Pearson Airport in Mississauga likely to link up with major transit route

When the tunnel digging officially began on Monday for a major light rail transit (LRT) route that will further link Mississauga and Toronto, there were some especially interested onlookers at Canada’s largest airport.

Officials with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), which operates Pearson Airport in Mississauga, are confident the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) will eventually connect to Pearson as well.

“We’re pleased to see all levels of government coming together to initiate the tunneling for the ECWE, a transit line with a planned connection” to Pearson, “Canada’s biggest airport and anchor institution in the country’s second-largest employment zone,” airport officials tweeted earlier today (April 13).

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Transport Minister and Mississauga Centre MP Omar Alghabra joined project officials on-site Monday afternoon in east Mississauga to mark the start of tunneling for the ECWE, a 9.2-kilometre extension that will bring the Eglinton Crosstown LRT from Toronto west to Renforth Dr. in Mississauga by 2030-31.

A proposal to extend the ECWE an additional 4.7 kilometres from Renforth Dr. to Pearson Airport is also being considered.

Though it’s yet to be made official, indications are that the ECWE will eventually hook up with the airport.

Last November, the Ontario government reaffirmed its support for the plan in its Fall Economic Statement. 

GTAA officials noted at the time that the statement from the Province included a commitment to “establishing connectivity of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) project to Pearson.” 

The GTAA has been working with Metrolinx, the Ontario agency that manages public transportation in the Golden Horseshoe, on a plan that would extend the ECWE to the airport. 

Airport officials say such an extension is crucial to moving millions of people around on transit more quickly in the coming decades.

When finished, the ECWE will operate underground from Renforth Dr. in Mississauga to just west of Scarlett Rd. in Toronto, where it will then transition to a 1.5-km elevated section that runs east of Jane St. before heading underground again and connecting to the future Mount Dennis Station.