Metrolinx has confirmed that there is no approximate opening date on the horizon for the Hazel McCallion Line. This is the 18km light rail transit route running from Port Credit GO station in the south to Brampton Gateway Terminal in the north.
Originally projected to open in 2022, and then revised to 2024, Metrolinx told the Meadowvale Pulse in an email that the public will not be provided with a timeline for opening the line until “construction nears completion and we move into the testing and commissioning phase.”
Metrolinx has so far confirmed that track work is finished at 33 out of 55 intersections along the corridor, platforms are constructed at 8 out of 18 stops, the second push box is complete under Port Credit Station and the concrete was poured to form the floors at street level at that Station as well.
Construction is also ongoing on the elevated guideway over the Highway 403 interchange with all girders now installed. The contractor is Moblinx, a consortium of private European and Japanese companies that was awarded a $4.6 billion contract in 2019 to build, finance and run the line for thirty years. Moblinx is working on completing the bridge deck superstructure, which will support the installation of tracks and signalling for the LRT.
In news articles published last fall, Metrolinx said that track work had been completed at 30 of 55 intersections and 6 out of 18 stops constructed. That’s progress of 3 intersections and 2 stops in 6 months. Based on that rate of completion, a 2025 opening date seems highly unlikely.
Also, as Toronto residents can attest, even when a project enters into the “testing and commissioning phase,” that is no guarantee the project will soon be complete. The Eglinton Crosstown has been in this phase for the past two years and still no one knows when it will open.
On January 27 of this year, four days before he called a snap election, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced plans for a tunnelled 4km extension of the Hazel McCallion Line from the Brampton Gateway Terminal into Downtown Brampton.
Then, on March 21, 2 days before the federal election was called, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith announced the federal government’s intention to support the tunnel into Downtown Brampton with funding from the Canada Public Transit Fund.
Although the planning and design work has already begun, there is no information yet as to when construction on this project will actually begin. An additional extension into downtown Mississauga was also approved.
