Build a station underneath a running subway? Piece of cake!

At the busy intersection of Allen Road and Eglinton Avenue West, crews are building Cedarvale station. Not only do we need to support the ground and surrounding buildings, but we need to underpin the existing subway line – while it’s still running. It’s nothing our crews haven’t handled before.

“Piling work is especially important at Cedarvale Station as we are working right next to an existing subway station and will eventually work underneath it,” said Amar Sandhu, project manager for Cedarvale station. “We’re talking about 600 piles that will be drilled into the ground to support the ground and station – some of which will go as deep as 20 metres.”

Underpinning an active subway line is no small feat, but Amar is an expert who has tackled challenging engineering projects. He once successfully relocated a heritage designated farm house in Markham – moving it 300 metres from its original location. 

In May, the shoring work for the station will begin while utility relocations continue. The entire shoring and road decking installation process will take approximately 24 months to complete.

Once the shoring work is done, the next step is digging out approximately 93,000 cubic metres of soil, which is enough to fill up all the water tanks at Ripley’s Aquarium more than 16 times.