The Eglinton Crosstown will launch this Sunday, says the TTC’s CEO
We are cautiously optimistic...
If you’re getting dizzy, we don’t blame you, so let us recap the recent Eglinton Crosstown LRT news-retraction-news cycle. About a week ago, it was reported that the much-anticipated transit line, which has been under construction since 2011 and has cost over $13 billion to build, would finally open to the public on February 8.
Related: The Eglinton Crosstown is almost ready—but at what cost to Little Jamaica?
A source close to the project shared the projected launch date with CTV, and it was corroborated by Premier Doug Ford and Councillor Josh Matlow, who serves on the TTC board.
We’ve learned our lesson with this thing, and we know not to get too excited, so it wasn’t a total surprise when, the next day, TTC CEO Mandeep Lali said that, actually, there was no opening date in sight. “We will open, as a phased opening in this instance, when we’re jointly aligned in terms of taking the learnings on from Line 6 forward,” he said. At that point, we scratched February 8 off our calendars, believing that the 19-kilometre, 25-stop line wouldn’t carry passengers this month after all.
Well, you’ll never guess what happened in a board meeting today. Lali revealed another plot twist: the Eglinton Crosstown will launch on February 8. That’s this Sunday! After all these years! We’ll believe it when we see it, of course, but this time things feel more optimistic. They wouldn’t tell us on a Tuesday that we can take the Eglinton LRT the following Sunday and then say never mind again—would they?
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
