Eglinton Crosstown LRT expected to reach another milestone this week

After being under construction for more than a decade, Arda Zakarian has more on the Eglinton LRT entering a 30-day revenue service demonstration phase.

The long-delayed Eglinton Crosstown LRT is expected to reach a major milestone this week, despite the project still not having an opening date.

Metrolinx confirmed to CP24 on Tuesday that it “aspires” to start the “revenue service demonstration”, or RSD, for the line this week, which is expected to last a minimum of 30 days.

“We will literally run the system as it will run when it’s open to the public, with no passengers on it, just to satisfy ourselves that it performs the way that it needs to,” CEO Michael Lindsay said in June, explaining this phase of the project.

The milestone comes following months of vehicle and system testing.

There were reports that the 19-km track along Eglinton Avenue was going to open this month, but Lindsay, citing persistent vehicle reliability and performance issues, later said the transit line was not ready for service.

Metrolinx has not provided a new timeline for when the Crosstown, which will be referred to as TTC Line 5, will open to the public.

“As our CEO, Michael Lindsay, has said publicly, our goal is to open our LRT projects as quickly as possible once they are safe and reliable to do so,” a spokesperson for the transit agency said in an email to CP24 on Tuesday.

After RSD, the line is expected to undergo further testing during the “bedding-in period.”

As defined by the final report into the Ottawa LRT project, “bedding-in” refers to a period early in the life of a system in which latent problems surface.

The report cited the lack of a bedding-in period and an insistence that the system be fully operational on the first day as contributing factors to the problems that the Ottawa LRT faced.

Construction on the nearly $13-billion Crosstown began in 2011 and was initially scheduled to be completed by 2020.

With files from Phil Tsekouras and Joshua Freeman