Somewhere around Laird station, a few minutes into the first westbound run on February 8, 2026, the passengers started clapping. Nineteen kilometres, 25 stations, Kennedy to Mount Dennis in about 30 minutes, half the old bus time during rush hour. After everything, the thing actually works.
Fifteen years of construction. A price tag past $12 billion. Per kilometre, one of the most expensive transit projects in North American history.
How the LRT Became a Subway (Sort Of)
Before a single shovel hit the ground, the Eglinton corridor was already a fight. Transit City, the plan Mayor David Miller and the TTC announced in 2007, called for a fully surface-level light rail line along Eglinton. Cheaper, faster, roughly $4.6 billion.
Rob Ford won the mayoralty in 2010 and declared Transit City “dead” on his first day. He pushed for a fully underground subway along Eglinton. The province, under Dalton McGuinty, stepped in with a compromise: the central 10-kilometre section would run underground through a tunnel, while the eastern and western ends would operate at surface level. That hybrid design added billions to the cost and years to the timeline, but it gave the project political viability.
And it poisoned transit politics for a generation.
Every proposal since (Scarborough’s subway extension, the Ontario Line, all of them) runs through the same assumption: underground is inherently better, no matter what it costs or how many people will ride it.
Fifteen Years in Three Paragraphs
Metrolinx handed the line to the TTC on December 2, 2025, after a 30-day trial run. The original opening date was 2020. Contractor disputes, pandemic delays, and construction defects pushed it back again and again. For years, Eglinton Avenue sat torn open, businesses closed or struggled, and “under construction” became the street’s defining characteristic. Six years late. That’s a long time to wait for a train.
The Crosslinx Consortium Collapse
The Crosslinx Transit Solutions consortium (SNC-Lavalin, now AtkinsRealis, plus Aecon, EllisDon, and Dragados) was selected in 2015 through a public-private partnership model to design, build, finance, and maintain the Crosstown. Fixed-price contract: $9.1 billion. By 2020, the relationship had fallen apart. Crosslinx blamed unforeseen site conditions, design changes, and the pandemic. Metrolinx blamed mismanagement. Both sides filed claims worth hundreds of millions. The usual P3 marriage counselling.
In 2022, Metrolinx took the extraordinary step of assuming direct oversight, effectively sidelining parts of the P3 arrangement. The province hired Ernst and Young as an independent project monitor. Their reports were grim: coordination failures, rework, quality control so bad that stations had to be partially rebuilt. That’s a lot of concrete poured twice.
Other transit agencies across Canada took notes. Metrolinx itself shifted to a progressive design-build model for the Scarborough Subway Extension and split the Ontario Line into multiple contract packages rather than trusting a single consortium. The Crosslinx experience was the main reason why.
The Toll on Eglinton Avenue
More than 100 businesses along the corridor closed permanently during construction, according to the Eglinton Way BIA. Restaurants, dry cleaners, barbershops, small retailers. Anything that depended on foot traffic and street parking couldn’t survive years of torn-up sidewalks and blocked entrances.
Metrolinx established a business support program: grants, marketing assistance, signage. Business owners called it inadequate. A 2023 BIA survey found 68% of remaining businesses reported revenue declines of 30% or more during peak construction, 2017 to 2022. Not a dip. An extinction event for small retail.
Residents got it too. Noise complaints, dust, and vibration were constant issues for apartment buildings along the corridor, particularly near station excavation sites. At Avenue Road and Eglinton, residents reported cracks in building foundations that they attributed to tunnelling activity; Metrolinx disputed several of those claims.
What Riders Are Finding
The line works. Trains run.
The teething problems are real, though. At intersections where trains interact with road traffic, the city had to adjust signals at nine locations between Kennedy and Don Valley stations by mid-March 2026 just to give Line 5 priority over left-turning vehicles. That improved reliability but also showed just how complicated it is to run surface-level rail through a busy urban corridor. Underground stations downtown are modern, well-designed. The above-ground stops farther east feel less finished (Metrolinx says improvements are ongoing, which is what Metrolinx always says).
First four weeks: 65,000 to 80,000 daily boardings, depending on the day. The projected long-term figure is 125,000, but new lines typically take 12 to 18 months to get there as commuters adjust habits and development fills in around stations. Not alarming. Not a victory lap either.
Fare integration works through PRESTO. Transfers from Line 1 at Eglinton or Line 2 at Kennedy cost nothing extra, though the physical transfer at Eglinton Station requires a walk through a connecting tunnel that some riders have found confusing (and the signage doesn’t help).
Lessons from Ottawa
Toronto is not the only Canadian city to learn painful lessons from LRT construction. Ottawa’s Confederation Line, which opened in 2019, suffered repeated breakdowns in its first two years: door failures, wheel cracks, derailments that shut down the entire line for weeks. A public inquiry found the consortium, Rideau Transit Group, had cut corners and the city had failed on oversight.
Same P3 model. Same contractor disputes. Same years-late opening. The difference is where the failure surfaced: Ottawa’s problems hit riders after launch; Toronto’s hit taxpayers during construction.
Line 5 has been running smoothly so far. Spring and fall rush hours will be the real exam.
Twelve Billion Dollars for Nineteen Kilometres
Pinning down the final cost is tricky because of how Metrolinx structured its contracts. Original estimate in 2010: roughly $5.3 billion. By 2020: $12.8 billion, after disputes with Crosslinx led to contract renegotiations, claims, and counterclaims.
For comparison, Calgary’s 20-kilometre Green Line LRT is budgeted at $6.2 billion. The Eglinton line cost roughly twice as much per kilometre. Even accounting for the underground section (far more expensive than surface rail), those numbers are staggering. That’s a lot of concrete for the money.
Fitting Into the TTC
Line 5 connects with Line 1 at Eglinton and Line 2 at Kennedy, plus dozens of bus routes. Ridership is steady but not overwhelming, which is normal for a new line. The corridor is dense enough; the question is whether commuters will actually change their habits. Several condo projects near Laird, Leaside, and Mount Pleasant stations broke ground in 2025, and commercial vacancy rates along Eglinton between Yonge and Bayview have dropped since the opening was confirmed.
The real estate market figured it out before the riders did.
The West Extension
The Eglinton Crosstown West Extension will carry Line 5 from Mount Dennis to Renforth Station in Mississauga: seven more stations, 6.3 kilometres of tunnelling completed, and an estimated $3.97 billion added to the bill. Different procurement model this time. Different contractors. Whether any of that matters depends on whether Metrolinx actually learned anything from the last 15 years.
Public patience for another decade of disruption along Eglinton is gone.
Sources and verification: The February 8, 2026 opening date is confirmed by Metrolinx and TTC announcements. The $12 billion cost figure and 15-year construction timeline are widely reported by CBC News, UrbanToronto, and Ontario Construction News. The December 2, 2025 handover date is from Metrolinx’s published timeline. Traffic signal changes at nine intersections were reported by mid-March 2026 in city transit updates. The west extension cost and tunnelling progress are from Metrolinx project updates. Original 2010 cost estimates should be verified against Metrolinx historical documents, as several different baseline figures have been cited. The Transit City plan and LRT-vs-subway debate draws on Toronto Star and Globe and Mail reporting from 2010-2012. Crosslinx consortium details and the $9.1 billion contract value are from Metrolinx procurement records. The Ernst and Young project monitor appointment is from Ontario government announcements. Business closure estimates and the 2023 BIA survey are from the Eglinton Way Business Improvement Area. Initial ridership figures of 65,000-80,000 daily boardings are from TTC weekly operations reports. Ottawa Confederation Line comparisons draw on the Ottawa LRT Public Inquiry final report (2022). Calgary Green Line budget is from City of Calgary project documentation.
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