North York by black car: Yonge Street corridor, Bayview Village and the 401

North York by black car, in one paragraph

North York has more people than Vancouver and a downtown of its own — the towers that rose along Yonge between Sheppard and Finch after the subway reached Finch in 1974 and North York Centre in 1987, the civic centre at Mel Lastman Square, the offices of the insurance and technology companies that moved north for the 401's access — and the 401 across its middle makes it the city's best-connected district by road: Pearson to the west in twenty minutes, the 404 north to Markham and Richmond Hill, the DVP south to downtown. A black car in North York works differently from one downtown: the distances are longer, the towers' driveways are private and easy, the residential streets are wide, and the 401's interchanges decide every route. This guide covers the Yonge corridor, Bayview Village, the 401 and the 404, the residential neighbourhoods, York University and Downsview, the arts centre, the hospitals, the shopping, the restaurants, the airport run, and a worked North York day.

The Yonge corridor: Sheppard to Finch

North York Centre's mile of Yonge — the office towers at Sheppard (the Sheppard Centre, the towers at Yonge and Sheppard's four corners), the civic centre and Mel Lastman Square at North York Centre station, the residential towers on both sides all the way to Finch — is a corridor where Yonge itself has bus lanes and no stopping through the day, and every tower's driveway is on Doris Avenue (east of Yonge, running the whole length from Sheppard to Finch) or Beecroft Road (west of Yonge, the same), the two service streets built for exactly this; a chauffeur meeting a passenger at a Yonge tower stops on Doris or Beecroft at the tower's back entrance, and the passenger's profile says which. The subway stations — Sheppard–Yonge, North York Centre, Finch — have entrances on Yonge and on the side streets, and the executive car service article's tower discipline applies to the office towers' lay-bys.

Bayview Village and Bayview–Sheppard

Bayview Village Shopping Centre (Bayview at Sheppard) has a lay-by at its main entrance and a large lot, and the condominiums around Bayview and Sheppard — the towers on Sheppard East, the buildings along Bayview north and south of the 401 — have porte-cochères on their own driveways; the Sheppard subway's Bayview station sits below. A shopping afternoon at Bayview Village is the shopping day article's pattern with the chauffeur waiting in the lot, and a Bayview–Sheppard resident's airport run is the 401 west from Bayview in 22 minutes.

The 401 and the 404

The 401 crosses North York from the Humber to the Rouge with interchanges at Islington, Weston, Keele, the Allen, Bathurst, Avenue Road, Yonge, Bayview, Leslie, the 404/DVP, Victoria Park and beyond; its collector and express lanes split east of the Allen, and a chauffeur who knows which lanes serve which exit saves ten minutes on every crossing. The 404 begins at the 401 and runs north to Markham, Richmond Hill and Newmarket — North York's link to the 905's north, and the Markham and Richmond Hill pages cover it. The DVP begins at the same interchange and runs south to the Gardiner and downtown. The rush hour article covers the 401's windows — the Yonge-to-427 stretch westbound is slow from 7 to 9:30 and the eastbound from 3:30 to 6:30 — and the 407 article the toll road that a North York passenger reaches via the 404 or the 400.

Willowdale, Don Mills, Bayview Woods and York Mills

The residential neighbourhoods — Willowdale's streets between Yonge and Bayview, Don Mills' mid-century plan around the Don Mills Centre, Bayview Woods' ravine streets, York Mills' and Hoggs Hollow's estates in the Don's west valley, the Bridle Path's mansions along Bayview north of Lawrence (the real estate agents article covers its showing days) — are wide, two-way, easy streets where a car stops at the door, and the district's bookings are the airport run, the standing order for the weekly flight, the family's trip and the evening downtown. The Toronto neighbourhoods pages cover them.

York University and Downsview

York University's Keele campus — reached via the 401 to Keele or Jane, or by the Line 1 extension's York University and Pioneer Village stations — is the district's western anchor: convocation in June (the graduation article), the September move-in, visiting scholars and the Schulich School's executive programmes; the campus's Common and the York Lanes have drop-off loops. Downsview — the former airbase's lands, Downsview Park, the film studios and the future neighbourhoods — is the film and TV production article's northern studio district, and the Sheppard West and Downsview Park stations its transit.

The Toronto Centre for the Arts

The Toronto Centre for the Arts (5040 Yonge, at North York Centre) — the Main Stage, the George Weston Recital Hall, the Lyric Theatre — hosts touring shows, concerts and the Toronto Symphony's northern dates; its drop-off is the lay-by on Yonge's east side by the civic centre (one of the few Yonge Street stops the district allows, for the arts centre's patrons) or Doris Avenue behind, and a theatre evening is a Doris pickup at 10:30 with the theatre district article's timing.

The hospitals

North York General (4001 Leslie Street, at the 401) — its main entrance off Leslie, its emergency and its outpatient wings' drop-offs; Humber River Hospital (Wilson at Keele) — the district's western hospital with its Wilson Avenue entrance; Sunnybrook's northern edge at Bayview and Lawrence; and the Baycrest campus on Bathurst. The hospital row article's patterns — the appointment run, the family's daily visit, the discharge with luggage, the accessible vehicle — apply to each, and the healthcare executive article covers the hospitals' visiting physicians and executives.

Shopping and restaurants

Yorkdale (at the Allen and the 401 — the shopping day article's anchor), Bayview Village, the Shops at Don Mills (the open-air centre at Don Mills and Lawrence), Fairview Mall (Sheppard at the 404), the Yonge Street strips at Sheppard and at Finch (the Korean restaurants of Willowdale, the Persian restaurants of North York Centre and the Iranian community's Yonge–Finch), and the restaurants of the Shops at Don Mills — a North York evening is a lay-by pickup at any of them, and the fine dining article covers the district's tasting-menu rooms.

The airport run

North York to Pearson is the district's defining advantage: the 401 west from Yonge to the 427 is 20 to 30 minutes on an ordinary day (35 to 45 at the morning westbound peak), from Bayview or Leslie five minutes more, from Don Mills via the 401 the same; the Pearson page books it and the how early to book article notes the 4–6 a.m. window's demand from the district's early flyers. Billy Bishop is 35 to 50 minutes down the DVP or Yonge, and the Pearson vs Billy Bishop comparison says that for North York, Pearson wins for almost every route.

The 905 next door

North York's northern edge is Steeles Avenue, and across it Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and Thornhill — the Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan pages cover the cities a North York passenger crosses into for a meeting, a family visit or Vaughan Mills; the 404, the 400 and Yonge north are the routes, and the 407 the toll road that shortcuts between them.

A worked North York day

5:20 a.m.: a Willowdale couple to Terminal 3 — the 401 west from Yonge, Door A by 5:48. 8:00: an executive from a Doris Avenue tower to a Bay Street meeting — the DVP south, 35 minutes. 11:00: a family from Bayview Woods to a York University convocation — the 401 west to Keele, dropped at the Common's loop. 2:00 p.m.: a patient from Don Mills to North York General — the Leslie entrance, the chauffeur waiting on the hourly for the appointment. 7:00: a Hoggs Hollow couple to the Toronto Centre for the Arts — the Yonge lay-by; 10:30 collected on Doris. Five bookings, the 401 three times, the DVP once, Pearson in 28 minutes.

North York quick reference

Booking a North York car

The North York neighbourhood page books a transfer; the Pearson page the district's short airport run; the Markham and Vaughan pages the 905 next door.

The 401's express and collector lanes, explained

The 401 through North York is two roads in one — the express lanes in the middle with exits only at the major interchanges (the Allen, Yonge, the 404/DVP) and the collector lanes on the outside with every exit — and the choice decides an airport run: a chauffeur leaving a Yonge–Sheppard tower for Pearson enters the westbound collectors at Yonge, transfers to the express at the first transfer lane, and stays in the express to the 427; one leaving Bayview enters the collectors at Bayview and does the same. Coming back, the express serves Yonge and the 404 directly, and a passenger going to Leslie or Bayview needs the collectors from the 404 transfer. The Pearson to North York, Markham and Richmond Hill article works the eastbound arithmetic and the rush hour article the windows.

The Korean, Persian and Chinese communities' Yonge

Yonge Street from Sheppard to Finch is the city's Korean business district — the restaurants, the karaoke rooms, the supermarkets of Willowdale's Koreatown North — and Yonge from Finch to Steeles the Persian community's, with the Iranian restaurants and shops of the Yonge–Finch and Yonge–Steeles plazas; the Chinese community's plazas run along Sheppard East to Agincourt and along Finch. A North York evening in any of them is a plaza-lot pickup, and the district's early-morning airport bookings — the Seoul, Tehran-via-Istanbul and Hong Kong flights — are the red-eye article's 4 a.m. roster. Chauffeurs who speak the communities' languages are on the roster and a passenger's profile can ask for one.

Weddings and the banquet halls

North York's banquet halls — the Chinese banquet restaurants of Sheppard and Finch, the Persian halls of the north, the Italian halls of the west along Dufferin and Keele, the hotel ballrooms at Yonge–Sheppard and the Novotel — are the district's wedding venues, and the wedding limo guide and the South Asian weddings article cover the vehicles and the days; a banquet hall's driveway is the pickup and the wedding guest shuttles article covers the guests' Sprinters from the hotels.

Booking notes for a North York address

For a Yonge corridor tower, the booking's notes name the service street and the entrance — "Doris Avenue entrance, 5000 Yonge" — because Yonge itself has no stopping and the tower's front door faces it; for a Willowdale or Don Mills house, the address is enough; for a hospital, the wing. The how to book online article covers the notes field and a resident's profile carries the entrance for every booking after the first.

Book a North York car