Ontario doubles down on September opening for Eglinton LRT despite TTC calling timeline ‘a reach'
The possibility that the long awaited Eglinton Crosstown LRT will open this September is now being considered 'a reach' by the TTC's former interim CEO.
Greg Percy made the comments during a Toronto Transit Commission board meeting on Thursday in response to a question from Toronto-St. Paul's Coun. Josh Matlow.
'Is there any prospect of a full handover by September, or is there a legitimate concern that (Metrolinx) may fail to provide us a line that is ready to operationalize by September?,' Matlow asked.
'I think September is a reach,' Percy responded. 'But, this fall is plausible, and certainly by year end. There's lots and lots of stuff going on that we need to fix to open safely, and that's what we're focused on.'
In April, Matlow told CP24 that he believed the LRT would open by September, and Premier Doug Ford echoed those statements in June.
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation doubled down in a statement to CP24 on Thursday saying, 'In June we formally transferred operations of the line to the TTC. As we have said, we are targeting September for an opening date.'
Metrolinx also pointed to a September opening in a statement on Thursday, writing, 'All civil infrastructure for the project is now complete, operator driver training is now complete and in June we formally transferred operations of the line to the TTC's command centre at Hillcrest.'
'We are currently relentlessly stress testing the system to ensure it is safe and reliable on the day it opens.'
At Thursday's meeting, Percy said that the decision on opening the line falls with Metrolinx.
'It's still a Metrolinx decision,' said Percy. 'There's a number of us that are deeply involved in this and to push it over the line we're working intimately closely with Metrolinx. We're looking at still this fall to get something happening.'
'We are collaborating with the same priorities of safety and customer experience, and we won't open until it is satisfying both.'
In a statement to CP24, the TTC says, 'Our CEO Mandeep Lali and Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay spoke last week and are committed to working together to open Line 5 as soon as it is ready for safe and reliable operations.'
'We have several phases of testing and commissioning to complete in advance of that, as has been previously outlined. The province will ultimately announce the opening date.'
Construction on the Crosstown LRT began in 2011 and the nearly-$13 billion line was originally expected to be complete by 2020.
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