The Subway That Took a Generation: Why the Eglinton Crosstown’s Delays Were Even Worse Than You Think

 

Toronto has a long history of transit projects that drag on, but the Eglinton Crosstown LRT has become the city’s defining example of how complicated, political, and painfully slow building transit can be. Most people think of the project as something that started in the early 2010s and simply ran over schedule. The truth is far messier—and stretches back decades.

A Project With Roots in the 1990s

Long before shovels hit the ground in 2011, the idea of rapid transit along Eglinton was already alive. In the mid‑1990s, the TTC began digging tunnels for what was then called the Eglinton West Subway. Construction actually started—tunnels were being carved out under the street—until the project was abruptly cancelled in 1995. The partially built tunnels were filled in, and the corridor sat untouched for years.

That early false start meant that by the time the Crosstown was revived as part of the Transit City plan in 2007, planners weren’t starting fresh. They were restarting a dream that had already been buried once.

A Modern Project With Old Problems

When construction officially began in 2011, the Crosstown was pitched as a 2020 opening. But the project quickly became a perfect storm of challenges:

• Complex tunneling under one of Toronto’s busiest streets
• Contract disputes between Metrolinx and the construction consortium
• Unexpected engineering issues in older parts of the city’s underground infrastructure
• Pandemic‑era slowdowns, which hit just as the project was entering its most delicate phase

Each delay compounded the next, turning a nine‑year plan into a fifteen‑year saga.

The Human Side of Delay

For residents and businesses along Eglinton, the timeline wasn’t just a number. Years of lane reductions, noise, dust, and construction fencing reshaped entire neighbourhoods. Some storefronts closed permanently. Others survived but struggled. The project became a symbol of how long-term infrastructure can transform a city—sometimes painfully—before it ever opens.

A Lesson Toronto Keeps Learning

The Crosstown’s story isn’t just about a transit line. It’s about how Toronto builds things: slowly, expensively, and with layers of political turnover that repeatedly reset priorities. The Eglinton LRT didn’t just take longer than expected—it took longer than an entire generation of Torontonians ever imagined.