Work crews recently finished tunnelling a section of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension light-rail transit line that will eventually carry passengers from Toronto into Mississauga. (Photo: Metrolinx)

Work on a major light-rail transit line being built in east Mississauga and Toronto hit a “critical milestone” this week with the completion of an important underground task, project leaders say.

“Crews have completed tunnelling on the 500-metre twin tunnels that will run between Jane Street and Mount Dennis Station (in Toronto) and connect the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension to Line 5 Eglinton,” Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency working with Infrastructure Ontario to build the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension, said in a project update on Monday.

The underground work began in February and took some six months to complete.

Tentatively scheduled to accept its first passengers in five or six years, the 9.2-kilometre above ground/underground route will extend the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line in Toronto, also known as Line 5 Eglinton, farther west to “bring much-needed rapid transit to Etobicoke and Mississauga,” project officials have said.

When completed, the ECWE will help reduce gridlock and connect nearly 70,000 commuters to jobs across the Greater Toronto Area, the provincial government said earlier.

The new LRT line is also expected to extend from the Mississauga-Toronto border north to Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga.

Work crews break through the final section to complete the second tunnel. (Photo: Metrolinx)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said earlier this summer that as the GTA continues to grow, “our government is making historic investments in the largest public transit expansion in North America to support commuters, fight gridlock and protect workers.

“The Eglinton Crosstown West Extension will link transit riders in Etobicoke and Mississauga to transit options across the region, cutting travel times and connecting workers and families to good jobs, vital services and more.”

Specific method used to build the tunnels

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Metrolinx said the just-completed tunnels were built using what’s known as the sequential excavation method, often used for smaller sections of tunnels.

“With this method, the area to be tunnelled is divided into smaller sections and excavated in sequence,” agency officials said in their latest update. “Concrete is then sprayed onto the tunnel walls as the sections are excavated to reinforce the exposed walls. About one to two metres of tunnel are excavated each day using this construction method.”

This isn’t the first underground milestone the massive transit project has achieved.

In May 2024, twin tunnel-boring machines dubbed Renny and Rexy completed a two-year job that began at Renforth Drive in east Mississauga in April 2022 and ended 6.3 kilometres to the east at Scarlett Road in Toronto.

Major excavation work began earlier this summer

Earlier this summer, major excavation work began on four of the seven stations for the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension, “marking another milestone in the province’s plan to protect Ontario by building fast, reliable and affordable public transit,” the Ontario government said in a news release at the time.

Work crews started to excavate four underground stations along Eglinton Avenue West at Martin Grove Road, Kipling Avenue, Islington Avenue and Royal York Road.

“Work includes building the station boxes, which are the underground structures that make up the main body of the station,” project officials said in July.

(Source: Metrolinx)

The other three stations to be built along the Eglinton Avenue LRT route are at Scarlett Road and Jane Street, both in Toronto, and Renforth Drive in east Mississauga.

Metrolinx said earlier that when the line is completed around 2031 or so, passengers will be able to ride the train cars from Scarborough in east Toronto to Renforth Drive in Mississauga. From there, an additional extension north to Toronto Pearson Airport is planned.

When open to passengers, the province said the ECWE will extend the parent line by nearly 10 kilometres, “creating nearly 30 kilometres of rapid transit along Eglinton Avenue linking Scarborough, Midtown Toronto and Mississauga into a single continuous transit line. The extension will save passengers up to 24 minutes travelling from Toronto’s Yonge and Eglinton to Mississauga’s Square One.”

Rendering of what the Renforth Station in Mississauga could look like when the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension LRT route is completed. (Image: Metrolinx)

The new ECWE transit line will also eventually connect riders to regional transit services including the Union Station to Pearson Airport Express (UP Express), GO Transit, TTC and MiWay, Mississauga’s public transit provider.

The new line is also expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by some 39,000 tonnes each year once it comes online, project leaders said earlier.


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