The St. George campus, in one paragraph
The University of Toronto's St. George campus — from Bloor to College and from Spadina to Bay, with Queen's Park and the legislature at its centre — restricts cars on its internal roads (King's College Circle, Hart House Circle and the quads are closed to through traffic; the circle's drop-off is by permit or arrangement), so a black car uses the perimeter's lay-bys: St. George Street's curbs by the Bahen Centre, Bissell and Robarts Library (a bike lane on St. George — the lay-bys, not the lane), Queen's Park Crescent's east and west curbs, Hoskin Avenue by Hart House and Trinity, Harbord Street by the athletic centre, Spadina's and College's curbs, and the residences' doors on the side streets. Convocation Hall's June ceremonies (a dozen a week, families dropped on King's College Road or Queen's Park Crescent), the September move-in (the colleges' loading zones on a schedule), the visiting scholar's day (Robarts, the Faculty Club, a hotel, the Yorkville guide's district), the Rotman School's executive programmes on St. George, the Medical Sciences Building's link to hospital row, and Varsity Stadium's events on Bloor are the campus's patterns.
The St. George campus occupies the centre of the city — the legislature sits in its middle, Yorkville and the ROM on its north edge, hospital row on its south, Spadina and Chinatown on its west — and it is the one part of downtown where the roads belong to pedestrians: King's College Circle, Hart House Circle, the quads and the college gates are closed to cars, and a chauffeur bringing a family to convocation, a scholar to Robarts or a student to move-in works from the lay-bys on the campus's edges. The campus has its own calendar — June's convocations, September's move-in, the Rotman executive programmes' weeks, the fall's Varsity games, the visiting scholars' terms — and each has a pattern a chauffeur learns. This guide covers the campus's car restrictions, the perimeter lay-bys, convocation, move-in, the visiting scholar, Rotman, the Medical Sciences Building and hospital row, Varsity Stadium, the residences, the approaches, and a worked convocation morning.
The campus's car restrictions
The university closed King's College Circle and Hart House Circle to through traffic and removed the circle's parking in the 2020s (the Landmark Project's landscape, the geothermal field under the circle), and the quads, the college gates and the walkways have always been pedestrian; the circle's roadway is opened for convocation drop-offs and for permitted events by arrangement with the university's transportation services, and a car without arrangement is turned back at the Wellesley Street or King's College Road gate. The perimeter's public streets — St. George, Queen's Park Crescent, Hoskin, Harbord, Willcocks, Spadina, College, Bloor — are the City's, with the City's rules.
The perimeter lay-bys
St. George Street (the campus's spine, north-south from Bloor to College) has a bike lane on both sides and lay-bys at the Bahen Centre (40 St. George), Bissell (140 St. George), Robarts Library (130 St. George) and the Galbraith Building — the lay-bys, not the lane. Queen's Park Crescent (the loop around the legislature) has curbs on the east side by the Medical Sciences Building and Sigmund Samuel Library and on the west by Hart House and the Faculty of Law; a car stops on the crescent's outer curb, never the inner. Hoskin Avenue (Trinity, Hart House, Massey College) has a curb west of Queen's Park. Harbord Street (the athletic centre, New College, the Bahen's south side) allows a stop off-peak. Willcocks Street (the science buildings, the Sidney Smith Hall's south) is quiet. Spadina and College frame the campus's west and south with streetcar-street rules (mixed traffic; stop off-peak away from the stops). Bloor frames the north with the Yorkville guide's no-stopping east of Avenue Road and Varsity Stadium's curb west of it.
Convocation
The university holds thirty-odd convocation ceremonies over two weeks in June (and a smaller set in November) in Convocation Hall on King's College Circle — two or three a day, each with a thousand graduates and their families — and the campus's transportation services open King's College Road and the circle's roadway for family drop-offs on a marshalled loop, with Queen's Park Crescent's west curb and St. George's lay-bys as the alternatives when the loop is full; a family's black car drops at the loop (or on the crescent), the chauffeur waits on Hoskin or Harbord for the ceremony's two hours, and collects the graduate and the family for the lunch that follows (the Faculty Club on Willcocks, Hart House's Gallery Grill, a Yorkville or Harbord restaurant). The graduation and convocation article covers the day's timing, the photographs on the circle and the stretch limousine some families book, and the families with luggage article the grandparents arriving from abroad the day before.
Move-in
The colleges' residences — University College, Trinity, Victoria, St. Michael's, Innis, New, Woodsworth, the Chestnut Residence on Chestnut Street, the CampusOne tower on College — move students in over the Labour Day weekend on a scheduled loading-zone system (each residence assigns a time window and a loading zone, and the university's move-in marshals direct the cars), and a family's SUV or Sprinter with a student's trunk-load arrives at the assigned window, unloads at the zone with the residence's volunteers, and leaves; a family from abroad is the Pearson page's arrival with the bags and the luggage capacity article's vehicle. The Chestnut Residence's Chestnut Street door and CampusOne's College Street door are the easiest; Trinity's and Victoria's on Hoskin and Charles the tightest.
The visiting scholar's day
A visiting professor, a lecturer, a doctoral examiner or a conference keynote spends a day or a week between a hotel (Yorkville's or the Financial District's — the Toronto luxury hotels guide — or the campus's own Kimberly Hall and the Chestnut's guest floors), the department (a St. George lay-by or a Queen's Park curb), Robarts Library (the St. George lay-by), the Faculty Club (Willcocks) and the Massey College or Hart House dinner (Hoskin); the department's or the faculty's corporate account books the week with the executive assistants' guide's pattern, and the visiting clients itinerary article's structure applies with a department's door in place of an office's. A Nobel laureate's visit is the privacy and discretion article's and, where the university's security asks, the diplomatic and consular article's.
Rotman and the executive programmes
The Rotman School of Management (105 St. George, at the Bloor end) runs executive education programmes whose participants — executives from across the country and abroad for a week's module — stay in Yorkville or at the school's partner hotels and are driven to the St. George lay-by each morning, on the programme's account or their companies'; the consulting firms article and the corporate travel policy article cover the company side, and the Rotman's own events (the conferences, the speaker series) fill the lay-by on an evening.
The Medical Sciences Building and hospital row
The Medical Sciences Building (1 King's College Circle) and the Faculty of Medicine's buildings on Queen's Park Crescent and College sit a block from hospital row, and a visiting physician's day moves between the faculty (the crescent's east curb), the hospitals (their loops) and the Toronto Western or Sunnybrook across the city; the hospital and healthcare executive article covers the institutional accounts and the MaRS Discovery District at College and University is the research-commercialisation neighbour with its College Street entrance.
Varsity Stadium and the campus's events
Varsity Stadium (299 Bloor West, at Devonshire) — the Varsity Blues' football and soccer, the Toronto Arrows' rugby, the concerts and the ceremonies — has a Bloor Street curb west of Avenue Road (outside the Mink Mile's rules) and a Devonshire Place curb; the university's Hart House theatre, the Isabel Bader Theatre on Charles, Convocation Hall's concerts and the campus's conferences at the Chestnut Conference Centre are the campus's evenings, and the theatre district article's timing applies to a Bader curtain.
The residences and the student's ride
A student's own black car bookings — the airport at term's start and end (the Pearson page), the red-eye article's 5 a.m. flight home for the holidays, a parent's visit met at Union or Pearson, a formal at a hotel ballroom, a graduation dinner — use the residences' doors on the side streets (Trinity's on Hoskin, Victoria's on Charles, University College's on King's College Circle by arrangement, the Chestnut's on Chestnut, CampusOne's on College) and the limo for one passenger article's honest arithmetic — a student with a backpack going to Union takes the subway from St. George station.
The approaches
From Yorkville and the north: Avenue Road or Bay south to Bloor, St. George south. From the Financial District: University north to College, Queen's Park Crescent. From Pearson: the 401 to the Allen, Spadina or Bathurst south to Bloor, St. George — 35 to 45 minutes; or the Gardiner to Spadina north — the same. From Billy Bishop: Spadina or University north, 15 minutes. The rush hour article covers St. George's morning and the Pearson to downtown hotels article the airport approach.
A worked convocation morning
A family of six from Vancouver at the Park Hyatt, a Tuesday in June, a 10 a.m. ceremony. 8:45 a.m.: the Park Hyatt's lay-by to Terminal 1 for the grandparents' arrival (a 7:50 landing) — a second car, met at Door A, to the Park Hyatt by 9:15. 9:15: the six in a Sprinter from the Park Hyatt to the convocation loop on King's College Road — the marshals wave the Sprinter in; dropped at 9:25. 9:30–12:15: the chauffeur on Hoskin. 12:20: collected at the loop — the graduate in the gown, the photographs on the circle done — to the Faculty Club on Willcocks. 2:30: the Faculty Club to a Yorkville afternoon; 6:30 the family's dinner at Scaramouche (the fine dining article); 10:00 the Park Hyatt. One convocation, one Sprinter on the hourly, one extra airport car, and a family that spent the day on the graduate.
St. George campus quick reference
| Place | Where the car stops |
|---|---|
| King's College Circle / Hart House Circle | Closed to cars; convocation loop by the marshals; events by arrangement |
| St. George Street buildings (Bahen, Bissell, Robarts, Rotman) | The lay-bys — not the bike lane |
| Queen's Park Crescent (Medical Sciences, Law, Hart House side) | Outer curbs, east and west |
| Trinity / Hart House / Massey | Hoskin Avenue's curb west of Queen's Park |
| Athletic Centre / New College | Harbord off-peak |
| Faculty Club / science buildings | Willcocks |
| Convocation Hall (June, November) | King's College Road loop; Queen's Park Crescent west curb; wait on Hoskin / Harbord |
| Move-in (Labour Day weekend) | Each residence's assigned loading zone and window |
| Varsity Stadium | Bloor west of Avenue Road; Devonshire Place |
| Chestnut Residence / CampusOne | Chestnut Street; College Street |
| From Pearson | 401 → Allen → Spadina / Bathurst S → Bloor → St. George: 35–45 min |
Booking a campus car
The engine takes a building's name with the lay-by in the notes; the graduation and convocation article plans the June morning; the hourly chauffeur page books the visiting scholar's day.
The other campuses and the sister institutions
The university's Scarborough and Mississauga campuses (the Scarborough guide covers UTSC; the Mississauga page UTM on Mississauga Road), Toronto Metropolitan University at Yonge and Dundas (its Gould Street pedestrian core and the Dundas and Church curbs), OCAD University on McCaul beside the AGO (the ROM and AGO article's McCaul curb), York University in the north (the North York guide) and the Royal Conservatory's Koerner Hall on Bloor at the ROM's west (a Bloor curb west of Avenue Road and the theatre district article's concert timing) are the city's other campuses, and a visiting scholar's week often crosses two of them.
The university's calendar for a booker
September's move-in and orientation (the Labour Day weekend and the week after); October's reading week and the Thanksgiving exodus to Pearson and Union; December's exams and the holiday travel peaks; February's reading week; April's exams and the May move-out (the reverse of September, with the same loading zones); June's convocations; the summer's conferences at the Chestnut and the colleges. A department's booker or a family's plans the term around them, and the how early to book article's peak logic applies to a convocation Tuesday as to a holiday Friday.
Booking notes for the campus
"Bahen Centre, St. George lay-by, 9 a.m.; visiting professor, hourly through 6 p.m. with Robarts, the Faculty Club and Massey College" — the building, the lay-by and the day's shape; for convocation, the ceremony's time and the party's size; for move-in, the residence and the assigned window. The how to book online article shows the fields.
