No one knows why the LRT isn’t here. Metrolinx talks about software issues but that’s an old story. Ford himself is keeping a lid on the project. They won’t release information to the media or the public. So, when there’s no official, credible or verifiable information, rumours start. And one rumour about the LRT’s failure to launch sounds downright plausible.
The rumour was started at a private conversation at an exclusive event. The kind of event where guests don’t park their own cars. They’re rich, connected, Torontonians. They know what’s going on behind the scenes, and they tell each other behind the curtains.
I wasn’t there. I was told by someone who also wasn’t there, who was told by a guest who was. A group of socialites were having drinks at a table. The topic of the LRT came up. Someone related to the higher rungs of the project had a little too much to drink. She laughed before she blurted out what nobody else knew. “The LRT isn’t coming. The vibrations are affecting the buildings at Yonge and Eglinton. It’s not going anywhere.”
When I was told the story, it rang true. Of course the problem would be at that intersection. ePlace on the northeast corner is massive. It’s 642 feet high and at least 320 feet deep. The deepest the LRT goes is 105 feet. The Eglinton LRT runs close to ePlace’s foundations.
But it seems incredible that LRT authorities wouldn’t have planned for something like this. The LRT made it to Yonge and Eglinton in 2016, while ePlace was finished in 2018. They were building the two megastructures around the same time. Didn’t they talk?
The rebuild of Eglinton Avenue wasn’t planned for buildings the size of ePlace. The City planned for buildings no higher than 11 storeys. Their foundations wouldn’t be that deep. But once you have skyscrapers going up, that’s another engineering story. And right now we have lots of skyscrapers planned for Eglinton along the route of the LRT.
I don’t know if the rumour is true, but it does open an interesting question. Are there structural issues that Metrolinx isn’t sharing with us because they can’t resolve them? That would explain the years of delays and the secrecy kept by the Premier himself.
In 2025, Doug Ford should end the mystery of the Eglinton LRT before he calls the provincial election. So we don’t have to rely on rumours.
I think after 13 years of nothing but BS, it’s no surprise the LTR won’t happen.
It’s infuriating because the close down so many businesses along the line, they have caused such a big headache to everyone using Eglinton not to mention all the money that keeps being wasted everyday on salaries of people doing nothing just so we can hear lame excuses.
LTR is just a reflection of what Canada has become.