After years of being stuck in limbo, a major Toronto transit project could finally be moving ahead.
The federal, provincial and municipal governments have agreed to each provide $1 billion for the Waterfront East LRT, a long-planned line that would serve rapidly growing neighbourhoods along the East Bayfront and the Port Lands.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Doug Ford made the announcement Monday at a joint news conference in Toronto with Mayor Olivia Chow, where the trio framed the project as part of a wider build-out of infrastructure to support new housing.
“We’ve reached an agreement with the province and the city — thank you Mayor Chow — to build the Waterfront East LRT connecting Union Station to the Port Lands,” said Carney, predicting the line would serve more than 150,000 people and enable the construction of 75,000 new housing units.
“We’re supporting the city of Toronto’s new waterfront east transit line,” Ford confirmed, saying the line would be cost-shared equally between the three levels of government.
The leaders didn’t immediately provide details of the project or timeline for its construction. But the city and Waterfront Toronto have developed plans for an LRT running from Union Station along Queens Quay to Cherry Street and Commissioners Street.
LRT ‘critical’ for waterfront
With development rising across the eastern waterfront, and more planned for land on Ookwemin Minising (formerly Villiers Island) unlocked by a major flood protection project, the city has long warned that the burgeoning neighbourhoods won’t function without higher-order transit to move their swelling population. The LRT’s construction remained stalled however as Queen’s Park and Ottawa declined to commit funding
On Monday, Chow called the line “the critical missing piece needed to unlock the eastern waterfront.”
It will carry about 50,000 riders a day when Quayside and the Port Lands are fully developed, the mayor said.
“Generations of people will live in these new communities and ride the waterfront transit line,” she said.
Joe Cressy, chief strategy and public affairs officer for Waterfront Toronto, said development on Ookwemin Minising wouldn’t be possible without the LRT. Developers had told the tri-governmental agency that they wouldn’t build in the area unless the line was constructed.
“This is about so much more than transit, this is about building housing and enabling Toronto’s waterfront to thrive,” he said.
Tim Kocur, executive director of the Waterfront Business Improvement Area, also welcomed the funding announcement, while acknowledging it was overdue. He said by connecting with the existing streetcar network, and eventually with the province’s under-construction Ontario Line subway, the LRT would help improve mobility across more than 7 kilometres of Toronto’s waterfront.
“The best time to build the Waterfront East LRT” was about 15 years ago, he said. “And this is the second-best time, right?”
City in charge of LRT
The city will be in charge of delivering the LRT, the first major transit project the municipality has overseen since the Spadina subway extension opened in 2017. Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, has since taken over construction of most new lines.
According to the city, the target date for completion is “the early 2030s,” when the first residents are expected to move into developments at Ookwemin Minising, although Cressy said the more complex section of the LRT connecting to Union may not be finished until later. He said Waterfront Toronto has paved the way for faster construction of the line by measures such as including a transit right-of-way on Commissioners Street as part of its Port Lands redevelopment. It even built a bridge on Cherry Street — closed for now — to carry the future line.
The current cost estimates for the line are $3 billion, up from $2.57 billion in 2023. As a condition of the funding agreement, the federal and provincial governments won’t bear the costs of any overruns.
