Tractors work below ground, with a wooden and beam roof just above.

A titan for Toronto’s Crosstown transit project

Metrolinx News is checking in with each of the Crosstown stations to highlight progress.

Apr 30, 2019

It’s a giant, built from concrete, wood, steel and patience.

Finding it a home beneath one of Canada’s busiest urban street crossings – at the intersection of Eglinton Avenue and Yonge Street – has been a lot to ask for motorists and those who live close by.

But Toronto’s tolerance while working with us amid the immense effort for this – like every section of the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit (LRT) project – is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

Eglinton Station is the tenth underground stop heading east on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT progress tour. As an interchange station, it will provide a direct connection to the existing Eglinton Station on the TTC’s Line 1.

Tractors work below ground, with a wooden and beam roof just above.

Construction for Eglinton Station began in 2016 with utility relocations. The old Salvation Army Church, located in the area, was demolished to make way for the Crosstown’s emergency exit building. The new church will be rebuilt upon completion of the Eglinton Crosstown, and will house the mechanical to run the new transit line.

The improved station will have six entrances upon its completion in 2021.

Excavation work continues today and once complete will reach a depth of approximately 20 metres – the height of a six storey building.

Of all of the stations along the Crosstown, Eglinton Station has the largest excavated footprint – a total of 269 metres to be exact. That’s the size of two hockey rinks. This space will be home to mechanical rooms, a crossover space for the light rail vehicle in the case where one of them needs to turn, and of course, the station itself.

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Construction of this station is no easy feat. Similar to the construction happening for the future Cedarvale Station, Eglinton Station is being built under the existing Line 1 subway platform. So, it’s a bit like placing one giant under another.

Very soon, work to underpin the current TTC Station will start in order to ensure the current subway can still run while LRT construction continues below.

But we know construction is really messy. From moving buildings, and putting them back, to digging deep, deep pits, to starting construction of a new station under an existing one, it is fair to say that construction of the future Eglinton Station continues to be a huge engineering feat.

And soon enough, this titan will flex a muscle to move us all.


by Erika D’Urbano Communications senior advisor