Portions of Union Station were shut down for nearly 12 hours on Sunday due to heavy rainfall overnight despite the station’s robust flood prevention measures.
Overnight Sunday, Torontonians were met with heavy rainfall and thunderstorms resulting in nearly 48 mm of rain in just one day, according to Environment Canada.
As a result, TTC and GO Transit commuters heading to Toronto’s Union Station on Sunday were unable to enter parts of the station due to flooding.
“Portions of the building were closed to facilitate clean up between approximately 4 am and 4 pm on Sunday. The closures were limited to the lower-level Bay Promenade and Bay retail areas,” the City of Toronto said in a statement to Now Toronto.
Photos posted to social media show the station’s floors covered in water and access blocked off by yellow tape.
Commuters exiting the TTC at Union Station can usually easily walk towards GO Transit platforms through the lower concourse level, but on Sunday they were forced to exit the station, and use separate entrances to avoid the flooding.
Sunday’s rainfall is not the first time Union has flooded due to weather conditions, and the event has left Torontonians questioning if flooding in the station will continue to occur during heavy rainfall moving forward.
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“Seems like they have no permanent solution for this brand new area of the city. Any time we get a decent amount of rain expect Union to flood,” a Reddit user said.
“What’s being done to prevent this from happening in the future? This wasn’t a once in a 100 years storm,” another user said.
“So every time it rains hard, Union Station will flood? Ugh what an embarrassment,” another user said.
The City of Toronto says that Union Station has a robust flood prevention measure in place, including cisterns to absorb the excessive rainwater which worked as expected.
“However, the volume of rainwater from street level also caused flooding, which could not be prevented by our systems,” the city said.
The city says the problem was fully addressed within 12 hours on Sunday.
Some bus and streetcar routes were also impacted due to flooding and weather conditions, according to TTC service alerts.
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Torontonians are no stranger to heavy rainfall, last summer a significant rainfall event brought 128 mm of rain on Aug. 17, resulting in severe flooding causing flight delays, traffic disruptions, flooded highways and elevated bodies of water.
One month earlier, heavy downpours brought 71.66 mm of rain to the city which also impacted commuters, and resulted in flooding at Union Station.
