The Eglinton East LRT (EELRT), also known as Line 7 Eglinton East and formerly known as the Scarborough Malvern LRT, is a proposed light rail line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The line would be entirely within the district of Scarborough. It was originally part of Transit City, a plan to develop new light rail lines along several priority transit corridors in the city.

Unlike Line 5 Eglinton, which is a Metrolinx project, the EELRT is a City of Toronto project. , the plan is that the EELRT be operated separately from Line 5 Eglinton; both would terminate at Kennedy station. , the estimated cost of the EELRT is $3.9billion with an expected opening in the early to mid-2030s. A ten-percent design and a revised cost estimate are expected in the third quarter of 2023.

History

Transit City

The Scarborough Malvern LRT was part of Toronto mayor David Miller's Transit City proposal announced on 16 March 2007, to be operated by the Toronto Transit Commission. In 2008, the Scarborough Malvern LRT was included in Metrolinx's regional transportation plan The Big Move within that plan's 25-year horizon. In 2009, the initial design for the Scarborough Malvern LRT was completed. The line was expected to cost approximately $1.26billion, including vehicles, property, escalation and an apportioned cost of the maintenance and storage facilities. With construction originally scheduled to begin in 2014, the line was expected to open in 2019 as the last of the seven Transit City lines.

The Scarborough Malvern LRT was approved by Toronto City Council on 30 September 2009, and the environmental assessment received a notice to proceed from the Government of Ontario on 15 December 2009. After a change in municipal leadership, it was cancelled by Mayor Rob Ford on 1 December 2010, when he announced the cancellation of the entire Transit City initiative. While LRT lines on Sheppard East, Finch West, and Eglinton were revived through a new agreement between the City of Toronto and Metrolinx, the Scarborough Malvern LRT was not included.

Crosstown extension
In 2016, the city directed staff to resurrect and update the 2009 plan for the Scarborough Malvern LRT. The project was renamed the Eglinton East LRT. Until 2021, the city considered making the EELRT an eastward extension of Line 5 Eglinton.

In 2016, to complement the Scarborough Subway Extension (SSE), the planned extension of Line 2 Bloor–Danforth to Scarborough Town Centre, the City of Toronto drafted a plan to extend Line 5 Eglinton farther east into Scarborough to terminate at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. On 20 January 2016, Toronto City Council approved revisions to the Scarborough subway plan that would include reviving much of the original plan for the Scarborough Malvern LRT as a  eastern extension of Line 5 Eglinton to University of Toronto Scarborough, rebranded as "Crosstown East", and later renamed  "Eglinton East" in 2017. The extension would add 18 new stops east of Kennedy station and serve an estimated 43,400 additional riders per day (a ridership similar to that of the Line 4 Sheppard subway). The extension was expected to serve "neighbourhood improvement areas" (often low-income areas) such as Eglinton East, Scarborough Junction, Morningside, Scarborough Village and West Hill. 

In November 2017, the project was mostly unfunded, with the cost estimated at $1.6 to $1.7billion, with an estimated completion date of 2023. At a November 2017 public meeting, city staff presented the possibility of extending the Eglinton East LRT by six stops to Malvern Town Centre. The Malvern extension would be  long. The extension to Malvern Town Centre would have seven stops: at Pan Am Drive, Sheppard/Morningside, Brenyon Way, Murison Boulevard, Sheppard/Neilson, Wickson Trail, and Malvern Town Centre.

In April 2019, Ontario premier Doug Ford announced a plan for Toronto rapid transit that included the Eglinton West LRT (a westward extension of Line 5 Eglinton), the Scarborough Subway Extension of Line 2, the Yonge North Extension of Line 1 and the Ontario Line. The Eglinton East LRT was noticeably not included and was left off the accompanying map.

By October 2020, the City of Toronto and the TTC were in the process of implementing bus-only lanes from Kennedy station to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus via Eglinton Avenue, Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue as part of the RapidTO bus rapid transit scheme, which approximates the route of the Eglinton East LRT. The lanes were anticipated to be fully installed and operational by that November. As well as "red carpet" bus lanes, bus stops were also consolidated to approximately the same configuration and frequency of proposed LRT stations, with certain lower-order curbside stopssuch as those at Huntington Avenue, Brimley Road, Oswego/Barbados Roads and Torrance Avenuebeing removed entirely.

In December 2020, the City of Toronto announced changes to the Eglinton East LRT proposal. The tunnel portal at Kennedy station would be extended eastwards to Huntington Avenue due to changes in the Scarborough Subway Extension project, which involved modifying the depth of the tunnel as well as adding a third subway track for service improvements. A station at Midland Avenue was moved underground as a result. A new maintenance and storage facility north of the University of Toronto Scarborough was added to the plan as a result of the Sheppard East LRT cancellation. Originally, both the Eglinton East LRT and the Sheppard East LRT were to have shared a maintenance and storage facility at Conlins Road east of Sheppard and Morningside. The other aspects of the project remained the same, including a tunnel under Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue due to traffic congestion at the Kingston/Lawrence and Morningside area.

In December 2020, the council directed staff to study the entire original route to Malvern Town Centre and begin a high-level design. Since the province had agreed to fully fund the Scarborough Subway Extension, Mayor John Tory requested in 2021 that the $1.2billion the city had accumulated for that project be redirected to the Eglinton East line.

Standalone line
By 2022, city planning staff had concluded a through-service connection at Kennedy station was not feasible as an EELRT tunnel would be only  above the SSE tunnel at Kennedy station, and the SSE tunnel structure would not be strong enough to safely support an EELRT tunnel above it. Thus, city staff proposed a "distinct-service concept" for the EELRT. Doing so would result in lower construction costs, a shorter construction period, fewer private property impacts and design flexibility. With this flexibility, the EELRT would not need to conform to Line 5's technology, operations, and maintenance requirements. The city could choose another type of light-rail vehicle and would use the Conlins Yard as the line's maintenance and storage facility. Previously considered tunnels between Kennedy station and Midland Avenue and under Kingston Road would be replaced by surface alignments. The line could also be extended farther to the under-construction terminus of the Line 2 Scarborough extension at Sheppard Avenue and McCowan Road.

A July 2022 TTC report and a May 2023 city presentation referred to the proposed EELRT as Line 7 and gave the line a mint green colour.

By the end of 2023, the high-level design was expected to be completed, along with a draft of the environmental project report (EPR) and the start of the transit project assessment process (TPAP). Public consultation began in May 2023.

During the 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election, the topic of a future EELRT connecting to Pan Am Centre and the University of Toronto Scarborough, and later to Sheppard–McCowan, was frequently discussed by candidates.

Route

The EELRT line would run for , with 27 new proposed stops between Kennedy station and two termini, one at Sheppard Avenue East and McCowan Road and the other at Malvern Town Centre.

The southern terminus of the line would be at Kennedy station at Kennedy Road and Eglinton Avenue, with connections to Line 2 Bloor–Danforth, Line 5 Eglinton, and the Stouffville GO Line. The EELRT platform would be located on the east side of the Stouffville line and on the south side of Eglinton Avenue within its own off-street, ground-level station building. There would be a pedestrian tunnel connecting the EELRT station to the Line 5 concourse. From Kennedy station, the line would enter a reserved centre median on Eglinton Avenue before crossing Midland Avenue.

Running east on Eglinton Avenue East, the EELRT would pass Eglinton GO Station while continuing to Kingston Road. Just west of the Eglinton/Kingston stop, there would be a turnback and train storage track. Turning northeast on Kingston Road, the line would pass Guildwood GO Station. Between the Lawrence and Kingston/Morningside stops, there would be a storage track. The line would turn north on Morningside Avenue.

Along Mornigside Avenue, the line would jog through the University of Toronto Scarborough campus (UTSC) after passing the Ellesmere stop and turning east on Ellesmere Road. The university is planning a new street on campus (dubbed New Military Trail) that would be located northeast of the existing Military Trail. The EELRT would follow this new street from Ellesmere Road back to Morningside Avenue. UTSC would have two LRT stops: the UTSC stop with the southbound platform on Ellesmere Road and the northbound platform on New Military Trail, and the Pan Am Sports Centre stop on the south side of its namesake. There are plans for a new bus terminal and connections to the planned Durham–Scarborough bus rapid transit.

After leaving UTSC, the line would continue north until Sheppard Avenue, where the Scarborough Malvern LRT would have originally met the cancelled Sheppard East LRT. The EELRT would then continue west on Sheppard Avenue to Neilsen Road, where it would split into two branches. The first branch would travel north along Neilson Road and terminate at Malvern Town Centre.

The second branch would proceed further west from Neilsen Road along the alignment of the cancelled Sheppard East LRT to McCowan Road. There, the future terminus of Line 2 Bloor–Danforth (dubbed McCowan/Sheppard station) would be constructed. The EELRT would terminate on Sheppard Avenue on the east side of McCowan Road. There would be an underground pedestrian path to the station's planned bus terminal as well as to Line 2. A project map indicates that two tail tracks for the EELRT would extend to the west side of McCowan Road. As a later project, Line 4 Sheppard could be extended from Don Mills station to Line 2's new eastern terminus (also along the alignment of the cancelled Sheppard East LRT).

The EELRT tracks would be located in centre-of-street reserved lanes. There would be four road lanes separate from the LRT lanes along Eglinton Avenue East, Kingston Road, Morningside Avenue (north of Ellesmere Road) and Sheppard Avenue. There would be two road lanes along Morningside Avenue (south of Ellesmere Road) and along Neilson Road.

Operations
The EELRT would use trains  long or less and use its own distinct vehicles (i.e. different from those used on Line 5 Eglinton) in order to better adapt to the line's conditions: no running in tunnels, shorter trains and platforms, and a better ability to climb grades to avoid expensive road infrastructure changes.

Trains would operate every four to five minutes during peak periods.

There would also be a short non-revenue branch on Sheppard Avenue from Morningside Avenue east to Conlins Road to provide access to a proposed maintenance and storage facility.

Proposed stops
There would be 27 stops spaced  to  apart for an average of . The proposed stops from north to south would be:

On Neilson Road
 Malvern Town Centre
 Berner Trail

On Sheppard Avenue
 McCowan Road
 Shorting Road
 Markham Road
 Washburn Way
 Neilson Road (junction to Malvern Town Centre)
 Brenyon Way

On Morningside Avenue

 Sheppard Avenue East
 Pan Am Sports Centre
 University of Toronto Scarborough
 Ellesmere Road
 West Hill Collegiate Institute
 Kingston Road

On Kingston Road

 Lawrence Avenue East
 Galloway Road
 Guildwood GO Station (connection to Lakeshore East GO train line)
 Guildwood Parkway
 Eglinton Avenue East

On Eglinton Avenue East
 Markham Road
 Mason Road
 Eglinton GO Station (connection to Lakeshore East GO train line)
 McCowan Road
 Danforth Road
 Falmouth Avenue
 Midland Avenue
 Kennedy station / Kennedy GO Station (connection to Line 2 Bloor–Danforth, Line 5 Eglinton, and Stouffville GO train line)

See also
 Line 5 Eglinton
 Toronto streetcar system
 Toronto subway

References

External links
 City of Toronto EELRT project page
 Official TTC site

Toronto streetcar system
Light rail in Canada
Transit City
Proposed Toronto rapid transit projects
The Big Move projects