Nancy Chen

Scarborough Lifeline: Food Precarity and Civic Infrastructure

Environmental Design

2026

Scarborough Lifeline rethinks what can happen when infrastructure is no longer in use. Instead of leaving the former Line 3 subway corridor in Toronto empty, it becomes a working system that produces and moves food across Scarborough.The project is organized as a continuous strip. Above the track, vertical farms grow food year-round using controlled systems. Below, the existing structure is reused as a transport route, allowing food to move efficiently between different points along the line. This creates a simple but powerful idea: food is grown, processed, and distributed along the same path.Each station plays a role in this system. Ellesmere Station supports seed research and early growth. Between Lawrence and Midland, vertical farms produce crops that are partially processed before being sent to Lawrence East Station for full processing and packaging. From there, food moves to Kennedy Station for distribution, including food bank access. On the east side, Scarborough Centre Station becomes a market, while the corridor toward McCowan is used for public greenhouse and community farming.Energy is generated through rooftop solar panels, which power the vertical farms. Water is collected and reused, and organic waste is returned into the system. Together, this creates a cycle where energy produces food, and food moves directly to people.Scarborough Lifeline shows how an unused transit line can become something active again not just infrastructure, but a system that supports everyday life.

“Scarborough Lifeline transforms the closed Line 3 Scarborough RT corridor into a continuous urban food system that brings production, processing, and distribution back into the city. By combining vertical farming above with food transport below, the project creates a direct relationship between how food is grown, moved, and consumed, using renewable energy to support a closed-loop system that delivers fresh food to the community.”