The 30-day Revenue Service Demonstration for the Finch West LRT is complete, and the TTC will take full operational control of the line no later than Monday, November 3, 2025 according to an announcement by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. A date for revenue service will be decided by the TTC.
The next planned schedule changes for the TTC are on Sunday, November 17, and Sunday, December 22, 2025. Implementation of any changes for November 17 are already well underway internally, and it would be a stretch to see route 6 Finch enter revenue service that soon unless the TTC had already made provision for this. Service change details for November 17 are not yet public, but should start to emerge both from internal sources and from the posting of new online schedule data used by trip planning apps in early November.
The announcement notes that the Eglinton Crosstown line is currently going through its own demonstration period, but the status of that testing has likely been affected by a collision in the Mount Dennis yard as reported by the Toronto Star.
Also announced are:
- November 16, 2025: Opening of Mount Dennis GO/UP Station as well as the passageway under Eglinton Avenue at Eglinton West station to reduce pedestrian crossings at the surface.
- The Crosstown stations at Mount Dennis and Eglinton West will not open until revenue service begins on the line, and at that time Eglinton West will make the long-planned name change to “Cedarvale”.
The Ministry touts various changes made based on experience with the Crosstown project that were applied to the Finch project and others:
- Using simpler, proven signal and power systems from other LRT projects to reduce design complexity and technical risk, making delivery, testing and commissioning smoother.
- Working collaboratively with building partners to identify critical funding for testing and commissioning and ensuring claims and legal barriers do not impact this process.
- Onboarding the maintenance provider earlier in the process to ensure the fleet and line are ready for service sooner.
It is not clear what “other LRT projects” might have more complex signal and power systems, but Eglinton is unique in the amount of underground running where trains will be under automatic operation. Problems with premature brake wear on the Flexity LRVs used on Eglinton were traced to incompatibility between the automatic train control system and the braking system on the cars causing them to brake too strongly. This has been corrected, but considering the years the line has been under construction and testing, it is amazing that this problem was only recently found and dealt with.
The points about working collaboratively with “partners” building the line and bringing a maintenance provider “onboard” earlier speak to basic flaws in project design and contract management. A passing reference to the Eglinton line “which began construction under the previous government in 2011” tries to fob off responsibility for issues with Metrolinx that the Ford government had years to correct.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Steve Munro 
As an FYI, the article about the Mount Dennis collision is behind the Toronto Star Paywall.
Steve: Yes, I know. That’s the Star’s business decision, not mine.
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The TTC shouldn’t wait to open Line 6 until Line 5 is also ready. It’s not that big of a deal if Line 6 opens before
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If they were doing it December 21 … I’d think they’d wait to January 4, so as not to ruin Christmas for management if things go south.
However, this assumes that the bus changes are coincident with the Line 6 opening. While such changes have been common in the past, I don’t think anything precludes them opening the Line on any day they want – perhaps as a soft opening.
While the bus changes are useful for Finch West operation, they aren’t fully necessary, as anyone for who the new bus route is necessary can just continue to use the already existing buses until the board change.
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Any news on the 901 Airport-Eglinton Express?
Steve: No.
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Remember when we were all worrying that they wouldn’t deliver the LRT vehicles on time…lol…fun times…this has been a journey…I guess it’s time to start thinking about extending this line now…which gap do we think will get filled first? Finch or Sheppard?
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Hey Steve,
I know the 37A Line 6 change will be going into effect as of the Nov 17 board.
Steve: I would not be surprised to see Line 6 related changes in the November board just as Line 5 changes showed up in October.
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I’m glad there’s some relative good news: and should the first few weeks be free – somehow – to boost ridership?
And with the mention of Eglinton, there’s a half-hour video on the debacle by Andriyas Redel, linked here and it’s pretty good, though no real mention of cancellation of full subway under Mr. Harris, in 1995, nor of the idea of a long transit line/subway on Eglinton in the 1957 plan.
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The latest plan I could find for bus changes planned for Line 6 opening is this one from late 2022 – has there been anything newer since?
Steve: I have not seen anything since then.
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Why the TTC not opening now? Every day that it is not open now, you have to blame the Chow regime and the TTC and not Liberal created Metrolinx.
Steve: If you were the TTC, would you trust Metrolinx to have everything ship-shape the moment it was handed over?
More to the point, opening the line is not just a question of switching a few crews around. There is a lot of public facing information to be updated, and changing all of it does not happen overnight. I suspect that, as with Line 5, you will see bus route changes first, except on major routes, followed by Line 6 opening. It’s a lot simpler to do this in two stages.
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“The Red FOOL” probably does not understand that revising an entire network for a major line opening is not a trivial task. Hundreds of runs need to be rescheduled, hundreds of operators need to know where to report to and what they are doing, and the public needs to be informed of the changes.
If the TTC ASS-umed that Finch testing would complete on schedule, they could have prepared these changes for the upcoming new board period.
But of course that ASS-umes that the testing completes successfully. Oddly, this is not always the case (see, Eglinton Accursed Line). In which case, suddenly everything is thrown into confusion as the planning has to revert to the pre-opening status quo.
Perhaps someone has evidence of how quickly previous projects opened for regular service after completing their testing: Vaughan extension, Sheppard line, Scarborough RT? It was most likely not the day after the testing completed. Which would not be public news because it was all internal TTC.
Metrolinx threw that announcement out, I suspect, as a bit of good news. Maybe to distract from the Accursed line’s troubles.
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Unless there are contractual problems, there’s no reason to not open the Finch LRT as early as possible. Given that there will likely be plenty of hiccups in the beginning, revamping all the bus lines in these early stages would just be begging to get egg on your face, especially with winter coming up, which these trains haven’t been tested under. A soft opening with some basic service that residents can try out and start transitioning over to would help avoid all the complaints and scorn that will inevitably start pouring in once trains start getting stuck in tunnels or doors broken or bus service not lining up correctly etc.
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Just wondering when construction on Queen St E between Broadview and the DVP, is going to actually start. Work was supposed to have stated October 14th, but to date, nothing.
The TTC has already redirected the 504 Streetcar Eastbound to the Distillery District, with 504D buses filling in for the remainder of the route, otherwise it’s business as usual.
Do you possibly have an update on construction timeline?
Steve: The most recent date I have seen in a newsletter from Cllr Fletcher is early November. It is extremely frustrating how Toronto Water manages to screw up their project start and end dates, and TTC plans around events that don’t happen when expected.
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