Eglinton Crosstown surfacing in 2018
Work on Toronto’s 12-mile Eglinton Avenue Crosstown LRT, the city’s first such project, will break out onto the surface during 2018.
Work on Toronto’s 12-mile Eglinton Avenue Crosstown LRT, the city’s first such project, will break out onto the surface during 2018.
The TTC’s Vaughan subway extension officially opened for passengers on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017, almost a decade after construction began in February 2008. The 5.30-mile line represents the first rapid transit operation outside the existing city of Toronto, into the northwestern suburb of Vaughan.
It was an event that few people within or outside the transit industry had ever expected to see: the arrival of a brand new streetcar in Toronto. However, that was exactly what happened on a bitterly cold but sunny December 29, 1977, when CLRV 4002 completed its long journey from Switzerland to the Toronto Transit Commission Hillcrest Shop. It was the TTC’s first new streetcar since 1951.
Some Railway Age readers will be surprised to learn that GO Transit, launched in 1967, was not the first venture of the Province of Ontario into the railway business; that event actually occurred some 60 years earlier. The honor actually belongs to the provincially owned Ontario Northland Railway, which links the city of North Bay, on Lake Nipissing, to Moosonee, on the salt waters of James Bay.
The Hamilton, Ontario LRT situation took another bizarre twist recently with Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, agreeing very reluctantly to City Council’s request to have the local municipally owned transit agency, the Hamilton Street Railway, operate the LRT. The crosstown line project was scheduled to begin construction in 2019, and open by 2024.
Toronto’s Spadina Subway extension is scheduled to open for service in December, and the Canadian government’s transfer of funds from the proposed Sheppard East LRT to the approved Finch West LRT line may cancel the former. Meanwhile, Ottawa’s Confederation and Trillium LRT lines have been awarded C$3.6 billion for expansion.
The LRT scene in downtown Kitchener (Ontario) in early September 2017 reminds the visitor of an episode of “The Twilight Zone”: tracks complete but rusty and debris-filled; stations ready for passengers, but none to be seen.
Two of Ontario, Canada’s numerous light rail transit projects—the Kitchener-Waterloo ION and Hamilton Street Railway B Line—have been facing difficulties, albeit of a different nature. The former is still without functional LRVs; the latter is looking at potentially conflicting operating proposals.
Metrolinx, the Ontario Government’s transit agency, has dropped its appeal of the court decision earlier this year that had prevented the authority from cancelling a C$770 million order with Bombardier for 182 Flexity Freedom LRVs.
Progress has been made on Metrolinx’s plan to electrify the GO Transit regional/commuter rail network. Meanwhile, major delays and controversy mark Bombardier’s streetcar contract with the Toronto Transit Commission.