Goodbye Muddy York Brewing, Hello Ontario Line

Looking Ahead to East York's Transit Future While Saying Goodbye to it's finest institution.

Muddy York Brewing

Today, I'm going to walk over to one of my favourite Toronto establishments for the last time. If you're at all interested in beer, there's a good chance you hear recently that Muddy York brewing is closing their East York location. This unplanned closure comes as they're opening a new location in Stouffville (the subject of a future post).

This sad news makes me think of East York's transit future. Getting to Muddy York has always been a bit of a pain. Ironically, the new location in Stouffville will be quite easily accessible by GO Train while the original location - within current Toronto city boundaries was annoying.

The word current is doing some work there. Muddy York is based in East York, one of the six former municipalities that maske up the current City of Toronto. The old City of Toronto boundaries are a bit wonky. I'm just south of East York, but still within the boundaries of the old city. You can wander into East York from my place without even knowing you've crossed the former boundary.

Fulton Avenue at Pape Street, entering East York

The boundary is so permeable that I wouldn't have even noticed when I crossed in as I walked up Pape Street from Leslieville had it not been for this helpfully placed breakfast place just north of the boundary (Fulton Avenue).

I wandered up to O'Connor Street, one of the main east-west commercial streets in the old city. Or at least on the southeast portion. As you'll notice from the map below, East York is bisected by the Don Valley. Here's the Northwestern portion, as seen from Woodbine Brige. Yes, way over there.

The portion northeast of Old Toronto is functionally closer to being part of Midtown Toronto, so it's almost weird to lump it in with what is now very much part of East Toronto. The Don Valley is, in practice, a more meaningful boundary than shaded lines on a map.

I started at O'Connor and Broadview, which is the northwest corner of the southeastern section of old East York (if that makes sense).

Those of you familiar with the east side may hear broadview and think of streetcars. We're too far north for that.

O’Connor and Broadview isn't the most comfortable intersection from a pedestrian point of view. It feels like one of the busses careening around the corner could take you out at any moment.

Looking eastbound, this could be any street on the east side of Toronto. Mostly residential; moderate intensity; serviceable sidewalks; and mostly oriented towards driving.

The old city of East York does have serviceable local bus coverage, and many parts are well connected into the streetcar or subway networks south of the old city. It’s less serviceable if you need to get downtown. There are options. The Bloor/Danforth subway line runs just south of the old municipal boundaries. Woodbine and Victoria Park subway stations are on the fringe of East York’s borders (the parts that inexplicably duck south of Danforth). But it’s still a 22 minute walk from O’Connor and Woodbine to Woodbine Station, for instance.

Danforth and Pape, not part of East York, contrary to popular opinion.

There is also a GO Transit station at Main Street, just southeast of the old city. But there is no real convenient way to get downtown by transit from much of old East York.

Take where I'm standing now as an example (O'Connor and Pape). Here are three transit options to Union Station. Let's assume for a minute that these times are reliably correct.

The times range from 40 to 57 minutes, requiring one or two transfers. If everything works out, it's not awful if you're doing it once a week. Every day? That would not be great. Especially considering how unpleasant it might be to wait on a narrow sidewalk in winter after missing the bus.

Now, let's compare that to driving, also recognizing that traffic varies dramatically. Right now the estimated drive time is 15 minutes. Yes, it's Sunday afternoon, so ideal driving conditions. But that “40 minute” two bus trip would get stuck in rush hour traffic too, so it's not an unfair comparison.

While transit options for commuters aren't great right now, the Ontario Line will make life much easier for commuters - eventually. Cosburn Station will be right in the heart of East York. Given that the end-to-end travel time for the Ontario Line is estimated at 30 minutes, it’ll probably be closer to 15 minutes from Cosburn to downtown.

The Ontario Line will give East York residents fast and predictable access to Union Station. This will not only make it easy to get to the office, but also to access Downtown amenities and both airports. That's a pretty big upgrade!

The new transit options will also mean that the community can accommodate more people. To illustrate how much capacity there is, much of O'Connor Street looks like this:

There are stretches of moderate intensity (mostly one story) retail and some apartment buildings. But there's plenty of room to grow.

In the meantime, it takes about an hour and four minutes to get from O'Connor and Broadview to Muddy York Brewing on foot while writing a photo-heavy Substack post).

Visit while you can (it's worth it!). Or you can hold out for the Stouffville location (you'll know when it's open by following along here.

Farewell, Muddy York!