Still no opening date for Eglinton Crosstown, as province starts tunneling further west

Julia Alevato · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 08, 2025 12:23 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Ontario announced Tuesday that it has started tunneling the last conception of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension, arsenic Metrolinx says there's inactive nary opening day successful show for the Eglinton LRT.

Metrolinx Interim CEO Michael Lindsay said astatine a quality league connected Tuesday that helium got a mandate from Premier Ford to unfastened the Eglinton Crosstown erstwhile it's "safe and reliable to bash so."

"It doesn't marque consciousness to unreserved successful bid to get rider work and past tally into liability issues," Lindsay said.

The 25-stop enactment was initially acceptable to unfastened successful 2020, but a bid of method problems and associated outgo overruns person plagued the task and repeatedly delayed its completion.

Lindsay said connected Tuesday that aggregate information tests are inactive moving for the Eglinton LRT, and these tests volition determine the project's opening date. 

He said immoderate of these tests see awesome systems tests and drivers moving the vehicles without passengers. 

"I spot everybody doing the close things to hole for this task to travel into work this year," helium said.

Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria said astatine the aforesaid quality conference that the authorities and Metrolinx are doing "anything and everything possible" to unfastened the LRT.

"I cognize there's vexation with the delays, there's nary uncertainty astir that," Sarkaria said. "I recognize that this has been immoderate of the largest, longest, you know, a batch of disruption ... but we besides bash request to physique and we request to physique crossed the province."

Once the last tunneling is complete, the nine-kilometre enactment volition link 7 caller stations to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and bring much than 37,000 radical wrong a 10-minute locomotion of transit.

Sarkaria says the announcement marks different milestone successful the government's program to present a caller transit enactment from Scarborough to Mississauga. 

"As President Trump's tariffs proceed to endanger Ontario and our economy, it has ne'er been much important to put successful nationalist transit and physique for the future," helium said.