3.4K 
This week the Ontario government made two major transit announcements that will have big implications for communities across western Toronto and the GTHA. One of these announcements was almost hidden away and has gotten very little media attention.
By November 3, 2025, the TTC will be taking control of the Finch West light rail line, which if you haven’t heard this 1,000 times already, is a 10 km long, 18 stop route running from Finch West Station on the Line 1 University subway, to Humber College. The line has a lot of similarity with contemporary or reconstructed streetcar routes like Spadina and St Clair. It has both an underground station at Finch West where connections can be made entirely indoors and within the fare paid zone to the subway, and a below-grade station in a trench at Humber College connected to the school's bus terminal by a long covered walkway, a nice touch that we should consider more often when pedestrian tunnels are cost prohibitive. Along the way beetween the two, the line makes a number of surface stops with more generous shelter than the Eglinton light rail line, and a black design that’s reminiscent of some modern GO stations such as Agincourt and Bramalea. There are also legitimately a lot of non-transit improvements alongside the route, including cycle tracks, an off street walkway under Highway 400, and space for a community centre at the maintenance and storage facility near Jane and Finch.
The actual opening date has not been announced and will presumably be up to the TTC and the City, since the TTC will be the line's operator. It’s to be seen how this potentially chaotic relationship where different parties are responsible for operating as opposed to maintaining the line works out, but various disputes on this project and the Eglinton Crosstown do not inspire confidence. Some early reporting is suggesting that the route may open as soon as December 7th, and while we should take any committed dates for these projects with a grain of salt, we are quite late in the commissioning process, so there should be less unpredictability.
Of course the Finch West line's opening will also just be transformational for Toronto in numerous ways and that is very exciting. It looks to be our first entirely new transit line in over 20 years (something we expected from the Eglinton line and not a project which started 8 years later in 2019). It will also be busy from day one essentially converting the Finch West bus — among the continent's busiest bus routes — to rail. It also sets us up for two major potential extensions to North York Centre and the future Woodbine station, creating a solid if rather slow, northern crosstown route. The line also has the potential to show TTC the light: while proper signal priority still seems out of light, both Finch West and Eglinton use double-ended trams with doors on both sides, as well as modern signalling and dual point switches. Perhaps seeing these technologies, and the improved speed and reliability they enable, as well as lower cost crossover turnbacks (as opposed to space hungry loop) will make planners in the city more open to using this stuff in future streetcar network expansions.
A second announcement was actually tucked at the bottom of the release from the Ontario government: as it turns out, a few pieces of the Eglinton Crosstown project are actually going to open in the middle of November, so in some sense the over-14-year project is finally starting to benefit the region's transit riders and pedestrians. The first piece of news is that part of the new underground walkways built for Eglinton West (soon Cedarvale) station will open to help people navigate the large and car centric intersection of Eglinton Avenue West and Allen Road. More significant from a transit perspective though is that Mt Dennis station will be opening for GO Train and UP Express service, while the TTC bus terminal will start serving some routes. This means that ever increasing Kitchener line service (that we recently discussed in an article) as well as UP trains to the airport, will suddenly make Mt Dennis like Weston before it — one of the best connected locations in the region overnight — with over 6 regional trains per direction each hour on average.
The opening of Mt Dennis (along with Confederation as discussed in an article yesterday) marks GOs 72nd and 73rd train stations, meaning we’ve already got enough stations under construction (largely thanks to the remnants of the SmarTrack program) to take the network past the 75 station mark. Major change is afoot across the region, and finally we’re starting to see some progress in getting things opened.
* * *
Reece Martin is a well-known advocate for good transit, worldwide. He is based in Toronto and blogs at nextmetro.substack.
* * *
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Line 5 and Line 6 Forum threads, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
* * *
UrbanToronto has a research service, UTPro, that provides comprehensive data on development projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe — from proposal through to completion. We also offer Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
| Related Companies: | Arcadis, Doka Canada Ltd./Ltee, entro, LEA Consulting, LiveRoof Ontario Inc, LRI Engineering Inc. |
