Eglinton LRT to cost $325 million more — and won’t open to riders until 2023

The Eglinton Crosstown has a new official completion date of next fall, but the LRT likely won’t start taking passengers until 2023.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario announced the provincial agencies had reached a settlement with the company building the massive midtown transit project that will see the $5.5-billion line substantially finished by September 2022.

The deal will also settle outstanding claims between the parties, including those involving delays caused by COVID-19, which will result in the province paying Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS), the consortium constructing the LRT, an additional $325 million.

But while the project should be built by next fall, according to the statement it may not be ready to start accepting passengers until “several months later,” which could push back its in-service date to some time in 2023. Under the previous schedule, the LRT was supposed to open by September 2021.

“The Eglinton Crosstown Line is progressing well and is nearing completion,” Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster and Infrastructure Ontario CEO Michael Lindsay said in the joint statement. They said that “while challenging” the LRT “is both a hugely exciting and a very significant transit addition in the city.”

The 19-kilometre line will run between Mount Dennis and Kennedy station, and have 25 stops.

CTS is building the LRT for the Ontario government under a public-private partnership agreement. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment Wednesday.

Explaining the uncertainty around when the line will enter service, Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said that once the project is certified substantially complete according to the terms of the LRT contract, “there will still be some adjustment work required” before it can carry customers, the extent of which “will only be evident after the project is turned over to Metrolinx and the TTC.”

While Metrolinx is overseeing construction of the line, the TTC will be responsible for operating it.

The TTC and Metrolinx will “track Crosslinx’s performance during 2022 to determine when the Eglinton Crosstown Line will open for passengers,” the statement said.

The Star reported last month that the provincial agencies and CTS had reached an agreement over a new schedule and costs for the LRT, but the parties said they couldn’t reveal details until the deal was formally approved.

The settlement comes after CTS took Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario to court last year, claiming the agencies were unfairly trying to hold it responsible for delays and higher costs caused by COVID-19. In May, a judge ruled in the consortium’s favour, which compelled the agencies to negotiate with the company.

Despite Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario portraying the agreement as good news Wednesday, their statement also reiterated that the agencies “strongly disagree” with the court’s ruling that the consortium is entitled to COVID-19 costs and they are appealing the decision.

Long before the new settlement, Metrolinx had acknowledged the LRT wouldn’t open by September 2021. In February 2020, the agency revealed the line wouldn’t be finished until next year, blaming the delay on defects in old infrastructure discovered at the TTC’s Eglinton station that complicated building an LRT stop beneath the subway, as well as CTS’s failure to meet construction targets.

Despite Metrolinx criticizing the company’s performance, the province has now agreed to settlements worth more than half a billion dollars to CTS, which is made up of industry heavyweights ACS-Dragados, Aecon Group, EllisDon and SNC-Lavalin.

In 2018, Metrolinx agreed to pay CTS $237 million to keep the project on schedule. The agency says despite the settlements, the Crosstown “remains in line with the original project value” proposed in the project’s business case.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation for the Star. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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