eaton's built a tunnel from the main store to its bargain annex in 1900. By 1917, the downtown core had five tunnels, and 10 years later Union Station was connected to the Royal York Hotel. Then, the real explosion came in the 1970s when the Richmond-Adelaide and Sheraton Centre burrowed into the mix.
