News   Dec 23, 2025
Happy Holidays From the UrbanToronto Team!
 858     3 
News   Dec 23, 2025
UrbanToronto Year-End Poll: Vote on the Best Buildings of 2025, presented by Diverso Energy
 2.2K     1 
News   Dec 23, 2025
City Council December, 2025 Zoning Settlements: Large-Scale Housing, City-Wide Policy
 3K     1 

Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

According to the latest news (see link), they will be transit funding of $4.8 billion from the federal government. This little note got my attention:

"it represents a 33 to 40 per cent share of Toronto’s most pressing transit construction plans — the relief subway line, the Eglinton East LRT, the waterfront LRT, SmartTrack"
​
I am still assuming that "SmartTrack" includes the Eglinton Crosstown LRT west extension. See link.
ci-smarttrack2.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086x591.jpg


I need to see more information on if the Eglinton Crosstown LRT west extension from Mt. Dennis to Pearson Airport is actually included, and when will see something happen. I want to see a timeline.
 
W. K. Lis said:
"it represents a 33 to 40 per cent share of Toronto’s most pressing transit construction plans — the relief subway line, the Eglinton East LRT, the waterfront LRT, SmartTrack"
​
I am still assuming that "SmartTrack" includes the Eglinton Crosstown LRT west extension. See link.
Click to expand...

Don't count on it. Even in that graphic the "Eglinton Extensions" do not have the label of "SmartTrack". The news link confirms that Eglinton East is not considered part of SmartTrack (it's named separately) so it's unlikely Eglinton West would be either.

That said, if all these pieces are actually fully funded before the election; then election promises for the next term get far more interesting. Eglinton West/Finch West extensions will almost certainly be part of Wynne's election campaign; probably alongside the Pearson transit hub. I can't guess at what Brown will do if his only GTA talking points (SSE and DRL) are taken from him; promise better execution of a Liberal plan?
 
Last edited:
TheTigerMaster said:
Nope. Not falling for it again. They've been promising Eglinton/Finch/Sheppard for a decade, and all they have to show for it is part of Eglinton.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair sheppard was under construction when ford axed it. The money that was wasted on cancellation fees and redesign wouldve funded finch so its not really Wynne's fault. Think about it....sheppard would've been running for 2 years now if it was left alone and finch would've been well under construction or even done by now. If you want to blame somebody for this blame your city council for flip flopping every election cycle for the last 20 years. In fact the current govt gas given out boatloads of cash, all for naught as it was the cities that have squandered it such as brampton and sse
 
I have always been a huge supporter of ST. It's an affordable way to build rapid transit..........take advantage of existing corridors much like GO does.

What I don't quite get is why ST only goes to Eglinton. Why not further north to Weston or EtoNorth? It would really just be a matter of electrification and buying a few more trains. I bet the people in Weston would be very willing to forgo their UPX station if they got far superior and cheaper service by ST. Extending T to EtoNorth seems like a no-brainer and would greatly increase ridership as people in NW Toronto would have a true rapid transit line to downtown.

What's the rational for stopping at Eglinton?
 
cplchanb said:
Well to be fair sheppard was under construction when ford axed it. The money that was wasted on cancellation fees and redesign wouldve funded finch so its not really Wynne's fault. Think about it....sheppard would've been running for 2 years now if it was left alone and finch would've been well under construction or even done by now. If you want to blame somebody for this blame your city council for flip flopping every election cycle for the last 20 years. In fact the current govt gas given out boatloads of cash, all for naught as it was the cities that have squandered it such as brampton and sse
Click to expand...

"To be fair" if you look at the timelines of FWLRT and SELRT, you'd see that the several delays QP has imposed on these projects adds up to a delay far in excess of whatever Ford triggered.

(Never mind that McGuinty was fully complicit in Ford's inappropriate request to cancel Transit City. McGuinty knew that Ford had no authority to make such a request, and should've asked Council for approval to cancel Transit City. Evidently, McGuinty did not view that as politically beneficil. The decision to cancel Transit City was as much McGuinty's as it was Ford's).

Transit advocates here love to incessantly complain about the Fords, while blissfully ignoring QP's delays and broken promises over the past decade or so. It must be music to QP's ears to know that they can continue to delay these transit investments, knowing nobody will hold them to account for it.
 
Last edited:
ssiguy2 said:
I have always been a huge supporter of ST. It's an affordable way to build rapid transit..........take advantage of existing corridors much like GO does.

What I don't quite get is why ST only goes to Eglinton. Why not further north to Weston or EtoNorth? It would really just be a matter of electrification and buying a few more trains. I bet the people in Weston would be very willing to forgo their UPX station if they got far superior and cheaper service by ST. Extending T to EtoNorth seems like a no-brainer and would greatly increase ridership as people in NW Toronto would have a true rapid transit line to downtown.

What's the rational for stopping at Eglinton?
Click to expand...

Of course, it makes perfect sense to continue north of Eglinton in the Weston corridor.

But it should be noted that once (or should I say if?) the portion up to Eglinton is funded and built, it will be fairly easy to get the service extended to the edge of Toronto, and perhaps even to Brampton. The per-km cost would be lower than for the central section, the political payoff higher.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
(Never mind that McGuinty was fully complicit in Ford's inappropriate request to cancel Transit City. McGuinty knew that Ford had no authority to make such a request, and should've asked Council for approval to cancel Transit City. Evidently, McGuinty did not view that as politically beneficil. The decisiont to cancel Transit City was as much McGuinty's as it was Ford's).
Click to expand...

If McGuinty came up with such a demand shortly after Ford was elected, then Ford would put the Transit City cancellation to the Council's vote, and would win. In the beginning of Ford's term, many rocky councillors were very supportive of him.

Being a much more seasoned politician than Ford, McGuinty quickly settled for a compromise with two goals in mind: a) allow the design work on the tunneled portion of Eglinton to continue, and b) give Ford a chance to take the lead role and mess it up, which Ford did very efficiently when he failed to get developers commitment to fund the Sheppard subway extension.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
"To be fair" if you look at the timelines of FWLRT and SELRT, you'd see that the several delays QP has imposed on these projects adds up to a delay far in excess of whatever Ford triggered.

(Never mind that McGuinty was fully complicit in Ford's inappropriate request to cancel Transit City. McGuinty knew that Ford had no authority to make such a request, and should've asked Council for approval to cancel Transit City. Evidently, McGuinty did not view that as politically beneficil. The decisiont to cancel Transit City was as much McGuinty's as it was Ford's).

Transit advocates here love to incessantly complain about the Fords, while blissfully ignoring QP's delays and broken promises over the past decade or so. It must be music to QP's ears to know that they can continue to delay these transit investments, knowing nobody will hold them to account for it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Council gets a lot of undue flack for something they had no role in. They didn't cancel it, did bring it back nullifying the backroom Ford-McGuinty-Metrolinx deal, then get accused of flip flopping. And besides Sheppard was never "under construction". The only tangible work was the grade separation (which would've happened regardless), and was money well spent. Not sure if it's ever been concluded who funded that.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Nope. Not falling for it again. They've been promising Eglinton/Finch/Sheppard for a decade, and all they have to show for it is part of Eglinton.
Click to expand...

Indeed. It doesn't help that both the opposition parties have fought against those projects rather than holding the government to task on a timely implementation of them.

On every delay everybody (NDP, Cons, many Liberals, and even a few city councillors) all cheered.
 
Last edited:
44 North said:
The only tangible work was the grade separation (which would've happened regardless), and was money well spent. Not sure if it's ever been concluded who funded that.
Click to expand...

That grade separation came through the Sheppard EA. While it would have been done, the road widening and electrical grounding of the bridge that accompanied it definitely would not have been done.

I'm unsure who paid for it but I would be surprised if it was not Metrolinx.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Except that it is in a similar sort of boat as Y+E - hardly any office space growth since the 90s - just like Y+B and Y+St. Clair.

AoD
Click to expand...
My point exactly - the "if you build it (transportation)" principally applies to residential unless Council holds the line on retaining commercial during re-development.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top