Yesterday, after more than 15 years of construction and over $12 billion spent, Eglinton Line 5 carried its first passengers, departing from its western terminus at Mount Dennis station shortly after 7:30 AM. While 'the Crosstown LRT' has finally opened to the public following over half a decade of delays, it has not yet reached full service levels, with frequencies and speeds planned to increase over the coming months.

Riders board and disembark from Line 5 vehicles at Kennedy station, now the eastern terminus of Line 2 and Line 5, image courtesy of Edward Skira

Prior to the first passengers boarding the relatively new light rail vehicles (LRVs), no ribbons were cut and no speeches were given, in stark contrast to the opening of Line 6 just three months prior. TTC CEO Mandeep Lali stated in the run-up to opening day that this lack of fanfare was a conscious decision based on lessons learned while putting the light rail line into service.

Mayor Olivia Chow and Premier Doug Ford taking a celebratory ride on the Finch West LRT on December 5th, 2025, two days before it would officially open to the public, image courtesy of Doug Ford

Lali was likely referring to the stream of mechanical, operational, and weather-related failures that have resulted in the Finch West LRT being out of service and replaced by shuttle buses many times since its opening 64 days ago. On opening day alone, Line 6 was either delayed or out of service 19 times, with issues ranging from brake failures and false system alarms to operators failing to maintain scheduled operations.

Long-time transit advocate and expert Steve Munro attributed the majority of these failures to Mosaic Transit Group, the private consortium responsible for delivering and maintaining the LRT's infrastructure. Other critics have argued that the delivery of a system unable to function consistently in the snow and ice that Toronto annually contends with represents a breach of contract. Despite this, it seems Metrolinx is either unwilling or unable to pursue the matter in the courts, potentially due to a weak agreement between the provincial agency and the private firm.

A Line 6 light rail vehicle sits at a red light on its first day of revenue operations, December 7, 2025, image courtesy of Craig White

A near-identical agreement has governed the construction, design, and next 30 years of maintenance for Eglinton Line 5, with a single firm responsible for the delivery of Toronto's much-delayed LRT. Known as Crosslinx Transit Solutions, this private consortium has already garnered headlines for its decision to take legal action against Metrolinx in 2023 over alleged contractual disputes related to planned operations. Despite this legal battle and a flurry of alleged incompetence in construction and design that led to years of delays, no public measures have been taken to renegotiate or dissolve the Crosslinx contract.

A diagram depicting the structure and responsibilities of the Crosslinx Consortium, 2015, image courtesy of Infrastructure Ontario

Despite these hurdles, and the lack of information or clear timelines during Line 5's construction, its first day of operations felt nearly miraculous. True to the TTC's estimate last December, trains were mostly running from Mount Dennis to Kennedy station in 55 minutes — some delayed trains excepted — a hiccup easily forgiven on day one. 

A packed Line 5 train full of excited Torontonians departs Mount Pleasant station, image courtesy of Edward Skira

Operations in the wholly grade-separated segment between Weston Road and Brentcliffe Road put the "rapid" in rapid transit, with speeds between stations regularly hitting 60 km/h. Arrivals and departures were often performed with a quickness not seen on Line 6 or the streetcar network, and LRV doors open and close with a refreshing brevity. Best of all, Mayor Chow has stated that speed limits in the tunnels will be increased from 60 km/h to 80 km/h by the end of the month, further reducing travel times.

Passengers wait for a Line 5 train on the island platform at Leaside station, buried deep below the intersection of Eglinton Avenue East and Bayview Avenue, image courtesy of Edward Skira

Such rapid speeds along the tunnelled portion of Line 5 will undoubtedly reshape the mental map of Toronto and can be expected to foster dramatic change in the places served over the coming years. Residents of neighbourhoods such as Little Jamaica and Forest Hill, who once endured gruelling bus rides to reach subway stations on Bloor or Yonge streets, now find themselves quickly whisked under the congested roads above. With easy travel assured along the entirety of Eglinton Avenue West through North Toronto and York, the economic hardship wrought by years of construction can now be righted by new customers and opportunities.

Looking east over Fairbank station, located at the intersection of Dufferin Street and Eglinton Avenue West in 2023, image courtesy of Metrolinx

Some significant roadblocks still hold the Crosstown back from achieving rapid and reliable operations along its eastern stretch, however. From Brentcliffe Road to the eastern terminus at Kennedy Station, Line 5 runs almost entirely at-grade in the median of Eglinton Avenue East, similar to the chronically sluggish Spadina streetcar. This half-subway, half-streetcar design is the product of a decades-old dream that sought to turn the vast commercial lands along the Golden Mile into the streetcar suburbs of the 21st century.

A Line 5 vehicle sits at one of the line's numerous on-street stations during operations testing prior to opening, image courtesy of Patrick Morrell via the CBC's "The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is more than $1B over budget. Ford says he won't waste time on an inquiry"

The result is a stop-start transit service incessantly delayed by traffic lights and left-turning motorists, trundling between closely placed stops that lack any real protection from the elements. Despite making up only about 30% of Line 5’s total length, this stretch of right-of-way accounts for roughly 50% of every vehicle’s scheduled travel time.

Riders wait for a Line 5 train to arrive while fully exposed to the elements at Wynford station, image courtesy of Edward Skira

Chow has promised that Transit Signal Priority (TSP), a signalling strategy designed to prioritize LRVs over left-turning cars and ensure they hit green lights at intersections, will significantly shorten travel times once it's activated in a few months' time. While this is a positive development, riders may be left wondering why it took over 15 years and the disastrous launch of the Finch LRT for City Hall and its Transportation Services to finally allow TSP to be activated. Furthermore, in a city as congested and transit-dependent as Toronto, one must ask why our multi-billion dollar LRT was built to be stuck in traffic in the first place.

An Eglinton Line 5 train traveling westbound east of Leslie Street on a test run, image via TheTrolleyPole on Wikimedia

While rebuilding the eastern leg of the Crosstown to fully isolate it from road congestion, whether via an elevated guideway or a below-grade trench, would be both politically and fiscally untenable, more immediate measures can be taken to correct the flaws built into Line 5’s alignment. The at-grade segment’s primary hurdle is the excess of traffic conflicts encountered at intersections where private vehicles are permitted to cross Line 5’s tracks, necessitating slower and more frequent halts to rail service.

In a recent publication, Scarborough activist and engineer Kevin Rupasinghe outlined how eliminating just a single traffic movement at three key intersections could drastically improve Line 5’s speed and reliability. One such example is illustrated below: removing the left turn (marked in blue) from the southbound Don Valley Parkway off-ramp onto Eglinton Avenue East would allow Line 5 (marked in red) to operate entirely independent of traffic through this stretch. Rupasinghe notes that if this manoeuvre — along with left turns at Swift Drive and the northbound DVP off-ramp — were eliminated, an additional three kilometres of Line 5 could operate with the same speed and consistency as the tunnelled segments to the west.

The intersection of Eglinton Avenue East and the Don Valley Parkway southbound offramp, in which a single SB-EB left turn could be eliminated to provide uninterrupted LRT service, image courtesy of Google Maps

These conflict eliminations would, in the world of public infrastructure, be essentially free and instantaneous. Toronto Transportation Services would merely need to adjust signage and traffic signals, while placing concrete barriers to physically prevent vehicles from crossing Line 5’s tracks. Combined with the activation of Transit Signal Priority (TSP) at all remaining intersections, these changes would drastically reduce run times and improve reliability. If implemented effectively, the original 40-minute end-to-end travel time promised by Metrolinx in 2012 could finally be achieved—or, at the very least, a figure much closer to it than the current 55-minute trip.

The total travel time estimate for Eglinton Line 5 from Kennedy to Weston, published in June, 2012 within the "EGLINTON CROSSTOWN RAPID TRANSIT BENEFITS CASE UPDATE", image courtesy of Metrolinx

Prioritizing busy transit vehicles would require inconveniencing motorists — if only marginally — a venture that few of Toronto’s municipal and provincial representatives make a habit of. Whether an approaching mayoral election and the incoming World Cup will inspire action remains to be seen. However, as LRVs glide under and along Eglinton for the first time in history, one thing is certain: Eglinton Line 5 has at long last reached the finish line, and in doing so, forever altered Toronto for the better.

A Line 5 LRV waits to depart Mount Dennis station on opening day, image courtesy of Nolan Xuereb

UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on Eglinton Line 5, 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 Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.

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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.

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