The Eglinton Crosstown is expanding, but what about an airport connection?
On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory announced the start of tunnelling for the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension connecting the current ending point of Mount Dennis station to Renforth Station and the Mississauga Transitway in Mississauga.
But that left many people wondering about the Metrolinx partnership announced in 2020 to connect to the Crosstown to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.
Ryan White Manager of Communications and Media Relations for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said they hope to announce a connection to the Eglinton Crosstown West in the near future.
“We are working with our partners at Metrolinx and all levels of government to continue the planned connection of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension to Toronto Pearson,” said White.
He said important steps still need to be completed before the project can be put in place.
“This is an important project that would give passengers and workers another option to seamlessly connect with regional transit systems, much like the Union Pearson Express has done coming to and from the downtown core.”
And the numbers of people affected are significant.
According to the GTAA website, the area around the airport is the second-largest employment zone in Canada with more jobs than the central business districts of Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.
“Better public transit options to the airport are essential to ensuring we can offer a world-class experience to our passengers and employees and better connections for workers in the Airport Employment Zone.”
The airport on its website says it facilitates six per cent of Ontario’s labour force with over 330,000 jobs across the province, but it doesn’t have enough transit options for the 49,000 employees actively working at Pearson.
“Connecting the Eglinton line to Toronto Pearson will make it easier for airport area employers to attract talent. It will also have positive environmental benefits, taking cars off the road and improving regional goods movement.”
Jedwin Mok, a transportation planning expert and University of Toronto student, said the connection will very likely happen.
“It’s quite close to Renforth and is a natural connection,” he said.
“I think there was an announcement by Transport Minister Omar Algebra recently allocating additional funding specifically to advance this extension, so it seems very likely.”
Mok said depending on how they pursue the Pearson connection, it could be open alongside the rest of the extension around 2030.
“A cheap surface or elevated extension to the airport would certainly have much shorter construction times than tunnelling, and it seems natural as the trains come out of the tunnel at Renforth Station,” said Mok.
The Eglinton Crosstown West is an extension of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which is scheduled to open later this year as Line 5.
Mok said the Eglinton West extension is very good because it will provide a key connection to the Mississauga Transitway and it doesn’t affect the traffic.
“It’s fully grade-separated, doesn’t interact at all with street traffic, unlike the Eastern section which will make it much more reliable,” said Mok.
“Ideally the whole extension would be elevated because it’s tunnelling through very low densities at quite a high cost, but overall the extension is a very good thing and will bring a lot of connectivity because of all of Line 5’s connections to GO and subway lines.”