Is Canada Set to Fail on Yet Another Major Rail Project?

In the words of GTA San Andreas' Carl Johnson.Here we go again.

The Ontario line is one step closer to reality, with the province announcing the start of construction on the above ground portion of the subway route.

It was supposed to be finished in 2027, a timeline that's since been pushed back.

We never know.We'll see when it opens.It looks like a bombed out part of the city.How much worse can this get?

They're driving me f***ing crazy.

A big and expensive new subway line is under construction through the heart of downtown Toronto.But with the original budget for the Ontario line a faint glimmer in this project's rearview mirror, what lessons have been learned from recent failures?And the real question, are Torontonians staring down the barrel of yet another construction nightmare?Toronto is the capital of Ontario and one of the most important contributors to the Canadian economy.It's also one of the most congested cities on the planet and its infrastructure desperately needs hauling into the modern age.

No matter where you are in this city, the consensus seems to be that traffic stinks.The way people are driving is the Wild West.

I have never in my life dealt with that kind of traffic, that kind of anger.

That's where the Ontario line comes in.And short of making every Maple Leafs game day a national holiday, it has the potential to be absolutely game changing for this city.The problem is that Torontonians will remember all too vividly what happened the last time a few new rail projects were announced around here.

Construction of the Eglinton LRT has been going on for 15 years now.There were 350 delays on the Finch West LRT.

You see, Toronto's population is expected to rise from about six million all the way up to 10 million people by 2050.In fact, it's got one of the fastest growing populations in all of North America.Hundreds of thousands of people commute in from the far -reaching suburbs around Toronto each day, but the city isn't set up to cater for the increase.To give you a post -it note summary, old housing laws limited upwards development on the outskirts meaning single -use units sprawled for miles to accommodate a growing population.Most of the jobs are in the city and people need to get there.Add those commuters, often travelling by car, to the workers who actually live in the urban core, alongside a historic lack of investment in rail infrastructure, and you've got a recipe for chaos.

Right now, you're lucky if you can get into a car, let alone find a seat.

Welcome to Toronto.When it comes to public transport, this city is light years behind some of its global counterparts.But that's not just a Toronto problem, it's kind of a Canada thing.

Most Canadians have never been anywhere near the Great White North.They live in cities or suburbs.But that reality is completely ignored by the legislative system that we have here.It reflects a reality that hasn't existed for decades and decades.The cities in Canada are basically handcuffed.

Local governments own about 60 % of the country's core infrastructure, but receive just 8 to 10 cents of every tax dollar.That's left the national infrastructure deficit anywhere from $110 billion all the way up to a whopping $270 billion.Years of fragmented governance, regulatory complexity and slow processes have caused a real drag on development.To give you a bit more context,as of last year, Transport Canada predicted that $284 billion has got to be spent to upgrade rail services by 2070 and $3 .3 trillion needs to be spent on new roads and highways.These are massive sums of money, but it seems Ontario is actually trying to do something about it.

The province is committing $70BN in what it's describing as the largest expansion of public transit in North America.We're talking about multiple new subway and light rail lines to finally connect to the city.Now, the Ontario line is the largest of the new routes approved for construction.It spans 15 .6 kilometres, carving right through the heart of downtown.Fifteen stations sit along the line, which features underground, above ground and elevated track sections.And once constructed, it really will change this city.

For starters, it should bring 230 ,000 people within walking distance of public transit, it'll accommodate nearly 400 ,000 daily boardings, slash travel times to less than half along some sections of the route, and lead to 28 ,000 fewer car trips every day.Torontonians, I've got my fingers crossed for you.Now, this new line is only possible because of all the planning and organisation that's gone into it over the years.We cover a lot of megaprojects here at The B1M and one thing I've taken away from them is that you really can't over -prepare or have too much structure.It's a principle that I've also been applying in my personal life outside of these videos which does exist by the way.But planning out my goals like this is admittedly uninspiring and sometimes I set myself expectations like bench 200 kilograms by next Thursday with no plan for how to actually get there.

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Now it's time to show you how Canada is actually building the Ontario line.With large chunks of the new line cutting through downtown and dense urban areas, more than half of the route is going to be underground.And because of the mixed ground environment in Toronto's underbelly and the important structures on the surface, specialised earth pressure balanced tunnel boring machines have been called in.An EPB, as it's called, is more sensitive in soft soil than a hard rock TBM, controlling pressure and limiting ground settlement as it creates its tunnel.Back above ground, the route features three kilometres of elevated guideways.These allow trains to travel up to 14 metres above street level and the method comes with quite a few key advantages.

Firstly, building largely on or above the surface, instead of deep underground, limits the number of ground condition studies you've got to commission and pay for.And that's particularly personal through Don Valley, where the earth can be pretty challenging.Take the section from Minton Place, near where the main elevated section begins,all the way to Don Valley Station at the end of the route.Metrolinx, the body in charge of the Ontario line, said that if it were to tunnel along here, stations would have to sit 70 metres below the surface.By comparison, underground stops elsewhere are going to sit about 30 to 40 metres deep.

So it does make a big difference.In short, elevated guideways are cheaper and generally easier to build.Using a drill rig, large holes are carved into the ground to be filled, creating strong foundations, that's known as piling.Those foundations support the reinforced concrete columns on piers that line the route.Horizontal beams stretch across the top of the piers to create a base for the tracks.Girders then create the backbone of the structure.

On top of that goes a poured concrete deck that the rail tracks then sit on top of.And that's pretty much it.You've got some elevated rail track.As for the 15 train stops themselves, the route will feature six interchange stations.They'll connect to existing services, so GO Transit will link at Exhibition and East Harbour, while Subway Line 1 will pull into Queen and Osgoode stations.Line 2 will meet the new route at Pape.

and our old friend, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, then joins up at Don Valley.Now, if you live in Toronto or you've visited, you'll notice that some of these stations already exist.These five are facing expansion either above or below the surface.Meanwhile, Queen's Bedina, King Bathurst, Moss Park, Corktown and Cosburn are going to be built from scratch 30 to 40 metres underground.And the new above ground and elevator stations will be East Harbour, Riverside -Lesleyville, Gerrard, Thorncliffe Park and Flemington Park.Now, where the new line connects with the existing underground stations, new shafts are going to be dug down either side of the existing stations.

structure.They're for things like stairs and lifts to go inside.Then, underneath that existing infrastructure, new caverns are going to be carved out for the new platforms to sit inside.It sounds like a no -brainer.I mean, the city's trains, streetcars and buses are constantly packed.

And as for the roads, well… The first version of this, which was then called the Downtown Relief Line, was proposed by a New York consulting firm to the city in 1910.What this line will do is it will add capacity to the subway system rather than just ridership.I think it will make a huge difference to the experience of riding on the subway.It will be transformative.

But as you might expect, things haven't exactly been full steam ahead.Chris mentioned a subway proposed in the early 1900s, but there was actually work done on a relief line much more recently.The Toronto Transit Commission, supported by the Ontario government, spent millions planning and preparing to construct a downtown relief line.It followed a similar route to the Ontario line, but it was shorter, featuring just eight stations.The plan was for it to open in 2029, so it had about an eight - to nine -year construction window.Initially, cost projections sat around $6 .8BN, rising to around $8 .3BN.

So, as you'll learn, a hell of a lot cheaper than the newly planned route, although government officials did hint that those figures would likely have risen.In 2018, former Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford became the Premier of Ontario and by 2019 he and his party had stepped in to take over and replace the Downtown Relief Line.The new project, you guessed it, the Ontario Line, would be guided by, you guessed it,-know -who.Now, before we go any further, I just want to stop right there because I've got some really big news to share.It's finally happened.

It is out in the wild.My book, Mega Builds, is published.It is out.It is available online and in all bookshops.You can go and buy it right now.It is called Mega Builds, 10 Colossal Construction Products That Will Change Our World.

It is all about 10 products that have really captured my imagination over the last 10 years of this incredible journey that I've been on building the B1M.This book has been a real labor of love.I can't I can't believe it's turned up as a physical book in my hand.That's just it's pretty crazy.But yeah, I put a lot of my heart and soul into this.This is all about the projects that I visited, why I loved them, why they excited me, why they moved me, the people I met along the way, some of the hilarious behind the scenes stories as well, and a bit of a revelation really about what really goes on on these projects, what it takes to cover them, and some of the amazing men and women on this planet who are making these mega builds happen.

Guys, it is a beautiful book.Check it out.Look at this.Very, very nice.We've even got very glossy and exciting picture sections.Look at that.

There are fantastic diagrams and maps throughout as well.Guys, I am incredibly proud about this.I can't believe I'm saying it, but Mega Builds is out now.You can buy it online and in all bookshops.It's on the shelves, which is absolutely wild.Please go and support it.

If you love the B1M, if you love these projects, if you're a fan of what we do, if you're a fan of the build world, you're going to love this.And yeah, I'd really appreciate you having a read and let me know what you think.

Let's talk about Ontario's favorite curse word.

and its own lack of expertise and says, well, we know what's best for you, City of Toronto.Plus, the agency that's building these big projects, Metrolinx, is beholden to the province, not the city.And there's a lot of animosity in the City of Toronto against Metrolinx.So people's backs have been up right from the very beginning.Historically, the federal government, the provincial government would have given the money to the city and the city would have handled the whole thing.But that's not what's happening now.

The Ontario provincial government took charge of the project in a bid to speed up construction and limit costs, which in hindsight was a bold move.Ground was broken on the Ontario line in 2022 and in fairness it's a bit longer than the original featuring seven more stations, but it was projected to be open by 2027 for a cost of around $10 .9 billion.It's now 2026 and we're being told that that timeline has slipped back to the early 2030s.But that's just for the completion of the civil infrastructure.There's all kinds of testing and commissioning phases that come after that, which means the opening date isn't looking so good.But it doesn't look that bad if you go and put it next to the budget, because the original budget of around $10 .9 billion has now grown to $27 billion.

However, you might notice that no specific date has been offered for the opening of the new subway, which is an interesting tactic.The problem is that Metrolinx simply doesn't have a lot of credit in the bank.Residents won't forget the Finch line.

In this video, I discuss one of the most useless light rail projects to ever exist, the Finch West LRT, also known as Line 6.

Passengers took to its trains late in 2025, behind schedule and over budget, only for a multitude of errors to follow.

This thing opens, the shiny new LRT, and from the very hour that it opened... it's had problems.The switches stopped working.We have a guy here, a jogger, who raced with the new LRT from one end to the other.He won by 18 minutes.

Despite the conditions, Bauer arrived 18 minutes ahead of his friend, who took one hour and four minutes on the LRT to arrive at the finish line.

People are going crazy because they thought it was going to be new and efficient and fast.It's a complete mess.So there is good reason for scepticism.

Then, as mentioned, there's the good old Eglinton Crosstown, which opened six years late and way over the original budget.But it's experienced a much smoother start to life than the Finch Line and has even been praised for what it's offering commuters.But new Democratic Party leader Moritz Stiles, who we heard from earlier, isn't exactly a big fan of the approach to construction in Toronto.

I think Ontarians and Torontonians in particular should be very deeply concerned about this.

Stiles says she's worried the Ontario line is going to be a bit of a boondongle, with costs soaring higher and higher with no end in sight.But speaking in February, Michael Lindsay, the president and CEO of Metrolinx, reassured reporters that learnings from past lessons are being implemented and construction is on schedule.the new schedule that is.In terms of the soaring project costs, Lindsay argues that's not just an Ontario problem, it's an issue right across the English -speaking world.And in fairness to him, it's not often that major infrastructure projects come in under budget and on time.But, as you might expect, locals are worried about more than just money and deadlines.

We're talking about noisy trains running across elevated train tracks, around -the -clock construction work and road closures, each of which is a completely legitimate concern.because each of those things has the ability to massively disrupt people's lives.However, while we might not phrase it exactly like Doug Ford did, the hard truth is that when it comes to major rail projects through urban centres, and this goes for any country in the world, disruption really is part of the package.We're not suggesting the Ontario line should therefore get a free pass to run late and cause long -term repercussions for residents.Let's face it, if I was being forced out of my home or away from my business, I'd be more than a little frustrated, but it's a difficult thing to completely avoid.The silver lining is that work is finally going ahead to fix this desperate infrastructure situation that Toronto finds itself in.

And as Chris said, these projects really could make all the difference.

I live in the East End, so I'm very sympathetic to all of that.On the other hand, if you took the Longview, I think it is going to be, in the end, everyone's going to love it.I mean, when they built the first line down Yonge Street, All kinds of businesses went bankrupt.It was very intrusive, very disruptive.Now, life in the city would be impossible without that subway.And I think in 20 years, when the dust has settled, people will think, gee, what did we do before the Ontario line got built?

I don't have the answers to how lawmakers and construction firms can help modernise urban infrastructure while minimising disruption.It's a problem faced by cities all around the world and it's kind of the price of delivering projects like this.It kind of goes with the territory.But the reward is what Toronto will gain, a completely transformed transit system in a few years time.Travelling around this city will be a different experience for generations to come.And at that point,

Torontonians may just wonder how they ever coped without these projects.This video was sponsored by Gamma.Don't forget that you can create your own jaw -dropping presentations in seconds by scanning the QR code on screen or clicking the link below.It is thanks to video sponsors like Gamma that we're able to make these videos so we really appreciate it if you guys could take the time to go and check them out.And as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you're subscribed to The B1M.