TORONTO — Chants of “Line 5” and a brief New Year’s Eve-style countdown rang out in a transit station in Toronto on Sunday morning as some of the first customers to ride the Eglinton Crosstown passed through wide open fare gates, marking the opening of a light rail transit line 15 years in the making.
Much of the frustration Torontonians have felt over the Eglinton LRT’s troubled rollout was missing on the faces of those who lined up for hours in frigid temperatures to ride the line on its opening day.
Rockwell Cui and Elliott Stone, two beaming high school seniors who were toddlers when LRT construction began in 2011, said they camped overnight in Mount Dennis Station, arriving at 9 p.m. the day prior to be first in line.