Nuit Blanche, an all-night contemporary arts festival, is returning to Toronto this weekend.
And, if you are planning to head to the city for the event, there are transit options available to you, but also some disruptions to be aware of.
Nuit Blanche starts on Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. and ends on Sunday at 7 a.m.
GO Transit
GO Transit has announced there will be no train service the entire weekend on the Lakeshore East line, beginning late Friday evening, due to construction work. Riders on this line who are headed to and from Union Station in downtown Toronto will need to take replacement GO buses, which will be available at Durham College Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax and Pickering GO stations.
There will also be no GO Transit service at Rouge Hill, Guildwood, Eglinton, Scarborough or Danforth stations. Riders travelling to and from these stations are asked to use the TTC instead.
More details on Lakeshore East service adjustments this weekend are available at gotransit.com.
TTC
If the TTC is your preferred method of travel, it’s got your back all night long.
Here are some highlights:
- Subway service on lines 1 and 2 will operate all night, with trains arriving approximately every 15 minutes.
- All subway stations will remain open all night except for Line 4 — Sheppard, which will close at around 2 a.m.
- The 903 Kennedy Station-Scarborough Express bus will operate all night, with 12 extra buses running.
- Two extra buses will be added to the Flemingdon Park route to provide overnight bus service to the Aga Khan Museum Nuit Blanche art installations.
- The 944 Kipling South Express bus will operate all night between Kipling Station and the Humber College Lakeshore Campus.
- Extra streetcars will be running on these routes: 501/301 Queen, 503/303 Kingston Road, 504/304 King and 511 Bathurst. Additionally, the 511 Bathurst streetcar service will operate all night.
There are also a number of street closures happening in downtown Toronto to accommodate the festival. As a result, several TTC routes will be diverted from Saturday at 7 p.m. to Sunday at 8 a.m. Diverted routes include: 65/365 Parliament, 114 Queens Quay East, 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina.
More details on the TTC’s Nuit Blanche service adjustments, including route diversions, are available at ttc.ca.
Other things to know
This year’s Nuit Blanche is set to feature more than 90 art projects, including 40 art installations in the downtown waterfront area, 12 projects and three curated exhibitions at the Humber College Lakeshore Campus and more than 40 presentations sprinkled throughout the rest of Toronto. The City of Toronto says 12 projects will remain available to the public until Oct. 13.
Accessible washrooms, drinking water, food trucks and printed maps will be available the following locations:
This year’s festival also features enhanced accessibility.
Accessibility project highlights include:
- Rise Over Run by Atanas Bozdarov, A.S.M. Kobayashi and Friends is an interactive, wheelchair accessible sculptural and multimedia installation made of access ramps, skateboard ramps and stories from disability and skate communities, sponsored by Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.
- What are you saying? by Mishann Lau bridges physical distance through video chat stations in three separate locations within the Waterfront Central exhibition, titled “And the spaces between us smile.” The interactive nature of the project allows audience members to talk to each other about the art from locations across the exhibition site.
- ASL-interpreted interactive performances by Elder Duke Redbird, Charles Spearin and the Switch Collective at the Nuit Blanche Event Hub.
- Assistive Listening Systems for Black in Time by African Canadian Explorations, David Ofori Zapparoli and Donna Marie Paris and The Gallery of Memories by Egale Canada and Travis Myers at Pride Toronto.
- Written transcripts of audio content for Light Speed: Bridging Distance at the Aga Khan Museum, One: Many & Nursing Wounds at Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism and more.
- Large print text for “The Moon, the Earth and Us” by internationally renowned contemporary artist, illustrator and children’s book author Oliver Jeffers; sponsored by Humber Polytechnic.
More information on this year’s festival is available at toronto.ca/nuitblanche.
