Project leaders in charge of the well-behind-schedule Hazel McCallion light-rail transit line have updated Mississauga officials on progress being made on the $4.6-billion route — but they’re saying nothing to the public about when the trains might take their first passengers.

Neither Metrolinx, the provincial agency overseeing the 18-kilometre Mississauga-to-Brampton Hazel McCallion Line, nor the City of Mississauga are revealing any details about what was said during a closed-door session Wednesday morning at city hall.

Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay and other agency top brass met with Mississauga officials prior to the city’s general committee meeting to provide latest details on the project, described as the largest transit undertaking in the city’s history.

It’s not known if a firm, or even loose completion date for the Hurontario Street LRT line was provided by Metrolinx to eager Mississauga officials — the mayor, councillors and senior staff — who’ve long expressed frustration at project delays they say are hurting businesses and testing drivers’ patience daily.

Asked again by INsauga.com if they could estimate — generally or more specifically — when the massive project might be completed, a Metrolinx spokesperson was vague.

“As with all transit projects, a final completion date will be announced after the systems integration milestone is successfully complete and we enter the Revenue Service Demonstration phase to thoroughly test the system as though it were operating regular service with passengers,” the spokesperson said in an email. 

In other words, no completion date will be provided to the public until shortly before the new transit system accepts its first passengers.

The agency spokesperson also wouldn’t say if Metrolinx brass gave city officials even a ballpark estimate as to when the LRT route would be completed, saying only that “as we progress through completing this project, we will continue to update local councillors, elected officials and the community on this project.”

A City of Mississauga spokesperson, meanwhile, told INsauga.com the update from Metrolinx was held in closed session as the information was “explicitly supplied in confidence to the municipality” by the provincial transit agency.

“This means that the confidential details provided by Metrolinx are protected by law, and the city is obligated to maintain that confidentiality,” the spokesperson added. “Metrolinx has advised that more information will be made publicly available shortly.”

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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