More than a year after the Hurontario LRT was scheduled to be completed in Mississauga, Ont., workers haven’t finished laying rails, building platforms or tearing up intersections for the major new transit line.
Construction on the 18-kilometre, 19-stop light rail route between Port Credit and Steeles Avenue began in 2020 and was originally supposed to be completed in 2024.
But the Hurontario LRT missed its completion date, with both Metrolinx and the Ford government no longer providing a target opening timeline.
“Construction of the Hazel McCallion LRT is well underway, with significant progress across track work, stations, power systems, and vehicles,” a spokesperson for Ontario’s minister of transportation told Global News.
“It will deliver faster, more reliable transit along one of Canada’s fastest-growing corridors, and our focus is on completing the line and advancing extensions.”
Metrolinx said it had made major progress on intersections and work on some platform bases, but the majority of the track hasn’t been laid yet.
Across the whole guideway for the 18-kilometre transit line, just 45 per cent of the track has actually been laid, according to the provincial transit agency. Nineteen of the route’s 55 intersections also still need to have rail work finished.
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“Major progress has been made across critical-path activities for track installation and utility works. The new road alignment and QEW ‘push box’ underpass opened to northbound traffic in late December,” Metrolinx said in a statement.
“To date, 11 stops have their platform bases finished … six stops now have the canopy installed, including at Eglinton Ave, Bristol, Matheson Blvd, Brittania Rd, Courtneypark Dr and Derry Rd.”
They said some — but not all — of the light-rail vehicles that will run on the route have been tested.
The delays to completing the line come as the consortium building it struggles through legal spats with the construction companies it has hired to do the work.
Mobilinx Hurontario was awarded a $4.6-billion contract in 2019 to design, build, finance and operate the line for 30 years.
Mobilinx has faced legal challenges in both Toronto and Brampton over the alleged failure to return equipment, pay rental fees and square up a $2.7-million bill with another subcontractor.
Last year, S&P Global lowered the credit rating for Mobilinx to triple-B “due to persistent schedule challenges.”
Among the issues cited in the credit rating report was the lack of progress on track work.
“The senior lenders’ technical advisor has highlighted that there remains a significant portion of the alignment that has not yet progressed to trackwork and guideway construction given all the ongoing issues,” S&P Global wrote.
Without an opening date in sight, the government is still in the planning and design process for two extensions to the unfinished line.
At the beginning of 2024, Ontario’s transportation minister ordered Metrolinx to prepare an urgent business case for expanding the route north into Brampton and west into Mississauga’s downtown.
The results — a tunnelled extension in Brampton and reinstating a previously scrapped Mississauga loop — were announced before the 2025 snap election. No significant updates have been offered since.
“Planning and design work for the extensions in Brampton and Mississauga are now underway,” Metrolinx wrote in a statement.
“There will be various public engagement opportunities relating to the Transit and Rail Project Assessment Process for these extensions which will be shared as dates are confirmed.”
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