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Route 6 - The Finch West LRT

(Last Modified on December 25, 2025 10:32 PM)
finch-west-lrt-map-20190411.jpg

A map of the Finch West LRT route, issued by Metrolinx on April 11, 2019

Text by Ameer Shash and James Bow

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((Please note: this article is being revised))

The Line 6 FINCH WEST LRT is a 18-station light rail line serving the communities around Finch Avenue west from Keele Street to Highway 27 in northern Etobicoke. The current line was proposed as far back as 2007 alongside the Line 5 EGLINTON LRT and the Sheppard East LRT as part of the Transit City initiative. Construction on Line 5 EGLINTON began first, but between delays resulting from Eglinton’s more ambitious construction, the Finch West LRT ended up beating Eglinton to the finish line, when it opened for service on Sunday, December 7, 2025.

The Line 6 FINCH WEST LRT runs from Finch West station on the Line 1 YONGE-UNIVERSITY subway at Keele Street from an underground terminal, before rising to the surface and operating down the median of Finch Avenue West through the neighbourhoods of northwest North York and northern Etobicoke, before turning south at Highway 27 and diving below ground again to a terminal at Humber College Boulevard serving Humber College, around 150 metres away from the College’s regional bus terminal.

Line 6 FINCH WEST is expected to carry as many as 40,000 rides per day or 14.6 million riders per year by 2031, replacing all 36 FINCH WEST bus service west from Finch West stations.

A Brief History of Finch Avenue

Finch Avenue is a major arterial road stretching across the north of Toronto from its western border all the way into Durham Region, although the street’s continuity breaks down east of Meadowvale Road as it enters the Rouge Valley. The street began as a concession line drawn across York County which, in 1848, became the site of a hotel owned by proprietor John Finch at the northeast corner of today’s Finch Avenue and Yonge Street. The road initially became known as “Finch’s” and stayed that way until the early 20th century.

Beyond the influence of Yonge Street, Finch Avenue remained largely rural into the 1950s, when Toronto’s suburban sprawl began to replace the farms and overtake the area’s hamlets. By the 1960s, Finch’s gravel roadway had been turned into a four-lane traffic artery, and Metropolitan Toronto smoothed out traffic by realigning the road in several sections, removing jogs at key intersections, including Bayview and Victoria Park Avenues. Finch’s prominence was further enhanced in 1974, when the TTC extended the YONGE subway north from York Mills to Finch Avenue, building a park and ride and a pair of large parking lots along the Hydro right-of-way paralleling the street.

Finch Avenue originally ended at Islington Avenue, blocked by the Humber River, while a separate section was built further west, forcing through traffic to divert via Islington Avenue and Albion Road. This gap was closed in the 1990s.

Transit Comes to Finch West

The first TTC buses on Finch Avenue operated as part of branches of the 59 NORTH YONGE service operating along Willowdale Avenue and Senlac Road, starting June 24, 1957. The 11 BAYVIEW bus provided the first through-service on Finch Avenue, extending west from the Bayview-Finch intersection to Bathurst Street on October 7, 1962. The 36 FINCH bus was launched on September 3, 1963, as part of a major redesign of the TTC’s suburban network into more of a grid system. As development continued, the Yonge subway was extended north on Yonge and into the Borough of North York on March 31, 1973, and further to Finch Station on March 30, 1974.

Ridership steadily increased on the 36 FINCH WEST route following the extension of the subway, as commercial offices, industries, and suburban developments built up around the corridor, particularly around the Jane-Finch intersection. The rise of York University and Humber College provided two more traffic generators. Night service arrived on February 9, 1987 with the launch of the 309 FINCH WEST BLUE NIGHT route. By the year 2000, 38,300 passengers rode the 36 FINCH WEST route on an average weekday, with many other routes crossing Finch Avenue at key intersections, or serving Humber College or York University.

Proposals for higher order transit paralleling Finch Avenue West arrived as early as the late 1960s, when North York mayor James Ditson Service suggested that the eastern and western ends of the BLOOR-DANFORTH subway be looped north through Scarborough and Etobicoke and connected across North York. This proposal relied on the availability of the Hydro corridor north of Finch, but was deemed too ambitious, and unlikely to generate reasonable ridership. The Ontario government did propose something similar in the 1980s, however, with its GO-ALRT concept, picturing a regional LRT line across Mississauga, northern Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough, to Pickering, but this proposal did not bear fruit.

Also during the early 1980s, Metropolitan Toronto and the TTC brought forward its Network 2011 plan for rapid transit expansion. This proposal called for subway construction on lines running along or near Sheppard Avenue East and Eglinton Avenue West, and on Pape and Eastern Avenues from the Bloor-Danforth subway to Union Station. The proposal included longer-term plans for further subway extensions, including taking the Sheppard line west from Sheppard West station, curving north to Finch near Keele, and following the hydro corridor north of Finch into northern Etobicoke, and south through Etobicoke to Kipling station. The Network 2011 proposal, while approved, ended up delayed, and only a small portion of its proposed lines have been built, but the need for improved transit on Finch Avenue West was acknowledged and remained.

These proposals were centered far more on improving the regional transit picture rather than serving the communities of Finch West. As development around Finch West intensified, and the communities around the avenue matured, these proposals shifted, from a regional line to something far more useful to the locals…

LRT Proposals Emerge

On March 16, 2007, Toronto mayor David Miller, city politicians and the TTC decided to address the slow pace of rapid transit development through the city by proposing a network of light rail lines along the busiest corridors of Toronto’s suburbs. Transit City, as this plan was called, proposed LRT lines on and beneath Eglinton across the city (and north through Scarborough to the Malvern community), east on Sheppard from Don Mills, west on Finch from Yonge Street, and beneath Jane Street and Don Mills Road. The provincial government of the day embraced this plan in its MoveOntario 2020 proposal, and directed its newly-formed regional transit agency Metrolinx to support the lines’ construction. On April 1, 2009, Mayor Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty announced $7.2 billion in provincial funding to build the Eglinton and Finch West LRT lines. The Finch West LRT line was to open in 2013.

Design work and public consultation followed, with construction on the two lines planned to begin sometime in 2010. However, in March 2010, the provincial government delayed the start of Finch West construction, and cancelled the section between Finch and Finch West station in order to save money. Then, in November 2010, Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto and, on December 1, 2010, his first day in office, announced the cancellation of the Transit City plan. Ford called for the Eglinton, Finch West and Sheppard East LRTs to be built as subways entirely underground, a far more expensive project. While the Eglinton LRT as planned was partially underground, and no work had begun on the Finch West LRT due to Metrolinx’s budget cuts, this effectively cancelled the Finch West LRT project.

Delays and New Equipment

The political battle over the Transit City proposal would continue until 2012 when Toronto City Council restored the original plan over Mayor Ford’s objections. However, Metrolinx, citing the delays due to the political battle, and budget constraints, further delayed construction of the Finch West LRT, giving it a new opening date of 2022.

To build the line, Metrolinx launched agreements with Enbridge Gas and Infrastructure Ontario to relocate gas mains to prepare the construction of the stations on the route. It sought a contractor to maintain and build the stations. By 2017, a joint venture between Aecon Group, ACS Infrastructure and CRH Canada group, collectively known as Mosaic Group, was established. The three agencies were granted a contract to design, build, finance and maintain the Finch West LRT stations, and were obligated to do so for the next 30 years upon the opening of the line. Delays in construction, as well as Bombardier’s difficulties in delivering its Flexity LRT vehicles on time, forced Metrolinx to change its rolling stock for the Finch West LRT to the Alstom Citadis Spirit. These issues pushed back the opening date of the line into 2023. Further issues would push that date back into 2024, then 2025.

The Alstom Citadis Spirit, which was the alternative to Bombardier’s following a delay in delivery, would be the third type of manufacturer within the TTC’s rapid transit fleet. These trains (17 of which will operate on the line), while foreign to riders in Toronto, are familiar to riders of OC Transpo’s light rail system in Ottawa. Construction on these trains began at Alstom’s plant in Brampton, with the first vehicle being assembled in September 2020.

Once 35% of the track was in place on Finch West, around the Maintenance facility, testing could begin. Starting on May 20, 2022, LRVs started rolling along four kilometres of track between Sentinel Road and the Maintenance and Service Facility, eventually reaching speeds of 60 km/h. Testing continued through 2023, expanding as new tracks came online. Testing of the whole line began on May 23, 2024.

The Maintenance and Storage Facility

Along with its 11 kilometres of route track and its 18 stations, the Finch West LRT is anchored by its maintenance and service facility being built on an empty lot north of Finch Avenue West between Norfinch Drive and York Gate Boulevard. Mosaic Transit Group started construction on the new facility in 2019 with an expected completion date late in 2021. The facility received its first LRT vehicle for testing in July 2021, and was largely complete by the end of that year.

The maintenance and storage facility will have a green roof, be 10,000-square meters and will have a capacity for 26 light-rail vehicles. The facility features a main shop where maintenance will be carried out, a car wash facility, a power substation, an administration office, and a material storage building. Once complete, light rail vehicles will be able to access the facility from either eastbound or westbound on Finch Avenue.

Logistics and Controversy

Under the initial agreement between Toronto and the province of Ontario, the Finch West LRT will be owned by Metrolinx, though operated by the TTC and officially a part of the TTC network. The line operates on a dedicated track, with trains running as frequently as every five minutes during peak hours. Metrolinx was responsible for the construction and contact with the communities along the line. They faced some controversy over the project, particularly within the Jane-Finch community.

In July 2020, Ward 7 Councillor Anthony Perruzza accused Metrolinx of retracting a deal the agency made to donate land for a new community hub in Jane-Finch. Perruzza had contacted Metrolinx and was previously promised that the community would have a parcel of land secured at Finch Avenue West and York Gate Boulevard (near Metrolinx’s planned maintenance and storage facility) to construct a multi-use arts and culture centre. Perruzza also had said that an email he received from Metrolinx had said they would now intend to sell the land at market value. A report from the Toronto Star suggested that Metrolinx intended to sell the land for profit, instead.

Metrolinx’s spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said Metrolinx “can’t donate or gift [to the community] a provincial asset.” After the local community organized and protested, the provincial government announced, on March 11, 2021, that it would donate the land for the community centre once Metrolinx’s maintenance and storage facility was built. Plans for the 65,000 square-foot hub are now underway.

A Tour of Finch West’s LRT

The Finch West LRT will start at Finch West station on the Yonge-University subway. Following a short tunnel at Finch West station, the Finch West LRT will run at-grade alongside vehicular traffic on Finch Avenue West until it reaches Highway 27. From here, trains running on the Line will go below-grade, until it reaches the western terminus at Humber College’s North Campus. Notably, the line will feature an underground interchange station at Finch West (connecting to the Toronto-York-Spadina Subway Extension), and a below-grade terminal at Humber College.

The Finch West LRT was being planned while the Finch West subway station was being built. As a result, the TTC built a connection within the station to create a smoother interchange between the LRT and the subway. At the TTC’s Finch West Station’s south end, a blocked-off concourse was built with a passageway behind a knock-out wall. This passageway leads to the LRT’s concourse zone. Escalators, stairs and elevators lead to the LRT loading platform beneath Finch Avenue.

The Next Steps

Now that the Finch West LRT has opened, where could it grow in the future? The line was planned to operate all the way east to Finch Station before the provincial government cut this stretch from the design in March 2010. This section was identified as a possible future project in Toronto’s Feeling Congested? report of 2013, and shown again in the TTC’s 2018 Corporate Plan, but with no timeline for when it would be built or opened. Another proposal called for the LRT to be extended east along Finch to Don Mills and south to Don Mills station, to provide a seamless LRT connection with the Sheppard East LRT. Metrolinx made this proposal in May 2009, and the TTC said that it would commission a planning study in 2010, but this never materialized. Now that the Sheppard East LRT has been replaced with plans to extend the Line 4 SHEPPARD subway, it’s unlikely that this stretch of the Finch LRT will ever be built.

At the Finch West LRT’s west end, proposals have been made to extend the line south and west from Humber College, serving an expanded Woodbine Live casino development, and eventually connecting with an extension of the Line 5 EGLINTON LRT beneath Pearson International Airport’s Terminal 1. This extension was also mentioned in the TTC’s 2013 Feeling Congested? report, and is perhaps the most likely of the Finch West LRT’s extensions to proceed.

In the meantime, Line 6 FINCH WEST will bring equitable and functional transit for riders travelling across the northwest corner of the City of Toronto, bringing higher-order transit to areas which had been under-served for the past few decades.

Document Archive

6 Finch West LRT Image Archive

proposed-finch-west-lrt-route-reallocations-20191205.jpg

This map, unveiled by the TTC on December 5, 2019, shows possible route changes that could take place once the 6 FINCH WEST LRT route opens in 2023.

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A view of the Finch West LRT maintenance and storage facility, taken on February 2020 by the photographer "TheTrolleyPole". This image was initially published on Wikipedia and is used in accordance with its Creative Commons License.

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Alstom LRV vehicles, including TTC #6515 (left) sit ready for service at the Finch West LRT's maintenance and storage facility. This photograph was taken by Roman Fomin on September 28, 2024.

ttc-6511-alstom-finch-west-lrt-20240928.jpg

TTC/Metrolinx Alstom LRT vehicle #6511 awaits service at the Finch West LRT maintenance and storage facility. This photo was taken by Roman Fomin on September 28, 2025.

ttc-finch-west-lrt-bus-revisions-20251116.jpg

This map shows planned and implemented bus revisions in response to the opening of Line 6 FINCH WEST LRT, effective November 16, 2025.

ttc-6506-6511-finch-west-lrt-20240928.jpg

TTC/Metrolinx Alstom Citadis Spirit LRT vehicle 6506 (right) sits next to its partner 6511 at the Finch West LRT's maintenance and storage facility, awaiting service. This photo was taken by Roman Fomin on September 28, 2024.

References

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