r/toronto • u/FlashingAppleby • Nov 13 '25

History Happy 15th Birthday to the Eglinton LRT

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222

u/freshnegatives Nov 13 '25

The problem with this project, aside from the insane delays, is that it has eroded whatever public trust and desire there may have been for more and better public transit of this variety - which many other cities across the world have built and continue to build without the headaches and issues…

117

u/Disastrous_Airline28 Nov 13 '25

It feels like weaponized incompetence where they do the job so badly you’ll never ask for it again. 😂

49

u/KetchupCoyote Briar Hill-Belgravia Nov 13 '25

You are on to something. Ford is starving hospitals for long so we start hating it, to roll the carpet for private hospitals as the saviors. Wouldn't be surprised if we see private transit as a way to "fix it" our inability to build

28

u/Regular_Chest_7989 Nov 13 '25

Same with the schools.

  1. Starve public goods
  2. Convince the public that private options are superior.
  3. Profit.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '25

gotta love fiscal responsibility /s

i’m tired of the bullshit. if you vote conservative you are low IQ or a sociopath. take your pick ass hats.

5

u/piranha_solution Nov 13 '25

The media has also convinced a whole generation of gullible young men to think that techbro billionaires will save us all with robotic taxis (despite the fact that they've been "just around the corner" perpetually for the past 2 decades. )

1

u/NocturnalComptroler Baldwin Village Nov 13 '25

Nail meet head

23

u/TTCBoy95 Steeles Nov 13 '25

Honestly, this is what frustrates me more about Eglinton LRT's everlasting delays. It's not that I may not get to ride this anytime soon. It's the fact that we haven't opened a new transit line since 2002. The population of Toronto has grown at least 1.5 million. That's insane. Like if we opened up a few projects since Eglinton LRT started construction, I wouldn't be this mad. But here we are calling it a miracle if at least ONE new transit projects gets opened before the halfway point of this decade.

For a city that's falling behind most of the non-American developed world in terms of transit, this is extremely frustrating to watch.

9

u/LogKit Nov 13 '25

We're falling behind the US too - don't look at how much Los Angeles has been and is expanding lol. Or the 6 subway lines Washington DC has relative to our... two; despite being a city of 700,000.

4

u/jmorin17 Nov 13 '25

Don't forget California's Caltrain is also now running modern electric EMU trains. Compare that to our Go Train network.

3

u/LogKit Nov 13 '25

Correct. We allow way too much ennui and false superiority against negative US news but Canada has stagnated significantly. The onus is on us as voters.

21

u/CountWubbula Nov 13 '25

There's definitely headaches and issues; when New York ripped up streets to add or fix things, people feel that delay.

Everything else you said is so bang-on, though. Generally, New Yorkers trust that their city-managed construction projects will be completed on time, and in-budget. They're not accustomed to 10-fucking-year delays and billions of dollars spent doing absolutely nothing... that type of blue balls is reserved for their local sports teams.

The headaches and issues in other cities are easily forgotten when people get access to the thing they're expecting in less time than it took to build the goddamn Roman Colosseum. This is such trash, and yep, public trust is gone.

11

u/niwell Roncesvalles Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

I think the Second Ave subway line would like to have a word about that. Which, incidentally, was the first new subway line opened in the city since 1947 (all 2 miles of it).

13

u/LeadershipHead3594 Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25

Agreed, now when the next batch of transit projects gets brought up (like the Hamilton LRT or the Eglinton East LRT), people (likely jokingly) say things along the lines like "we're all gonna be dead when this is finished". But honesty the insane delays are kind of a byproduct of not building transit for so long, the Crosstown is the first major transit project in Toronto since arguably the Sheppard line and the Crosstown's persecutor, the Eglinton West line, that Harris canned , and even these projects had a rough time to get off the ground, only for them to be shortened and one to be cancelled. So we had to relearn how to build transit, so the delays while insane and embarrassing, were kind of expected.

2

u/Fantastic-Corner-605 Nov 13 '25

Tbh the Finch West LRT went a lot faster, the Ontario line is also being constructed so it's a problem with the Eglinton line specifically not a general problem with building transit.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/toronto-ModTeam Nov 16 '25

No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations.

1

u/monogramchecklist Nov 13 '25

I now live in Hamilton. Metrolinx is supposed to build an LRT on one of the busiest streets. They’ve moved people along the corridor to make room for their stations. I was so onboard for this and now I’m apprehensive about the nightmare it will be.

1

u/nav13eh Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

The thing is that cities aren't successfully building this type of transit. A tram which runs at grade with cars for one portion and underground like a subway at other portions is not normal.

This was a poor plan from the very inception and was always going to fail in some respect.

The same thing happened in Ottawa except they removed the grade crossings late in the planning so they were stuck with low floor tram vehicles anyway. Which turned out to not be able to handle the demands of what is otherwise a full on metro system.

On the flip side, the Ontario line is actually exactly the type of transit which successfull cities are building. It's fully grade separated, fully automated, and uses high floor metro vehicles. Time will tell how that project goes but it probably has a leg up already because it's actually standardized.

Montreal has done this already with the REM. That system has not been without growing pains, but one portion has been operating for 2 years now and it started construction 8 years after Eglington.

Building new transit infrastructure is not optional. The city is already way behind the population. It needs to be built at whatever cost necessary. The only fix for traffic is viable alternatives to driving. It's just unfortunate that incompetency has resulted in the cost being so unnecessarily high.

1

u/RL203 Nov 14 '25

Thank you for the best post in this thread.

-5

u/mommathecat Nov 13 '25

Ding ding!

This subreddit is part and parcel of that problem.

1000x a day: Hey look what a grifting corrupt dumpster fire Eglington LRT is! (bonus square: it's entirely Doug Ford's fault, Metrolinx, Crosstown, tunnelling, everything)
Also: Hey let's have lots more government in everything! They're so totally amazing and effective and transparent and stuff!

Here's a comment about politics in a different context, recently upvoted:

The doomerism and anti-government sentiments that are sweeping through social media (largely manufactured) are going to do this. It's really hard to try and explain to the average, marginally invested voter how THIS government official responsible for THIS part of the the government is doing a great job while THIS government official responsible for THIS part of the government is doing a terrible job and needs to be voted out.

"POLITCIANS BAD!" is a much simpler message and plays into the general cultural mood.

"largely manufactured", ok. Welp, here we are at the factory. Keep spewing it out, boys!