Scarborough RT could be shut down for an entire year

Written by: Eul Basa

Bad news for Scarborough area commuters — according to The Star, Scarborough’s RT system could be shut down for as long as a year in order to open a new underground, one-stop subway extension.

Scarborough Transit Action, a special interest group, obtained internal documents revealing Metrolinx’s confirmation that there is no way to build the new Lawrence East GO station without shutting down the SRT.

Despite the documents, Anne Marie Aikins, a Metrolinx representative, said that the company is “confident” they can avoid the shut down.

“In the initial planning stages, there was some concerns that you perhaps would have to shut down while you build a station on top of another station. So we identified that as an issue and then we worked around it,” she said. “We are building a design that won’t require shutting it down.”

The new design involves repositioning the tracks away from the existing ones used by the SRT, reducing the station’s overall space and doing construction work on weekends. Such modifications could add to the overall cost of the project, which was initially estimated at $3.35 billion.

The city has promised that the construction will not stop SRT operations, but no official plan has been announced as of yet. The SRT could still be shut down if the new design does not work.

The new subway station will be an extension of the Bloor-Danforth line and will eliminate the need for the SRT altogether. It is expected to be completed sometime in mid-2026. The city also voted to build five other new GO stations by 2024, as part of Mayor John Tory’s revised “SmartTrack” plan.