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In Toronto's West End, a number of major active transportation infrastructure projects are advancing above, at, and below grade, with recent news on extension work on two rail trails, new tracks for regional rail as part of Metrolinx's multi-billion dollar GO Expansion program, and work to better connect regional rail with the TTC subway. In this article, we catch up with what's going on currently to make getting around Toronto's Junction Triangle area easier.
Westward from Union Station through the West End, into York, and on to Etobicoke, rail capacity expansion on the Kitchener GO Line has progressed continuously since the 2011 launch of the Georgetown South Expansion project. New sections of a fourth track, new grade separations, and a reconstruction of Bloor GO station will gradually enable significant service increases, all taking place in a corridor that already saw the Union Pearson Express added in 2015 as Toronto's first airport rail link.
As services and frequencies have increased, so has demand, particularly on the Union Pearson Express, now often over-capacity, which commuters have taken to using as a faster (albeit pricier) alternative to the TTC's subway and surface network when heading downtown. In order to accommodate the increased demand, and better accommodate the existing heavy rail traffic made up of a mix of Kitchener Line, Milton Line, and VIA Rail service, a long-time goal of the various capacity expansion projects has been the delivery of four continuous tracks along the Kitchener corridor between Lansdowne Avenue and Dupont Street.
With long-term plans to run the Union Pearson Express up to every 7.5 minutes, and the Kitchener Line every 15 minutes, quad-tracking has been a necessity to better facilitate these intertwined passenger operations. On July 30th, a step towards achieving the goal was met with the Province of Ontario announcing the official completion of the fourth track across this 2.5-kilometre stretch of the corridor. While this achievement follows nearly two decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the corridor overall, the recent completions require following phases to make them work for entire lines, so there is no date yet for when service increases can be applied here.
Within Bloor GO station itself, a transfer connection delayed by over half a century is progressing as work continues on the pedestrian tunnel to Dundas West station. Initially opened in 1974, the GO station was built with no direct connection to the Line 2 Bloor subway station, the entrance to which is less than 200 metres to its west. In the 52 years since, riders transferring between the transit modes have had to use an outdoor, poorly signed on-street route to make the connection.
Talk of building an underground connection directly linking the stations failed to become action for years as the owner of the adjacent Crossways apartment complex opposed the below ground easement required to construct the most direct tunnel route. Metrolinx eventually expropriated the necessary space, and in May 2024 work finally began on the project, with excavation commencing within the P2 level of the apartment complex's garage.
In the more than two years that have passed since construction began, significant progress has been made, with excavation long complete and much of the structural work done. Despite this, neither Metrolinx's project page for the tunnel nor their monthly construction updates provide an estimated completion date, leaving riders waiting to know when they will finally enjoy direct, weather-protected transfers between Bloor GO/UPX and Dundas West subway stations.
Impacting the area in another way this summer is the recent, long-awaited reopening of a central portion of the West Toronto Rail Path. The pedestrian and cycling path runs along the east side of the Kitchener GO corridor from Cariboo Avenue in the north to Dundas Street West in the south, but a long section was closed during the quad-tracking work through the Bloor GO station area. Reopened as on July 31, 2026, attention now turns to its two-kilometre southeasterly extension.
Plans to extend the West Toronto Rail path southeast, to just north of King Street West in this phase, the light orange section on the map below, have been slogging through the bureaucratic systems of Metrolinx and the City of Toronto for the better part of twenty years. Work had been projected to begin — but then failed to — in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025. This year, the City put the section out to tender though, and a winning bid is expected to be announced in the Fall of 2026, at which time the City will also publish an expected timeline for work and completion.
Meanwhile, Metrolinx is working on the southernmost segment of their own west end multi-use trail project which they have dubbed the "Barrie-Downtown Corridor Multi-Use Path." It will be a trail beside the Barrie GO corridor that functionally extends the Davenport Diamond Greenway south of Bloor Street, connecting from Davenport Road into the West Toronto Rail Path extension.
The bridge seen under-construction below will form the most southerly portion of the Barrie-Downtown path, and will be complete before it connects to anything at its south end. There, it will eventually merge with the West Toronto Rail Path as it bridges over the GO Barrie line.
Seen on the map below, the bridge above is found where the orange arrow points to the left. It and the Barrie-Downtown trail beyond the tip of the arrow will open once the WTRP, the dark green line, is constructed through this section. The second orange arrow, pointing down, represents another possible connection to the WTRP, across the Kitchener GO corridor to Sorauren Park. Southeastwards from here, the WTPR will travel along the east side of the rail corridor through Brockton Village and Little Portugal, before reaching West Queen West and then terminating (until the phase after that is built) at the intersection of Sudbury and Abell streets, just north of Liberty Village. To ensure trips down the path are entirely car-free, the trail will take overpasses above Lansdowne Avenue, Brock Street, Dufferin Street, and Queen Street, some of which was constructed over a decade ago in anticipation of this extension.
With the West Toronto Rail Path southeast extension still just inching forward after years of delays related to a ballooning budget, at least the route past Bloor GO/UPX has been reopened to the public. Shuttered in 2022 to facilitate rail corridor widening and construction of the new Randolph Avenue entrance to Bloor station, Metrolinx initially promised the closure would last a single year. Four years later, this part of the path is once more fully accessible, allowing commuters and recreational users alike to travel continuously from Cariboo Avenue to Dundas Street West for the first time in nearly half a decade.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on the West Toronto Rail Path extension and GO Expansion, but in the meantime, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum threads 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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