Work on the Hazel McCallion Line continues, with no completion date in sight. Project leaders at Metrolinx are scheduled to meet next week with City of Mississauga officials to provide an update. (Photo: Metrolinx)

Project leaders overseeing construction of the much-delayed Hazel McCallion light-rail transit line will meet with city officials behind closed doors next week in Mississauga to talk about when the 18-kilometre route will be completed and open to its first passengers.

It’s not known if a firm — or even loose — completion date for the $4.6-billion Mississauga-to-Brampton Hazel McCallion Line will be provided by Metrolinx top brass when they meet with City of Mississauga officials on Wednesday morning.

A closed session of the city’s April 22 general committee meeting will see Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of the massive transit project, deliver an update to eager Mississauga officials — the mayor, councillors and senior staff — who’ve long expressed frustration at project delays they say are hurting businesses along Hurontario Street and testing drivers’ patience daily.

In delivering a wide-ranging update to city council earlier this week on major transit projects planned for Mississauga, including the Hazel McCallion Line, the director of the city’s Rapid Transit Office suggested any questions on timelines and a completion date for the Hurontario Street LRT route be saved until next Wednesday.

Such queries “can best be addressed by the CEO of Metrolinx” at the April 22 meeting, Carolyn Ryall, who stepped into the RTO director’s role in Mississauga last November, told the mayor and council.

The new LRT line, which when completed will whisk passengers from Port Credit GO station in south Mississauga north into Brampton along Hurontario Street, was initially to open in fall 2024.

However, the project has encountered various delays and Metrolinx has not said when it expects the job to be completed.

Senior city staff, councillors and Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish have expressed frustration for the better part of the past year with ongoing delays associated with construction of the LRT line.

Last September, Parrish described the project as “an incredible mess.” She later told INsauga.com it wouldn’t surprise her if the new LRT route didn’t take its first passengers until 2029.

If she’s right with that estimate, that would put the massive transit project, the largest in Mississauga’s history, roughly four to five years behind schedule.

When it opens to passengers, the Hazel McCallion Line will feature more than 20 stops along the route, including several in Mississauga’s downtown core by Square One. Metrolinx received the go-ahead from the province in February 2024 to extend the LRT line by three or four kilometres into downtown Brampton and reintroduce the “downtown loop” to the City Centre area of Mississauga. The latter component will add several stops to the route.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said earlier this year that extending the $4.6-billion Hazel McCallion Line from Hurontario Street into the busy and fast-growing downtown core of Mississauga will cost another $1.6 billion — the construction tab to be picked up by the provincial government.


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