I do think Line 5 Eglinton is definitely underbuilt for future ridership 10+ years away. Might even be overcrowded sooner.
However, I am also a big proponent of "if you build it, they will come". Since we evidently did not build it, densification like what we have seen along Bloor and south of Bloor will likely never materialize to the same level (barring a rebuild of Line 5). Ironically, this will dampen Eglinton's future transit demand and capacity issues if any. The skyscrapers along Line 4, many of which were built nearly two decades after Line 4 opened, are evidence that rapid transit access can serve as the cause rather than just the effect of densification and growth.
The long-term ramifications of having a not-so futureproof transit line on Eglinton is that it will be relegated to having a lower limit on future densification, job growth etc... Midtown NIMBYs rejoice. Once the transportation infrastructure along Eglinton becomes saturated, further urban development will move to other corridors and nodes that may have higher capacity eventually (i.e. Sheppard with extensions, Lawrence Ave if it gets a subway in the far-far-future).
Just based on current density, distance from Line 2 and Ontario line, and the fact UofT campus has 100,000 people every day, College-Carlton should have a short subway, Dundas West to Gerrard station ~9km. But because the Carlton streetcar exists, among other reasons, the corridor will not see nearly the same densification as Bloor or North York Centre. The density is lower than subway corridors, so the city is content with anemic streetcars. The streetcar is anemic, so density won't increase much. Obviously zoning comes into play as well. Low density housing near College and Carlton is rarely seen in any other city's downtown with the same density as Toronto, and likely will stay that way for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been saying this for years now: LRTs work great in mid-sized cities like Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Calgary, Edmonton, and soon Quebec City. In those cities, the scale, street layout, and density match what an LRT can realistically support. But Toronto is operating at a completely different scale, and that’s where the problem lies.
If people thought Line 5 problems will end when it opens, they’re in for a big surprise. I predict overcrowding issues within a year of opening.
The thing is Line 5 was always an awkward compromise. Eglinton is one of the city’s major east–west corridors, and building a half-subway/half-surface LRT on it feels underbuilt for what that corridor actually needs. When you compare it to what Toronto has become (the fourth-largest metro in North America) it’s easy to see the mismatch.
There’s also still this lingering mentality (especially among certain political circles downtown) that Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke are somehow “less Toronto.” But history keeps proving that whenever you extend real rapid transit into any part of Toronto, density follows immediately.
Examples are everywhere:
- North York Centre: basically nothing until the Yonge Subway ran through it. Now it’s a full secondary downtown.
- Yonge–Eglinton: exploded along Line 1.
- St. Clair West: major mid-rise and retail revitalization after ROW upgrades.
- Davisville/Mt. Pleasant: steady intensification due to Line 1 access.
- Scarborough Town Centre: now booming with proposals since the subway extension became real.
- Finch West: already seeing development pressure even before the subway/LRT combo is fully stabilized.
- VMC (Vaughan Metropolitan Centre): an almost absurd example — a skyline built practically from scratch because Line 1 was extended there.
- Exhibition/Liberty Village: GO service + Ontario Line plans triggered a massive wave of proposals.
Toronto grows wherever you give it high-capacity rapid transit. That’s why Line 4 (Sheppard) is one of the most misunderstood examples in the city. For years people mocked it as a “stubway to nowhere” because it ends at Don Mills, but the reality is Sheppard East has densified heavily in the last two decades with continuous condo development from Bayview to Don Mills. And more proposals still coming despite the line being short and incomplete and with planning for the extension to STC.
If four stations can reshape an entire corridor, imagine what the full Sheppard East subway would’ve done if it were built out originally?
This is why I was never a fan of Transit City. It wasn’t a bad plan for a smaller, slower-growing city,,,,but Toronto already wasn’t that city by the 2000s. It was driven by a political generation at City Hall and Queen’s Park whose view of Toronto was still rooted in the 1960s–70s: low density, car-first, and spread out. Toronto isn’t that anymore.
And Line 5 (like Line 4 before it) shows exactly what happens when we keep building transit that’s too small for the city we actually live in.
I would not be remotely surprised in my lifetime (possibly when I’m watching re-runs of The Expanse in retirement) that they rebuild Line 5 into a subway.
) have real data about loads and capacity on Line 5. Saying it's undersized right now is speculation. I hope it is big enough for many years. I have concerns about the dwell time due to the layout based on the TTC Flexities.