TTC chair hints earliest opening date for Eglinton Crosstown LRT could be June 1

The chair of the TTC says the earliest opening date for the Ontario government’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT project could be mid-2025.

Coun. Jamaal Myers made the comments after the TTC’s monthly board meeting Tuesday afternoon. He was asked by CityNews about his motion to push back beyond Dec. 31 a cut-off for accepting older forms of TTC fare payments like tokens. Myers said he proposed a new date of June 1 for using fares on conventional TTC services and Dec. 31, 2025 for Wheel-Trans users.

He noted the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT lines won’t be able to accept older forms of payment.

“June 1 is the date that is the earliest possible date for the opening of the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRTs. No, I don’t know the date, but this is based on all the technical possibilities,” Myers said, adding the caveat “in a world where everything goes right.”

CityNews contacted Metrolinx, the provincial transportation agency overseeing the private-sector consortium building the 19-kilometre, 25-station Eglinton Crosstown line, to ask about the earliest potential opening date, but Metrolinx representatives didn’t directly answer the questions posed.

“We continue to make significant progress on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT project. We need to have confidence that key milestones are being met, and once we have an opening date, we will share that with the public,” a brief statement from the Metrolinx media relations office Monday evening said.

The most recent projected opening timeframe as well as the exact list of things that remain to be done haven’t been publicly disclosed by the Ontario government.

The ongoing speculation about when the Eglinton Crosstown might open and the detailed process of commissioning was highlighted once again in recent days.

On Monday, the Ford government announced Phil Verster was stepping down after seven years as president and CEO of Metrolinx to take another job. He was set to leave the organization as early as Dec. 16.

Michael Lindsay, the current head of Infrastructure Ontario, was tapped to lead Metrolinx on an interim basis.

In the news release announcing Verster’s departure, it said Lindsay was given “a clear mandate with opening Eglinton Crosstown as his top priority.” The statement didn’t shed any additional light on the LRT line’s opening though.

At Metrolinx’s quarterly board meeting on Thursday and before news of his departure was known, Verster said a full revenue service demonstration was expected to happen in early 2025.

A full revenue service demonstration, according to Metrolinx, means that crews will show “the rail service capabilities for the project” and that the LRT line works as designed. A follow-up review is supposed to identify “all areas of concern” and “resolve any outstanding issues.”

“The relentless focus on testing and commissioning continues,” he said, reiterating similar messaging in past updates.

However, he said that phase of work identified a “software design flaw” contained in signalling system work done by an unidentified sub-contractor. Verster said it “posed a safety risk that’s unacceptable for operations.”

In the update, he said Crosslinx Transit Solutions (the private-sector consortium building the Eglinton Crosstown LRT), the TTC, Metrolinx and the sub-contractor worked to “make the network safe” so operator training could continue. It’s not clear how long the pause was on training.

“The software code rectification is being completed and will be implemented by the end of this year,” Verster said.

“There’s no replacement for safety and there’s no compromise on safety or on the quality of our operations.”

Verster added 95 to 96 per cent of all testing for the Crosstown has been completed.

He said they’re working on commissioning the Crosstown “towards an opening date in [2025].”

There have been hundreds of deficiencies found and as CityNews first reported an entire station platform had to be rebuilt. A lack of transparency over the project has also been an ongoing issue, sparking calls for an inquiry.

The last detailed briefing by Metrolinx officials for members of the media and the public on the project was in December 2023.

In previous updates, Verster said he would give a three-month notice before the line was ready to open to the public. It’s not clear if that same notice period will still be in place after he leaves Metrolinx.

With files from Dilshad Burman