The Ontario Line won't open until the 2030s. Still worth it?

The Ontario Line is the subway downtown Toronto has needed since roughly 1985: fifteen stations from the old Science Centre in Don Mills through Thorncliffe Park, Leslieville, Queen and Osgoode to Exhibition. It replaced the city’s own Relief Line plan in 2019 with a promise of 2027.

This year the province stopped giving a date. Metrolinx’s chief executive said in February he had real confidence civil construction would finish along a 2030 timeline, with testing and commissioning after that, and pointed to the Crosstown as the lesson in how unpredictable that phase is. The opposition calls it a boondoggle in the making. Global News’ summary was blunter: opening date uncertain, construction finished in the early 2030s.

There is also the DVP. Building the line over the parkway near the Don may require closures, and Metrolinx has promised they will not be multi-week or multi-month, which is the kind of promise you make when someone has asked.

None of this changes the case for the line. It changes the question of who should be trusted to build it, and how.

Sources: CBC, the line likely will not open until the early 2030s · Global News, opening date uncertain · Global News, building over the DVP · Daily Commercial News, no commitment to a date