Lawrence West station

The station opened in 1978, as part of the subway line extension from St. George to Wilson station.

In 2008, the Toronto Star reported this station, along with Lansdowne, Kennedy, and Warden to be a "known problem area" in terms of crime in the subway system.[4]

In 2014 an elevator, automatic sliding doors and an accessible fare gate were installed in the main part of the station on the south side of Lawrence Avenue, to make the station wheelchair accessible.[5] In addition, repairs were made to the sawtooth bus platforms and the roadway was repaved for low floor buses.[6] The northside entrance remains inaccessible due to space restrictions and generally used as drop off point by car.

On 6 January 2019, the fare collector booth at this station was permanently closed. Instead, the station is staffed by roaming customer service agents, who have been in place at Line 1 stations between Wilson and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre since the Toronto–York Spadina subway extension opened on 17 December 2017. While customers are still able to pay their fares by tokens and tickets, they can no longer purchase these at the station, and customers paying by cash require exact change.[7][8] As with all TTC subway stations, Presto cards are also accepted as fare payment and can be purchased and loaded with funds or an unlimited monthly TTC pass at the Presto fare vending machines located in the station.

On 5 April 2019, Lawrence West and Yorkdale stations became the first two locations to sell single-use Presto tickets, which are sold from the stations' Presto fare vending machines.[9]

Main station structure and bus platforms, on the south side of Lawrence Avenue West, depicting Spacing... Aerial Highways

Dunlop Farrow Aitken was the firm responsible for the station's architecture.[10] The structure is composed of an enclosed train platform area in the median of Allen Road, which is bridged by a bus loop and waiting area on the south side of the Lawrence Avenue bridge. Staffed entrances on both sides of the street connect to a transfer area which links the train platform and the bus area.[11]

Upon entrance from the Lawrence Avenue bridge over Allen Road, the bus waiting area and the train platform are apparent. This openness is achieved through glazed walls and a large stairwell.[12] The glass is framed with distinctive orange-painted metal. The platform level features exposed concrete walls, with a long strip of skylights above the tracks with the same orange framing used throughout the station. Rectangular prism benches with rectangular tiles of yellow, orange, and brown hues are unique to the station. Similar tiles are used on the floors and centre pillars.

Spacing... Aerial Highways, a large 300 foot ceramic tile mural designed by Claude Breeze,[13] spreads across the north face of the main station building above the bus platform.

When the subway is closed, buses use stops outside of the terminal along Lawrence Avenue West. TTC routes serving the station include:

Media related to Lawrence West Station at Wikimedia Commons

• Lawrence West station at the Toronto Transit Commission