The Eglinton West subway was a proposed east-west subway line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada along Eglinton Avenue West. It was to start from the existing Eglinton West Station on the Toronto Transit Commission's Yonge-University-Spadina line and terminate at Black Creek Drive in its initial phase. City of York Mayor Fergy Brown, Metro Toronto Chairman Alan Tonks, Ontario Premier Bob Rae, Ontario Minister of Transportation Gilles Pouliot, and TTC Chair Mike Colle broke ground on the project in a ceremony on 25 August 1994 at Eglinton Avenue and Black Creek Drive;[1] however, work was halted in 1995 when the newly-elected Government of Ontario under Mike Harris cancelled the project. The excavation under Eglinton West intended to be Allen Station was subsequently filled in.
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The initial Network 2011 report stated that the proposed rapid transit line would be a busway, and not a subway. The busway would be the most cost-effective alternative since Eglinton West corridor sits in the vacant Richview Expressway corridor, though in the future it could be expanded to a subway if ridership warranted.
Though the cities of Etobicoke and York strongly supported the concept of an Eglinton Rapid Transit line, as did the Region of Peel, they were unsatisfied with the prospect of a busway. There was some political jealousy over the fact that North York had successfully made the Sheppard Subway a priority and Etobicoke and York argued that their transportation needs had similar importance. On Metro Council, Etobicoke and York formed an alliance that argued that the Eglinton rapid transit line be built as a subway from the start. In 1994, when Premier Bob Rae agreed to support the subway projects, they decided to spread the funding throughout Metro Toronto to appease residents of both sides, which would have resulted in two truncated subway lines instead of a single complete line at least initially.
The line was cancelled upon the election of Progressive Conservative Mike Harris in 1995, and the TTC shifted its expansion priorities away from Eglinton West to projects such as extending the Spadina subway to York University and Steeles Avenue, the replacement of the aging Scarborough RT system, the completion of the Sheppard subway to Victoria Park Avenue and Scarborough City Centre, and improvements to major bus and streetcar routes to create a network of "surface rapid transit" routes (including on Eglinton Avenue).
The TTC's Transit City plan included a light rail transit line across Eglinton called the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. This line would be built underground between approximately Keele Street and Laird Drive, which would effectively create an Eglinton West "subway", but would use LRT vehicles rather than the subway trains. A leaked copy of a Metrolinx report in 2008 indicated the organization may wish to revive the Eglinton subway line as opposed to the light rail option;[2] however, in April 2009, the province and the city agreed on funding to build this as an LRT line.[3]
Mayor Rob Ford announced the cancellation of Transit City on the day that he took office.[4] The redesigned Eglinton–Scarborough Crosstown line along with a Sheppard line extension was announced four months later, with the support of Metrolinx and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.[5] This line is to be underground for most its length, except in Scarborough where it will replace the Scarborough RT line. It will mean the construction of an LRT line that will function like a Toronto subway line along a longer distance than the original Eglinton West subway line.
The original, cancelled, Eglinton West subway would only have been built as far as York Centre Station. Allen, Keele North and York Centre would have had bus connects and the remaining stations would have on street connections only. These stations would have served mixed commercial and residential neighbourhoods.
The expanded Eglinton line would have had the following stations:
The expanded line would have served a suburban residential area (up to Martin Grove) and a commercial industrial area for the remaining western end of the line to Renforth. Stations on this line would likely have had a bus connection available.
Also known as Lower Eglinton West, this station was only a partial tunnel that was filled in shortly after the line's cancellation. It would have been linked to Eglinton West station on the Yonge-University-Spadina line and the terminus of William R. Allen Road.
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