A rift is growing between Metrolinx and Toronto’s transit agency over the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, as provincial officials push to open the years-delayed line in the final days of 2025.
Multiple sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Global News that there was a plan by Metrolinx and the Ministry of Transportation to open the line during the last week of December.
The Toronto Transit Commission resisted that, targeting a date in early February, saying there were still issues to be ironed out.
The two competing opening dates came to a head at a meeting on Dec. 5 involving Metrolinx, the TTC, Premier Doug Ford, Mayor Olivia Chow and Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria.
The meeting, according to multiple sources, was tense, as the two sides debated their opening date strategies. It was held shortly before city and provincial officials unveiled an opening plaque for the Finch West LRT, which began carrying passengers on Sunday.
Sources said Metrolinx, which announced substantial completion of the Crosstown that same day, pushed for Sunday, Dec. 28, to open the line. The provincial agency and its CEO, Michael Lindsay, were adamant that remaining issues with the line could be fixed by then.
TTC CEO Mandeep Lali, who has worked on New York and London’s transit systems, pushed back against the plan. Sources said he wanted to see the line open around Feb. 8, citing concerns about rushing fixes to the remaining technical problems.
The meeting appeared to end with Ford accepting Toronto’s position the line could not be opened this year.
“There’s a couple of things we’ve got to tweak,” the premier told reporters shortly after. “I’d rather wait and get it done properly, God knows we’ve only waited 15 years for this. We might as well wait until they’re ready.”
The province itself has repeatedly delayed the line’s opening and refused to give a date, after it raised concerns about the safety implications of rushing it over the finish line.
At the heart of the concerns raised by the TTC in the meeting, sources said, were worries about repeating the mistakes of the Ottawa LRT.
An inquiry into the launch of that system, which was plagued by technical errors and breakdowns, found the city and the Rideau Transit Group consortium lost sight of the public interest amid political pressure to rush the $2.1-billion project across the finish line.
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It’s a fate the provincial government has been desperate to avoid on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, repeatedly citing the need to avoid a similar situation as the cause of delays in recent years.
Yet during the meeting between Chow, Ford, the TTC and Metrolinx, it was the local transit agency pointing to the inquiry as a cause to delay, with the provincial side pushing back. Sources said Lali raised worries about outstanding technical issues with the line, arguing the city needed more time to ensure it had a bedding-in period to sort out the final problems.
Toronto wanted to open the Eglinton Crosstown under a similar approach to the Finch West LRT, which achieved substantial completion in November but did not open until Dec. 7.
Lindsay, sources said, pushed back on the request, listing off how Metrolinx was able to rapidly address the technical issues and why the Eglinton Crosstown LRT would not suffer the same fate as Ottawa.
Sources also said the provincial government has specifically consulted with the Ottawa LRT inquiry and its technical experts, asking them to cast an eye over the line, approving it for its maiden voyage. A meeting back in August involved staff from Metrolinx, TTC and Ottawa to discuss how to apply lessons from the capital’s system.
On Dec. 5, the same day the tense meeting took place, the provincial government announced it had achieved substantial completion on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which it said would be ready to open in the “coming weeks.”
The Crosstown, sources said, has been signed off by the same technical experts as the Finch West LRT.
The government said it had operated more than 11,000 kilometres per week of testing, including through a snowstorm and maintained service for 16 hours per day.
There’s also frustration within the provincial government at comparisons between the Finch West LRT and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Sources said training on the Eglinton line had gone on for longer, with more hours of driver experience.
Lindsay has publicly said the Eglinton Crosstown LRT was put through some of the most rigorous tests and assessments of any transit system in North America. Control of trains running on the line has been located at the TTC’s Hillcrest facility since June.
During the meeting, Metrolinx pushed that readiness, suggesting the line could be safe to operate within weeks, targeting its Dec. 28 date.
The TTC and its more cautious approach, however, appears to have won the premier’s approval, at least initially.
The agency suggested Feb. 8 as the date it would be ready to launch the line, avoiding opening it during the first month of next year.
If the line ends up opening in early February, it would mean roughly two months had elapsed between substantial completion and the Crosstown carrying its first passengers.
Shortly after the meeting, when Ford spoke to reporters, he appeared to rule out the date Metrolinx had privately argued in favour of.
“I’d be safe and say 2026, but very soon after 2026,” Ford said.
The Eglinton Crosstown LRT began construction in 2011 and has been plagued by delays.
It embarked on its final testing phase in October, completed those tests at the beginning of December and was accepted as ready by Metrolinx on Dec. 5.
A spokesperson for Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said the mayor and the premier had agreed on the same timeline, which they said was necessary to ensure the system was reliable.
“The Mayor and Premier are working together and are in agreement over the timeline — both have said that it will open early next year,” they said in a statement.
“Any suggestion that the TTC is slowing the opening is rooted in a misunderstanding of the remaining technical and operational issues that are being addressed over the coming weeks by Metrolinx and the TTC.”
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