Transit line delay needs answers

It seems the only thing predictable about the Eglinton Crosstown transit line is the news that its opening has been delayed again.

On Friday, Metrolinx confirmed that the launch of the line was being pushed back again. The new date, you ask? They’re not saying, though CBC reports it’s at least a year. No word either what this means for the multibillion-dollar budget.

It’s another setback for a project that has been years in the making. The line will stretch 19 kilometres, ten of those underground, with 25 stops. There’s no doubt it will be an important piece of transit infrastructure along a busy corridor — when it opens.

But expected dates for its opening have come and gone, sliding from 2020 to 2021 then 2022.

Optimism that the line would be completed this fall were misplaced. On Friday, Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster said in a statement that Crosslinx Transit Solutions, responsible for the line’s construction, had “fallen behind schedule, are unable to finalize construction and testing, and therefore the system will not be operational on this timeline.”

Last October, the project was sufficiently advanced that journalists were taken for a ride along on the above-around, eastern section of the line. Two months later, Verster and Infrastructure Ontario CEO Michael Lindsay cheered that the line is “progressing well and is nearing completion.”

Yet the reality is that this has been a challenged project, beset by delays that pre-dated the pandemic. COVID-19 meant further setbacks and additional costs. Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario have paid the consortium hundreds of millions of dollars in to settle outstanding claims in attempts to keep the project on track.

And yet here we are, facing another delay with little explanation of what’s gone wrong or given a new time line when it might open.

The delay means that residents will have to wait longer for the easier commute the line will bring. Critically, it prolongs the years-long construction headaches endured by residents and businesses along the line, especially those along Eglinton Avenue West. These have been significant with side streets congested with traffic.

Toronto Coun. Mike Colle, whose Eglinton-Lawrence ward includes much of the western section of the line, is rightly frustrated with the lack of clear answers. “They don’t even say when they’re going to fix the problem or what the problems are,” Colle said. “There’s got to be some level of public accountability.”

Given that Metrolinx is a provincial agency, there’s a role here for opposition MPPs at Queen’s Park to demand some answers from the provincial government.

Learning the lessons from this troubled project is important because Metrolinx is administering the Ontario Line that will run some 15 kilometres from Exhibition Place, through downtown to the Ontario Science Centre. Delays on this project would mean extended disruptions on downtown streets on a project that already promises to to tie up traffic.

Colle wants a public inquiry into the Eglinton LRT project like the one that is underway into Ottawa’s troubled LRT line.

His desire for some clarity is understandable. Yet we shouldn’t have to resort to a costly inquiry with an army of high-priced lawyers to get some basic answers about what is going on here.

Taxpayers and transit riders are owed that much.

Critically, the delay prolongs the years-long construction headaches endured by residents and businesses along the line, especially those along Eglinton Avenue West