Eglinton Crosstown won't open until 2024 -- at the earliest

Torontosun.com
April 27, 2023

Anyone hoping to hop on the Eglinton Crosstown this year is in for a big disappointment; it won’t be operational until 2024 -- at the earliest.

Metrolinx, the provincial agency responsible for building the line, has yet to sign an operating agreement with the Toronto Transit Commission or set up training for TTC operators.

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While training could happen relatively quickly, it’s the ongoing delays in finishing the project that keep it from being functional.

Sources in government and industry have both said having the Crosstown operational, as in open to the paying public, isn’t something that will happen this year and it’s likely the same for the Finch LRT, as well. That line was supposed to be completed by the end of 2023, but is now in doubt.

Not that we’ll hear any of this from Metrolinx, nor from the Ford government.

Digging for the tunnels on the Crosstown started in 2011, that’s 12 years ago, and the project has faced delay after delay. This week, concrete was being ripped up at the Sloane Station, located just east of the DVP, because it didn’t meet requirements.

Based on speculation on everything from major issues with the Yonge and Eglinton station and tunnels to claims of improperly laid tracks in parts of the system, some shoddy concrete work would appear to be the least of the worries on this project.

Yet where is the leadership from the Ford government on any of this?

When asked about problems about the Crosstown in the legislature this week, Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney first blamed the previous government.

“It’s a project that we inherited from the Liberals,” Mulroney said, “and from the beginning, unfortunately, they mismanaged the project.”

That would have been an acceptable answer four years ago, but this government has been in charge for close to five years and, Mulroney is coming up on four years in this file. Blaming the previous government simply doesn’t cut it when you’ve been in charge for close to half a decade.

Metrolinx can't get the Crosstown or Finch LRT to work but some are pushing Premier Doug Ford to pay their CEO more than $1 million per year
Metrolinx President and CEO Phil Verster is pictured at a press conference in London, Ont., on Oct. 13, 2021. PHOTO BY DEREK RUTTAN /Postmedia News
Neither does blaming the consortium hired by Metrolinx to build the Crosstown.

Crosslinx Transit Solutions is a consortium of more than two dozen companies that was awarded the contract to build this project. They aren’t responsible to the public, they are responsible to Metrolinx, the provincial agency that hired them and Metrolinx is responsible to Mulroney.

Blaming the company hired to do the work while not demanding accountability from the government or its agencies is ludicrous; but behind the scenes, that’s what the Ford government is pushing -- they want to blame Crosslinx.

Meanwhile, the push continues to try and score Metrolinx boss Phil Verster a big raise that between base salary and bonuses would put him over $1 million per year. It’s obscene to think that Verster would get this raise when Metrolinx is such a disaster, but it could happen.

NDP Deputy Leader Dolly Begum, also the MPP for Scarborough-Southwest, called the delays on the Crosstown and lack of information insulting to residents, while the prospect of a raise for Verster simply makes it worse.

“For the Ford government to consider giving Verster a raise to the tune of more than $1 million would add insult to injury for Ontarians,” Begum said Wednesday.

It would be insulting to Ontarians to give Verster a raise. Given his track record on the Crosstown and Finch, he should be fired before we see the same problems on the Ontario Line.

If the minister won’t do that and she stands by her man at Metrolinx, then she needs to answer for that as does her boss Premier Doug Ford. The time for the blame game is over, the public deserves answers and accountability, and so far they are getting neither.

It’s not acceptable; it’s time to demand better.