5.7K 
Toronto’s long-awaited LRT line, Eglinton Line 5, is all but guaranteed to open within the next few months after 15 long years of construction. With anticipation building and more than $12 billion sunk into the project, a question looms over an undertaking that has dominated the city’s consciousness for a generation: will it be worth the wait?
In the new year, Eglinton Line 5 will enter its 16th year of work, following the start of construction on the light rail line in the summer of 2011. Despite this already remarkable timeline, the project was first proposed nearly two decades ago, in 2007, by former mayor David Miller and TTC chair Adam Giambrone. It was part of the citywide Transit City plan, which sought to construct half a dozen new light rail lines along Toronto’s suburban arterials and upgrade the long-standing Long Branch streetcar to LRT standards. Promising a network that would span the city’s six boroughs for roughly the same cost as just a few subway lines, optimism around the proposal was high among Miller’s downtown-oriented base, as Toronto appeared poised to join the wave of light rail construction sweeping North American cities at the time.
Curiously, arguments in favour of Transit City set aside the traditional goals of rapid transit construction, the same metrics that had guided Toronto through its “golden age” of subway building during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Gone was the emphasis on speed, increased hourly capacity, and the removal of at-grade conflicts, all of which were central to the design of Lines 1 and 2. In their place emerged concepts such as “coverage,” “ride quality,” and “equity,” along with a prevailing belief that the structural inequities and suburban mis-planning that had shaped Toronto’s postwar expansion could be remedied if only streetcars were extended into the suburbs.
The possibility that these new light rail lines would do little to improve mobility, reduce travel times, or enhance the operational efficiency of the perpetually underfunded TTC was largely absent from discussion at City Hall during the Miller mayoralty. This missing emphasis persisted despite the preceding decade of decline on Toronto’s forgotten “Light Rapid Transit” line, now known as the 510 Spadina streetcar. Opened in 1997, the Spadina streetcar was explicitly branded at the time as a rapid transit line, and eagle-eyed readers will already have noticed it, along with the Queens Quay and St Clair streetcars, marked on the Transit City proposal map as “existing light rail.”
The plain inaccuracy of the now infamously slow “Spadina Snail” being deemed rapid was not lost on disappointed riders. In the years following the Spadina LRT’s opening, a quiet rebrand occurred, resulting in the 510 streetcar we know today as just another line in what numerous analyses have described as the world’s slowest streetcar network. Yet, more than two decades after the loss of the Spadina streetcar’s rapid transit branding, it remains an outlier within Toronto’s surface rail network. Year after year, it proves to be one of the slowest transit routes in the city, bested in speed by a host of other mixed-traffic streetcar lines, despite enjoying a wholly dedicated right-of-way.
As of October 2025, the Spadina streetcar had slowed to such a degree that, during the evening rush hour, it averaged a travel speed of just 8.3 km/h, as shown in the diagram above. Just six years earlier, that same period, slow as it already was, averaged speeds of 9.1 km/h, nearly 10 percent faster than current operations.
Increased traffic congestion, the usual explanation for worsening transit service, should not apply to the wholly separated right-of-way on which the 510 operates. One might point to the vehicles themselves, as the earlier CLRV streetcars were lighter and therefore quicker in both acceleration and deceleration. Yet this explanation also falls short, as the new Flexity streetcars were already in full operation on Spadina by the time the 2019 data was collected, a fact noted by longtime transit advocate Steve Munro.
So what, then, is the cause of the continued degradation of transit service on Spadina Avenue? With rolling stock, travel corridor, and congestion accounted for, all that remains is the operation of the streetcars themselves. From slow zones within Spadina Station to painfully hesitant acceleration on straightaways, seemingly nonexistent bunching prevention, and stop-and-go orders at every signalized intersection, the TTC has driven Toronto’s first generation of LRT into the ground.
On Finch West, a similar story is threatening to unfold. Opened on December 7th, the Finch West LRT, referred to as “Line 6” by those branding it as rapid transit, has been mired in controversy over its crawling speeds and irregular headways. One week into operations, the line has settled into an average end-to-end runtime of 55 minutes along its 10.3 km route, resulting in an average speed of roughly 11.2 km/h. During off-peak periods, waits can be up to ten minutes for a train. For comparison, the 36 Finch West bus, operating in mixed traffic with no priority measures, covered the same route in an average of 44.8 minutes during the busiest weekday periods this past November, with trip times dipping as low as 35 minutes.
Despite the line’s brand-new infrastructure and signalling system, the 55-minute travel time already represents a 20 percent increase from the TTC’s targeted runtime of 46 minutes, a goal set just weeks before opening during the LRT’s testing phase. Even if the line had achieved that target, it would still run slower than the weekday average of the bus it replaced, after six years of construction and $2.5 billion spent.
A comparison to the operating speeds promised during the Miller mayoralty only underscores the farcical nature of the LRT’s execution. The Sheppard-Finch Rapid Transit Benefits Case of 2009 estimated average speeds of 22 km/h and a route runtime of just 28 minutes — literally double the speed of today’s operations. As for the claim that LRT would be cheaper to build than subways, at approximately $240 million per kilometre, the Finch West LRT cost more than double what it took to build the fully tunnelled, heavy rail Sheppard Avenue subway 23 years earlier. It is worth noting that the father of Transit City and the Finch West LRT, former Mayor David Miller, was absent from the inaugural “first trip” on which Mayor Olivia Chow and Premier Doug Ford toured the line.
In the days since the Finch West LRT’s opening, public pressure has grown to implement measures to speed up the line. In response, Mayor Chow is bringing an item to City Council this week seeking to provide the line with signal priority, ensuring that the hundreds of riders aboard each LRT train are given precedence at intersections over left-turning motorists and that green lights are held for approaching transit vehicles.
At the December 10th meeting of the TTC Board, discussion on the topic was marked by severe confusion over the basics of light rail operations and an apparent lack of understanding of how signal priority works. Board members first expressed concern that transit signal priority (TSP) would speed up the line so drastically that it might violate the TTC’s contract with Metrolinx and Mosaic, the consortium responsible for maintaining the Finch West LRT, despite the line already running slower than designed.
Following this, recently appointed “Transit Czar” Derrick Toigo claimed that an increase in operating speeds would lead to longer headways and increased wait times between vehicles. This is patently false, as faster-moving vehicles reach each station in less time, allowing for increased frequencies with the same number of vehicles. When the Board was asked whether the TTC or city staff had reviewed Kitchener-Waterloo’s ION LRT, which averages 25.3 km/h through extensive use of TSP, Roger Browne, director of Traffic Management for the City of Toronto, responded that no research on the neighbouring region’s LRT line had been undertaken.
Eglinton Line 5 is set to open into this environment of operational uncertainty, with roughly a third of its route constructed in a manner nearly identical to the Finch West LRT. In the 2012 Eglinton Crosstown Rapid Transit Benefits Case, Metrolinx estimated that an end-to-end trip on Line 5 would take 40 minutes, with 21 minutes spent on the mostly underground 11.2 km grade-separated section between Mount Dennis and Laird stations, and the remaining 19 minutes covering the 7.8 km on-street portion from Laird to Kennedy stations. At an average speed of 29 km/h, Line 5 would operate at speeds comparable to the Bloor-Danforth Line 2.
This runtime is almost certainly out of reach. At the December 10th TTC Board meeting, it was reported that current test runs on Line 5 schedule 56 minutes for a trip from Mount Dennis to Kennedy. Given this month’s precedent of the TTC missing its targeted schedule on the Finch West LRT by 20 percent, total trip times on Line 5 are likely to exceed an hour. Even if the TTC only surpasses its target by 10 percent, resulting in a 62-minute trip, the Eglinton Crosstown would only beat the current fastest transit option from Kennedy to Mount Dennis — via Line 2 and the UPX — by a single minute.
This result would be, frankly, a disaster. Construction of the Crosstown has been anything but smooth, with 15 years of work-snarling traffic, shuttered businesses, and, most concerning, a cost of well over $12 billion. For a generation of waiting and a sum of money that could have built an entire subway network in more cost-effective countries, to result in what could open as one of the most significant infrastructure failures in Canada’s history, the fallout would be long-lasting. The dream, or perhaps more accurately the fantasy, of fast, inexpensive light rail gliding down Toronto’s streets will be dead on arrival, as a burned public re-evaluates the return on its investment in a once-promising technology. That disillusionment is likely to spill beyond the city’s roads and into its ballot boxes, with incumbents tied to the project facing heightened scrutiny in upcoming elections, particularly in Toronto’s next municipal race, now less than a year away.
While Line 5 will likely never match the speeds of the existing subway network without major reconstruction of significant portions of the LRT, an expensive and politically toxic proposition that would likely take the form of elevating the tracks above street level, or burying/trenching them under the roadway. Such dramatic reconfigurations of Line 5's right-of-way are highly unlikely in the near future, but more minor steps can be taken to mitigate the glacial operating speeds currently projected for the line. Most crucial would be the activation of genuine TSP at all at-grade intersections of the Crosstown, a measure fully within the control of the City of Toronto and, specifically, its Transportation Services. Metrolinx has publicly stated multiple times that the signalling systems required for such a step are already built into the line; they simply need to be activated.
Implementing such a TSP system would allow Line 5 trains to essentially never have to stop at red lights, as intersections would be timed to facilitate green lights for approaching trains—a stark contrast to the current slog seen on Finch West. To realize these speed gains, arbitrary operational norms, such as coming to a complete stop before proceeding through green lights, would need to be removed from the TTC's rulebooks. Even better would be the wholesale adoption of operating standards from agencies with proven track records in running fast and reliable light rail, such as Kitchener-Waterloo’s Keolis Grand River, the operator of the ION LRT.
An intensive but potentially impactful next step would be the removal of some stops on the Crosstown’s at-grade portion in the east end, where too closely spaced stations—an attempt to mimic the “local service” of downtown streetcars—could make rapid operations nearly impossible. Unlike the tunnelled portion of Line 5, where station spacing ranges from roughly 600 to 1,000 metres, surface stations along the Golden Mile appear as often as every 250 metres. A more evenly distributed arrangement of stations is not without precedent and was, in fact, one of the options explored early in the line’s development. The map below illustrates one such scenario, with five fewer stops planned along Line 5 east of Laird station, eliminating those with poor ridership projections (such as Sunnybrook Park) or those made redundant by nearby stations at major intersections (like Hakimi-Lebovic).
Both options would have trade-offs, and force a reckoning with two decades of failure in design and execution that has led Toronto to such a point of crisis. However, it seems clear that having these uncomfortable conversations now, and attempting to salvage some form of rapid, reliable transit out of the wreck of Transit City, is infinitely preferable to letting billions of dollars go to waste, and stifling the growth of one of the world's great cities.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on Eglinton Line 5, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
* * *
UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
| Related Companies: | Arcadis, entro, LEA Consulting, LiveRoof Ontario Inc, LRI Engineering Inc. |
