Videos, images emerge of massive crowding at Toronto's Union Station

Photos and videos uploaded to social media show massive crowds at Toronto's Union Station on New Year's Eve. William Pham/Twitter

Toronto’s largest transit hub rang in the new year with unprecedented crowding.

Following New Year’s Eve festivities in the city, Toronto residents and visitors crowded into Union Station to take advantage of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)’s and Metrolinx’s free trips for the holiday. Videos and photos of the scene soon emerged on social media, showing people packed shoulder-to-shoulder in one of the station’s downstairs lobbies.

 

 

“Like everyone, we are concerned about the crowding issues that occurred at Union Station last night,” TTC spokesperson Adrian Grundy said in a statement. “In preparing for New Year’s Eve, the TTC had a comprehensive staffing plan in place which allowed the transit agency to respond to various incidents across the system throughout the night.” Grundy added that the crowds seen on New Year’s Eve at Union Station were “significantly larger” than those in previous years, and “exceeded all expectations.”

Grundy said the transit agency is “reviewing” the evening’s events in order to “better understand areas for improvement and to clearly articulate lessons learned in order to improve customer experience in the future.”

In a statement to media, representatives for Metrolinx said that crowding in spaces like Union Station can be "directly impacted by TTC service changes as additional people waiting for the subway creates a backlog in the Bay concourse like last night." The statement added that Metrolinx "was able to get everyone home safely" despite the crowding.