Tunnel-boring machines will soon start carving through downtown Toronto to excavate the route of the future Ontario Line subway.
On Friday, the Ford government broke ground on a launch shaft at Exhibition Stadium, home to the westernmost station on the new subway line.
Once the shaft is complete, the tunnelling machines will continue underground and start digging a 6-kilometre passage from Exhibition Stadium to the Don Yard, just west of the Don River.
It’s been nearly 60 years since a subway tunnel was dug in downtown Toronto. Crews began construction on Toronto’s Line 1 subway in 1959 and Line 2 in 1962.
“The start of excavation to support tunnelling throughout the downtown core represents another major development for the Ontario Line and for the people of Toronto,” said Phil Verster, CEO of Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of the transit project.
“With station, bridge and above-ground track construction now underway across the route, we are gaining critical momentum on a project that will curb crowding on transit lines and roadways,” he added.
Downtown residents will soon have to prepare for more construction to do with the Ontario Line development beyond the new tunnel.
Excavation at Queen Street’s Osgoode Station is expected to begin in December, according to a new report from City of Toronto staff. Metrolinx warned the excavation project will bring “increased truck traffic entering and leaving the worksite” along parts of Queen Street, just west of University Avenue and on Simcoe Street.
The work will be done around the clock but an “acoustic shelter” will be installed to help cut down on noise, Metrolinx said.
The Ontario Line is one of the Ford government’s marquee transportation projects.
The 15.6-kilometre, 15-stop subway line will run from the site of the old Ontario Science Centre in northeast Toronto then south to Pape Avenue before turning west at the Don River to run across Queen Street. The route will end at Exhibition Stadium.
Construction on the Ontario Line is expected to finish in 2031.
The Ontario Line’s price tag has ballooned since the project was first announced in 2019.
The Ford government initially said the Ontario Line would cost $10.9 billion, but that’s now up to nearly $30 billion to build, operate and maintain the subway for 30 years.
In June, Verster admitted the government wasn’t fully transparent about the full cost of the project. In 2019, the government only told Ontarians what the line would cost to build, not operate or maintain.
Operation and maintenance costs aren’t the only reason the price has nearly tripled in five years. Construction costs have nearly doubled, Verster said, thanks to inflation and other pandemic-related pressures.
