It really does feel like the Eglinton Crosstown is cursed and will never open. The latest, if you haven’t heard, is that two trains collided last week and the final testing for the LRT line has been put on hold.
It happened last Thursday, but the TTC and Ford government only acknowledged it as the incident was reported by the Toronto Star.
“Following an incident late last week, revenue service demonstration (final testing) has been paused and will resume shortly,” said Dakota Brasier, spokesperson for provincial transportation minister Prabmeet Sarkaria.
“Safety is at the forefront of everything we do and we continue to work with our partners at the TTC as progress on this critical project progresses.”
Is the Crosstown really progressing though? All it seems to do is cause headaches.
The project began construction nearly 14 years ago, more than 5,000 days ago. The Ford government can’t blame the former McGuinty/Wynne government for this mess, they’ve been in charge of it for longer than the Liberals were. It’s their mess and they’ve got to clean this up.
Ford needs to get on top of this
I’d say that Premier Ford should convene a meeting of top officials to try to sort this out, but they tried that and even a meeting on the Crosstown got screwed up.
Just about two weeks ago, Ford was supposed to meet with Mayor Olivia Chow, Michael Lindsay, CEO Metrolinx, TTC CEO Mandeep Lali and of course minister Sarkaria and the folks organizing it forgot to invite Lali and his TTC team so the meeting had to be put off.
Much like the Crosstown’s testing.
The final testing for the Crosstown began on Oct. 7, the incident involving two trains colliding at the Mount Denis train yard happened on Oct. 16 and testing has been paused ever since. The point of the RSD testing is to run the train system on the same schedule as if it was open to the public for 30 days and see if any problems not identified in less strenuous testing are spotted.
What Metrolinx and the Ford government have not revealed is whether the collision was operator error or if the trains or system malfunctioned.
Regardless of the reason for the crash, the bottom line is this LRT system is delayed again.
The Crosstown was started in 2011 and was supposed to open by 2020. The project has been plagued with problems, including as the Toronto Sun first reported in April 2023, tracks laid improperly that could have led to derailment.
Trying to avoid a repeat of the Ottawa disaster
The government has also been cautious about opening the Crosstown too early because of the example of Ottawa’s disastrous LRT experience.
That project, headed up by the city rather than the province, was rushed into service in September 2019 by then Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson. Watson, a former Liberal Minister at Queen’s Park, rushed the opening to ensure that local Liberals in Ottawa could attend an opening ride before that year’s federal election happened.
Putting partisan concerns over a properly functioning LRT wasn’t a good idea and Ottawa soon faced a raft of problems. Doors would not open at stations, the trains had trouble operating when it was too hot, too cold, when it was snowing or raining.
The Ford government called a public inquiry into that project that found “egregious violations of the public trust” in how the project was handled. In addition to construction delays and cost overruns, part of the issue was the city hiding unfavourable testing results from the public.
What we want in Toronto is just a train system that works.
We should have that soon, but not with the Crosstown. Instead, the Finch LRT which didn’t start construction until 2019, has completed its final testing via the revenue service demonstration and could be opening in the next few weeks.
The Ford government has invested heavily in transit, not just in Toronto but across the province, but this disaster of a project needs to be fixed and fixed fast.
It’s time for the premier to demand answers.
