Finch Avenue

Finch Avenue is a major east-west principal arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1 History
2 Transit Hub
3 Neighbourhoods
4 Street Details
5 Side Streets
6 Points of Interest
7 See Also
8 See Also

History

The street is named after hotel owner John Finch, who operated a hotel at the northeast corner of Finch Avenue and Yonge Street in Toronto.

Transit Hub

At the intersection of Finch Avenue and Yonge Street is the northernmost station of the TTC subway network and GO Transit Finch Terminal;, formerly York Region Bus Terminal. TTC bus service on Finch runs 24 hours, on the 36 Finch West (318 Blue Night), and 39 Finch East (319 Blue Night). There is also a peak hours 139 Finch East Express bus that serves the Don Mills Station on the Sheppard Subway line.

Neighbourhoods

The Yonge/Finch corridor is made up of mostly condominimums and some office buildings. A small Korean community resides in the area, mostly visa students studying in the Canada. The community of Newtonbrook is located just north of Finch and Yonge and the birth place of Nobel Peace Prize winner and Prime Minister Lester Pearson.

The well-known Jane and Finch neighbourhood of Toronto is centered around the intersection of Finch Avenue West and Jane Street.

At the intersection of Highway 404 and Finch is Seneca College's Newnham Campus, one of Ontario's largest community colleges.

Other sites and neighbourhoods along Finch:

Wild Water Kingdom – at Steeles Avenue East
Albion Mall – at Albion and Kipling Avenue
Thistletown Regional Centre for Children and Adolescents
Thistletown
Rexdale
Emery--at Weston Road
York-Finch Hospital – Humber River Regional
Yorkgate Mall--near Jane Street
Norfinch Mall--near Jane Street
Jane Finch Mall--near Jane Street
Ross Milne Dam
North York Branson Hospital
Esther Shiner Stadium
Willowdale at Yonge Street
Bridlewood Mall
Scarborough Grace Hospital
Woodside Mall
Browns Corners
Rouge Park
Toronto Zoo

Street Details

Despite its length (one of the longest streets in the Greater Toronto Area, few major landmarks are located on Finch; it runs primarily through business and residential areas.

Most of Finch Avenue west of Morningside Avenue is a four to six-lane principal arterial, with a speed limit of 60 km/h (35–40 mph) in most sections. East of Morningside, Finch is a discontinuous collector or minor arterial road (as Old Finch Avenue to Meadowvale) and detours via Meadowvale Road, Plug Hat Road and Beare Road. The road was broken up by residential development and Rouge Park. The street continues for briefly east of Beare Road and enters into the Town of Pickering in Durham Region after Scarborough-Pickering Townline.

In Pickering, Finch is Durham Road # 37 and continues east past Brock Road and ends at a cul-de-sac at Kingston Road (Durham Regional Road # 2 and formerly Ontario provincial highway 2. To the west, Finch ends at Steeles Avenue East in the City of Brampton, past Highway 427 and becomes Gorewood Drive.

The section of Finch west of Islington to Kipling Avenue was added in the 1980s.

Side Streets

Pemberton Avenue is a short local street in the community of Willowdale (or North York) in the city of Toronto.

The section from Willowdale Avenue to Kenneth Avenue is made up of single family dwellings, where as the section from Kenneth Avenue to Yonge Street is made up of condos of various heights (and many built by developer Pemberton Group.

Kenneth Avenue does not intersect with Pemberton Avenue, rather a small parkette named Bishop's Park separates the two sections of the road.

A third section of Pembeton Avenue is cut off by Finch Station, between Hakim Optical and the station's exit to east side of Yonge Street. In recent years, the TTC wanted to re-connect this missing link to Yonge as an alternate exit or entrance for buses into the station. There is not sign indicating this link is a street and it appears the link is now either a laneway or part of a parking lot.

Points of Interest

Newtonbrook Mall
North American Building – Home to Xerox Canada; site of manse where late PM Lester Pearson was born
Finch Parkette – site of John Finch's hotel and tavern
Empress Walk
Mel Lastman Square
Earl Haig Secondary School
Centerpoint Mall