Eglinton line

Eglinton
Route length:	19 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	750 V  =
Dual track :	Yes
Legend Mount Dennis GO Transit Union Station ↔ Kitchener depot Black Creek Drive Black Creek Keelesdale GO Transit Union Station ↔ Barrie Caledonia Fairbank Oakwood Eglinton West ( Yonge University Line ) Forest Hill Chaplin avenue Eglinton ( Yonge University Line ) Mount Pleasant Leaside Laird Don River (western arm) Sunnybrook Park Canadian Pacific Railway Science Center Aga Khan Park & ​​Museum Don Valley Parkway Wynford Don River (eastern arm) GO Transit Union Station ↔ Richmond Hill Sloane O'Connor Pharmacy Hakimi Lebovic Golden Mile Birchmount Ionview Bloor Danforth Line GO Transit (from Union Station) kennedy GO Transit (Stouffville Line) Scarborough Line

The Eglinton Line (officially Line 5 Eglinton , also known as the Eglinton Crosstown Line in the planning and construction phase ) is a light rail line under construction in the Canadian city ​​of Toronto that will complement the Toronto Subway network . It will run in an east-west direction from Scarborough Borough along Eglinton Avenue to York Borough . The route will be 19 kilometers long, ten kilometers of which will be underground. The owner is the state traffic planning company Metrolinx , the operator is planned to be the urban traffic company Toronto Transit Commission . The opening is planned for 2022, the line number 5 is planned.

route

The route begins at the Kennedy subway station , which connects to the Bloor Danforth line , the Scarborough line and the GO Transit line to Stouffville . For its entire length it follows Eglinton Avenue , one of the most important main traffic axes in an east-west direction. The above-ground part of the route will have a separate route from road traffic , with priority switching at the traffic lights . This is intended to achieve an average travel speed of 28 km / h. After crossing the western arm of the Don River , a ten-kilometer-long tunnel section begins, consisting of two parallel single-lane tunnel tubes with twelve underground stations. Metrolinx is planning to use the Automatic Train Control train protection system here .

In the central tunnel section, at the Eglinton and Eglinton West stations, the Eglinton Line crosses the Yonge University Line twice . Shortly after the Keele station, the line reappears and crosses Black Creek. This is followed by a branch to the company workshop with an attached depot. Both facilities are being built on the site of Kodak's Canadian headquarters, which closed in 2006 and was later demolished . The terminus Mount Dennis is also underground. It is located in close proximity to the GO Transit route to Kitchener . For this reason, an additional train stop is to be built here.

There will be low-floor light rail vehicles. The plan is to use the modular Flexity Freedom vehicle from Bombardier that was specially developed for Toronto . Metrolinx has ordered 76 vehicles that will be manufactured at Bombardier's Thunder Bay facility and cost a total of $ 392 million. This should be able to transport up to 15,000 passengers per hour in each direction. In contrast to the Toronto subway and the Toronto tram , the Crosstown line has standard gauge (1435 millimeters) instead of the usual wider track width of 1495 mm. For this reason, no connection points to the other rail transport are provided.

Concept and re-planning

In 1994, construction began on the Eglinton West Subway , a subway line that was to head west from Eglinton West station. However, after a change of government in 1995, the work was stopped for financial reasons. The lower level of the station Eglinton West, which in unfinished buildings had been filled and has since remained unused. In March 2007, Mayor David Miller and the Toronto Transit Commission presented the Transit City expansion program . Among other things, a light rail system was planned along the entire Eglinton Avenue, from Toronto-Pearson Airport in the west to Scarborough in the east. 43 stations were planned along the 33-kilometer route, twelve of them underground. The cost was estimated at $ 4.6 billion.

Miller's successor Rob Ford announced the cancellation of the Transit City program when he took office on December 1, 2010 . The Eglinton Line, which he shortened to 19 kilometers, should run completely underground and be linked to the converted Scarborough Line at Kennedy station . The cost nearly doubled to $ 8.6 billion. Compared to the original plan, twelve additional underground stations were now planned.

In a special meeting on February 8, 2012, the Toronto City Council decided with 25 to 18 votes to ignore Ford's controversial project changes. With this vote, the previous concept was put back into force, only to run the section between Laird Drive and Keele Street underground, while the rest of the route is above ground. The Environmental Impact Assessment , completed on November 30, 2012, recommended relocating the eastern tunnel portal from Brantcliffe Road by approximately 1.5 kilometers to Don Mills. After hearings among the local population, this proposal was withdrawn in May 2013.

Scarborough councilors tabled an alternative plan in January 2013. Accordingly, the route along Eglinton Avenue should be carried out as planned. But they wanted the Scarborough line not to be converted to light rail standards. In July 2013, the decision was made to abandon the section east of Kennedy station (an extension of the Bloor-Danforth line is now planned there). The planning status thus corresponded to that of the first phase of Transit City .

Construction work

Excavation of the launch shaft at Keelesdale Park (April 2013)

The first stage of the tunnel construction began in October 2011 with the excavation of a launch shaft on Black Creek Drive for the tunnel boring machines (TBM). Metrolinx had ordered four copies from Lovat Inc. (subsidiary of Caterpillar ) on July 28, 2010 for $ 54 million. They are each 81 meters long, 6.5 meters in diameter and weigh 511 tons. They drive up to ten meters every day. The four machines are named Dennis, Lea, Humber and Don, named after the districts of Mount Dennis and Leaside and the Humber River and Don River .

Mount Dennis Station under construction (2018)

Mayor Rob Ford and Dalton McGuinty , then Prime Minister of the Province of Ontario , broke ground on November 9, 2011 in Keelesdale Park (near the western tunnel portal) . The components of the first two machines, Dennis and Lea, arrived there on February 22nd, 2013. Tunneling began on June 5, 2013. The excavation of the eastern launch shaft began on March 21, 2014. After its completion in summer 2014, the components of the Don and Humber machines will be assembled there. At the beginning of December 2014, Dennis and Lea had reached Eglinton West. They were lifted out of the shaft there four months later and lowered again around a hundred meters to the east in a second shaft. On September 29, 2015, Don and Humber began drilling the section towards Yonge Street from Brentcliffe Road .

Construction of the first of 25 stations, Keelesdale, began on March 10, 2016; Ontario's Prime Minister Kathleen Wynne and Mayor John Tory attended the groundbreaking ceremony . On May 10, 2016, the Dennis and Lea tunnel boring machines reached their destination on Yonge Street after almost three years of construction and 6.4 km of tunneling. Humber and Don also reached Yonge Street on August 17 of the same year after driving 3.3 km. Both tunnel tubes were thus completed. Preparatory work for the eastern ground level section began in mid-July 2017.

Web links

Commons : Eglinton Line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official project website EglintonLinie (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Metrolinx statement on delay of Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit project (en) , Metrolinx . Archived from the original on February 18, 2020. Retrieved February 18, 2020. 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Eglinton Crosstown Backgrounder. Eglinton Crosstown Line project website, accessed July 23, 2014 . 
3. ^ Metrolinx Announces Design Changes and Public Meetings on Eglinton LRT. Steve Munro - Transit, politics, reviews, June 17, 2013, accessed July 23, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Metrolinx cuts Bombardier vehicle order by more than half. Toronto Star , December 21, 2017, accessed January 31, 2020 . 
5. ↑ James Bow: Toronto's Transit City LRT Plan. Transit Toronto, July 14, 2014, accessed July 23, 2014 . 
6. ^ The Eglinton West Subway. Transit Toronto, 2006, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Eglinton Crosstown LRT stations and stops. Toronto Transit Commission , November 2010, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
8. ^ Eglinton Transit City line may survive. CBC News , January 4, 2011, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Mayor Rob Ford: “Transit City is over”. CBC News , December 2, 2010, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Toronto transit: Sheppard panel will overwhelmingly endorse LRT over subway options. Toronto Star , February 9, 2012, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
11. ^ Laird Drive to Don Valley Parkway: Environmental Project Report Addendum Online Consultation. Eglinton Crosstown Line project website, November 30, 2012, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
12. ^ Metrolinx puts Leslie back on the Crosstown map. Toronto Star, May 12, 2013, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
13. ^ TTC report threatens to reopen Scarborough subway debate. Toronto Star, January 17, 2013, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
14. ^ Scarborough councilors seek subway line instead of LRT. Toronto Star, May 6, 2013, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
15. ↑ Metrolinx orders tunneling machines. Toronto Star, July 28, 2010, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
16. ^ Tunnel Boring Machines Backgrounder. Eglinton Crosstown Line project website, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
17. ^ Ford, McGuinty get up-close look at Eglinton LRT construction. National Post , November 9, 2011, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
18. ↑ Eglinton Crosstown crews launch giant tunneling machine. National Post , June 5, 2013, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
19. ↑ Metrolinx begins its big eastern dig on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT: Get ready for traffic. Toronto Star, March 21, 2014, accessed July 25, 2014 . 
20. ↑ An exciting glimpse at boring machines on Eglinton. Toronto Star, April 19, 2015, accessed December 7, 2017 . 
21. ^ Launch of tunnel boring machines and tunneling work in the east. Metrolinx, October 1, 2015, accessed December 7, 2017 . 
22. ^ Crews break ground on 1st of 25 Eglinton Crosstown stations. CBC News, March 10, 2016, accessed December 7, 2017 . 
23. ↑ Big dig wraps for Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Toronto Sun, August 17, 2016, accessed December 7, 2017 . 
24. ^ Work Starts on the Crosstown's Surface Section. Metrolinx, July 14, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .