Eglinton Crosstown work set to start

[attach]7447[/attach]When it comes to Eglinton Crosstown LRT construction, Leaside residents who live near Brentcliffe Road are about to get the shaft.

Literally.

Metrolinx spokesperson Jamie Robinson says preliminary work on the excavation for the tunnel boring machines will be under way early this month.

The work will entail staging of the construction of the launch shaft, widening of Eglinton Avenue East, installation of construction fencing and barriers, and the start of relocating utilities and street lights, along with tree removal.

Eglinton is being widened to accommodate a single lane of traffic in each direction, Robinson said. A stretch of Eglinton between Brentcliffe Road and the Don River bridge will be closed for construction.

Robinson expects it will take a year to complete the launch shaft, at which point tunnelling, westward from Brentcliffe, can begin.

Tunnelling between Brentcliffe and Yonge Street is scheduled to be complete by summer of 2016, he said.

Ward 26 councillor John Parker says that stretch, which will also be seeing staggered LRT station construction at Laird Drive, Bayview Avenue and Mt. Pleasant Road in the next few years, could be cause for some traffic headaches.

“We’ve had a heads-up on this for over a year now that the project was a go and that this year it would come to our area, starting with the small steps and then it would become a very big, complicated project once we got into the thick of it,” he said. “We should all prepare for several years of inconvenience as the stations are built at various steps along the line.”

Parker added that the portal east of Brentcliffe will remain throughout construction, because it will serve as the transition area for trains.

“The entire area of Eglinton in that vicinity will be reconstructed for all time,” he said.

The 19-km LRT line, running along Eglinton Avenue from Black Creek Drive in the west to Kennedy subway station, will have 25 stations. It is scheduled to open in 2020.