Line 5 Eglinton

Line 5 Eglinton opened on Sunday, February 8, 2026. My pre-opening note (now found at the bottom of this page) was mostly optimistic but with some reservations including the potential for some negative media coverage of the poor early morning service westbound. It turns out I was too pessimistic and the only negative media coverage was regarding the length of construction. That does not mean there were issues, and I will go through them here.

This page will be based almost entirely on what I have seen personally. If I talk about someone else's observations, I will note it.

First Impressions

I arrived at Keelesdale Station well before the first westbound train came. The first westbound train is supposed to arrive around 8:19 a.m. on Sundays. While this is after 8 a.m., the Vaughan side of Line 1 has sections starting service later than this. At every station on the new line, there is a notice at the door about the station's temporary hours. The notice itself used pink (the seasonal route colour) for the Blue Night route. While this is a nitpick, too many errors like it could show an unwillingness to check twice. Some other stations had the correct colour.

The station is rather deep, but did not feel deeper than Bayview or Don Mills on Line 4 Sheppard or stations along the Line 1 extension into Vaughan, opened in late 2017. I subsequently visited Caledonia, which was deeper likely due to the hill Eglinton climbs between Keele and the Barrie GO line. The deepest stations on line 5 appear to be those shortly after Eglinton climbs a significant hill (except near Leslie Street, where Line 5 reaches the surface).

Like the other underground stations, Keelesdale is not heated. This is particularly troublesome during heat waves, cold snaps, and at stations near a tunnel portal. The morning of February 8th had temperatures below -20 C, and Keelesdale was just (based on measurements on Google Maps) under 400 metres east of the tunnel portal. The stations where this will be most problematic are Mount Dennis, Keelesdale, Laird, and Don Valley (Kennedy has the benefit of being attached to an existing station). The stations got warmer as trains came, but they still felt cold throughout the day. Keelesdale had a sheet of ice under its westbound track, and transit influencer Reece Martin found ice buildup on the ceiling at that station.

Also at Keelesdale, the escalators broke a lot. I suspected it was due to the cold temperatures but can not confirm it. A friend stated that a TTC employee he spoke with believes the lack of heating was done to game LEED energy efficiency standards, though this is far from a good enough source for me to believe such a claim.

The Stations

A good transit experience includes a good access to your trains (and a good place to wait for them). As noted above, some underground stations will be subject to temperature extremes. Luckily, during the winter this appears to be primarily a problem in the early morning, as stations heat up as more of the trains (which are heated) stop there. As well, the stations further into the tunnel were warmer as the cold air would have needed to travel a few kilometres throughout the night to get to them. They were still cold, but were not at frostbite temperatures (Near 0 degrees if I had to guess). I imagine temperatures may increase slightly once the service hours increase following the soft-opening period.

Most stations had two concourses (one on each side of the platform), one side of which was accessible via an elevator and connected to a main entrance, while the other side was usually only accessible with stairs. A few stations had a full concourses, with at least one entrance only being accessible by stairs. While station depth is fine with escalators, walking up too many stairs can be exhausting.

Many stations required three or more escalators to get down to the platform, perhaps because the depth was too far for just one escalator above the concourse level. This was especially apparent at Avenue Station. Avenue is very deep, there were four escalators above the concourse (though none were particularly long unlike at some other stations). The secondary stair-only entrance would likely be rather exhausting for most users (it is 9 stories high, greater than the walk upstairs in U of T's Myhal building).

Most stations were built with more room than they needed. This is a good thing as more people start to use Line 5 over other options or move into the area. The Line 1 connection at Cedarvale Station (formerly Eglinton West) was especially spacious, though the depths of Lines 1 and 5 were too close together for a full concourse to be feasible (it is more like Bloor-Yonge, but without a direct platform connection).

The exception to this is (unfortunately) Eglinton Station. It only has one escalator and one stairwell separating the Line 5 concourse from Line 1, which has already led to crowding on the Line 1 platform near the escalator (as I saw during the morning rush hour on February 9th). This is as much room as shown in the right figure (though these are to an exit). I imagine this is due to engineering challenges in the area (an early source of delay on the project). Of all the issues with Line 5, this will probably be the hardest to fix. However, the load should be lightened a bit when the Ontario Line opens.

The stations were built with enough room to accomodate three-car trains (currently two-car trains are used on the line). This will make increasing the line's capacity straightforward, but no fencing or wall was added on the area of the platform where trains do not stop leading to passengers getting confused. The only notices are on the ground, which are under passengers' feet and often get covered with salt at the outdoor stations.

A few stations had public art inside. These and the stations which were "mined" rather than built cut-and-cover were more interesting than the standard boxy stations with limited colour courtesy of the white walls. I am doubtful there will be much impact on user experience, however (It is worst when you are visiting several stations in a day).

Overall, the stations were flawed, but did the job well (except maybe Eglinton Station). Apart from the heating, most issues were not bad enough to cause serious issues for the average passenger. Station depth was handled well on one side, though the stairs were used more often than probably made sense. Anyone who likes cardio exercises will like them.

The Service

Before the Line opened, I looked through the schedules and was pleasantly surprised by the service. Undeground, trains were scheduled to run at around 24 km/h including wait time at stops. On the surface, this was 18 km/h. The latter is still faster than Line 6 Finch West. How did the new service do with this schedule?

It went mostly well, but it was not perfect. Due to the nature of the surface section running at-grade, running into red lights is possible and if you are unlucky the surface section can take 10 minutes longer. It is especially problematic east of Victoria Park Avenue, where intersection and stop densities are similar to that of Line 6 Finch West. West of there, they are further apart leading to faster speeds. However, some intersections have left-turn restrictions. This included westbound at Pharmacy and Victoria Park, eastbound at O'Connor, and both ways at Birchmount. These do not exist on Line 6.

Better Transit Signal Priority could increase speeds in this section, but with frequencies as high as they are during rush hour (every 4 minutes and 5 to 15 seconds) improving TSP is more difficult (its effectiveness declines as frequencies improve beyond every 10 minutes). It is still possible however, and I am hopeful it will happen during this municipal election year. As well, the speeds of the surface section were still fast, and all media coverage has concluded even the surface section is faster than the bus it replaced.

West of Don Mills, it was only slightly slower than a standard subway. The tunnel speeds are currently capped at 60 km/h, but this is supposed to increase to 80 km/h in late March. This is still a vast improvement over the pre-existing buses, which ran through a narrower and possibly higher-traffic section of Eglinton. Dwell times at stations were also longer than the subway. While they felt unnecessarily long, the vehicles have less door space than subway trains leading to a longer time required for passengers to get on and off trains.

There were bunching and gapping problems on the line. In fact, they happened very quickly. However, it never felt noticeably worse than a typical bad day on line 1 or 2. Delays caused emergency alarms being activated also occurred and impacted my journey, but were no worse than what would be expected on the TTC.

I am concerned about the potential problems caused by the 20-minute gaps westbound for the first hour of service. However, this is an easily fixable problem. I was told neither tail track at Kennedy Station is currently used overnight, adding trains there would improve service to more reasonable levels in the early morning. The service frequency during most off-peak hours is 7 minutes, 36 seconds. This is frequent enough that I seldom worried about missing a train (unless I knew there was a big gap).

Overall, the service is a major improvement over the pre-existing buses which ran along Eglinton. The local service still on Eglinton runs slower than line 5, and during the afternoon rush hour it takes twice as long (this gap would be unheard of on Finch). I hope they will continue to improve over the next few months. I can see round-trip times declining to 90 minutes after that (currently, they're 104 minutes off-peak and 108 minutes during rush hours).

Connections

68 TTC bus routes connect to Line 5. So do two GO Transit lines (a third next year) and the UP Express. As noted earlier, the subway connections to Line 1 vary: Cedarvale has enough room while Yonge certainly does not. Kennedy has a lot of empty space, which will be able to handle crowds. It and Mount Dennis' connections require a couple minutes of walking, but they are fairly good (better than Lines 1 and 2 at Spadina). A few bus terminals opened along Line 5. Keelesdale and Caledonia have small terminals accomodating area buses, neither terminal is in the station's fare-paid zone. Don Valley and Mount Dennis are the only new bus terminals within fare-paid zones.

The Don Valley Station bus terminal is the only one with noticeable problems: Connecting to a Don Mills bus requires walking through the station due to the main entrance from Don Mills Station being closed due to Ontario Line construction (25/925 Don Mills does not serve the station, the local 34 Eglinton does not either).

Some routes now funnel onto Line 5 instead of other lines. 35 Jane was split at Mount Dennis, while 54 Lawrence East now ends at Don Valley instead of continuing further west to Line 1. This will undoubtedly lead line 5 to have greater ridership in its underground section than the existing Eglinton buses did (even if it would not improve by the better service).

Overall

I thought the Line 5 opening went okay. Compared to Line 6, that was great. I think the line benefited from diminished expectations, but the line is a genuine improvement for many commuters and I look forward to the effects the opening of the line will have in the surrounding area, making plenty of areas along and near Eglinton more accessible to the rest of Greater Toronto. After reaching Scarborough, I had a good Dosa from a restaurant near Birchmount station. I hope other restaurants along Eglinton have their business boosted after the construction impacts start to fade.

Pre-Opening Note (February 3-4, 2026)

If you want specific information about the schedule, see this page.

Line 5 Eglinton will open on February 8, 2026. The schedule files for the line were released today, and they show a 52-minute end-to-end travel time (except during rush hours, when it is 54 min.). Each section of the line runs as follows:

9-10 min. from Mt Dennis to Cedarvale (4.3 km; 26-29 km/h)
9 min. from Cedarvale to Yonge (3.1 km; 21 km/h)
12-13 min. from Yonge to Don Mills (5.0 km; 23-25 km/h)
21 min. from Don Mills to Kennedy (6.2 km; 18 km/h)

All speeds noted above are faster than the schedule for Line 6 Finch West, which was 46 minutes for a 10.5-km line (~14 km/h). The speeds are averages, meaning they include time when trains are stopped. Tunnel speeds are noted to be maxxed at 60 km/h, with 80 km/h being allowed at the end of March.

Trips will not be faster than Lines 1/2 if travelling from Kennedy to Cedarvale, or Line 2 and the Kitchener Line/UP Express from Kennedy to Mount Dennis. However, Line 5 is faster than other transit options for all trips between other pairs of stations.

Service frequencies will mostly be satisfactory outside holidays, ranging generally from 4 to 7 1/2 minutes. The only major issue I forsee is early morning service, which westbound is every ~20 minutes for the first three trips. Given each trip takes almost an hour (and the first trip starts at 5:40 Mon-Sat), this may mean 20-minute service is seen well over an hour after service starts.

The first westbound trips on opening day (a Sunday) are at 7:30, 7:51, 8:11, and 8:34. The 20-minute headways will likely cause backlash if the TTC does not add any extra trips, especially given most people I know seem to prefer going to Kennedy due to the Line 2/300B connection there (I expect it to be crowded there). Mount Dennis will not have this problem, as the 7 min. 36 sec. frequency will start immediately with the first trip.

I originally neglected to note holidays, which will have less service than weekends in the mornings (9 1/2 minutes) and evenings (12 2/3 minutes). This may be an issue given we would expect holiday service to at least be equal to Sunday, but not as much as the 20-minute headways.

Last trips will depart both ends around 10:57-58 p.m., later than Line 6. This means trains will be running on most of the line well into the 11 p.m. hour. Like Line 6, this is temporary as part of the plan for phased openings of new lines.

I am optimistic for this line. The speeds appear much faster than Line 6. The eastern section will serve as a good alternative to Line 2 during closures. The underground section will be much faster than a surface LRT. However, I am aware that things can and do go wrong and so I expect that to happen, especially for such a complex project.

Last updated: 02/09/2026