AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Disability Advocates Demand Answers from Metrolinx CEO About Accessibility Bungles on the Eglinton Crosstown Transit Line
June 8, 2026, Toronto: Disability advocates are pressing for answers from the Metrolinx CEO about ridiculous disability barriers in the new Eglinton Crosstown public transit line. In a letter sent to Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay today (set out below), AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky urges Lindsay to watch the new 8-minute online video launched last week during National AccewssAbility Week, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syRJX0_n0p8
It shows how Metrolinx bungled the routing of tactile wayfinding floor markers in the Chaplin station. They show blind passengers only how to find the elevators, which too often break down. They don’t show them how to find the escalators or stairs.
“Blindness affects my eyes, not my feet,” said Lepofsky, who guides the video’s viewers through the Chaplin station from a blind person’s point of view. “I always use the escalators or stairs on the TTC and never take the time to find the elevators, hope they’re working, and wait for them to arrive.”
The AODA Alliance has asked Metrolinx who made the decision to provide wayfinding markings only to the elevators, wrongly deciding that blind people can’t or won’t use escalators or stairs. The Alliance asked to see any expert advice Metrolinx got from accessible built-environment design consultants. It also asked for a face-to-face meeting with the Metrolinx CEO.
“Metrolinx took 15 years and spent 13 billion dollars on this transit line and still couldn’t get it right! The Ford Government entrusts Metrolinx to design, build and manage billions of dollars of public transit services and facilities to operate for decades into the future,” said Lepofsky. “It’s time Metrolinx and the Ford Government start living up to the rights of over 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities guaranteed under the Charter of Rights, the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.”
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Learn more at the AODA Alliance website’s transportation page.
Eglinton Crosstown Chaplin Video: Eglinton Crosstown Chaplin Station Accessibility Bungle.
Text of the AODA Alliance’s June 8, 2026 Letter to the Metrolinx CEO
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance
June 8, 2026
To: Michael Lindsay, President & CEO
Via email: michael.lindsay@metrolinx.com
Metrolinx Corporation
97 Front Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5J 1E6 Canada
Dear Sir,
Re: Accessibility Problems Facing Passengers with Disabilities on the New Eglinton Crosstown Transit Line
I write to bring to your attention just one of the serious accessibility problems facing transit riders with disabilities on the new Eglinton Crosstown transit line in Toronto. Metrolinx was responsible for its design and construction and remains responsible for its day-to-day maintenance.
In 2022, Metrolinx made a commitment that all stations on the Eglinton line would be accessible. Yet serious accessibility problems were identified very shortly after it opened., exemplified in a troubling February 10, 2026 City News report.
We wish to bring to your attention an additional and entirely preventable disability barrier. In presenting it, we do not prioritize it over the many other accessibility problems with this new transit line. To quickly understand this barrier, please watch the new 8-minute video that we posted online during National AccessAbility Week, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syRJX0_n0p8. We understand that this issue is not unique to that station’s design.
Once you watch that short video, we anticipate that you will have some important questions for senior Metrolinx staff. We ask those same questions of you.
It is great that Metrolinx decided to install wayfinding tactile walking surface indicators (TWSIs) on the floor in new Eglinton Crosstown stations, which enable blind passengers to find their way through the many new stations. Having a TWSI on the floor can be a great help to people who are totally blind and for those who use a white cane or guide dog. If properly colour contrasted, they can help passengers with low vision.
However, someone at Metrolinx made the decision that passengers with vision loss (like me) only use elevators, and never use stairs or escalators when going down the several levels of any transit station. The wayfinding TWSIs direct a passenger with vision loss only to and from elevators. They do not give passengers with vision loss the option of being directed to the stairs or escalators.
It takes longer to go through a station using these elevators. This is made worse because a passenger must take two elevators in any single station to get from street level to the train tracks.
Moreover, no one wants to have to depend on transit station elevators if they can avoid it. TTC has a sorry record of having subway station elevators unpredictably out of service. I myself was at the Cedarvale station on the evening of Saturday June 6, 2026, when the elevator from Line 5 to Line 1 was out of service. It was still out of service some 12 hours later when I was at that station again the next morning.
Speaking for myself, in my many times using TTC for over 50 years, I have never used the elevators when travelling by myself. It would have been easy to design the TWSIs to guide us to the stairs, escalators and elevators, so blind passengers, like passengers without disabilities, would have the choice.
This failure is further compounded because each station on Line 5 is not the same. There is no standardized station layout. Each station has several floors. Each floor within a single station may be laid out very differently. The task of learning to navigate these stations is rendered much harder and more time-consuming because of the misguided decision of how to deploy the TWSIs.
Can you please identify who made the decision to design the TWSIs this way? How and why did they reach such a problematic decision?
I understand that Metrolinx has access to accessible design consultants, whether working within the Metrolinx organization and/or as external consultants. Can you please provide us with the text of the advice that those consultants gave on where the wayfinding TWSIs should direct passengers with vision loss, including any advice on whether it would be sufficient to direct them only to elevators, which essentially removes the option of finding the escalators or stairs?
It is essential for Metrolinx to do far better. Metrolinx is bound by the Ontario Government’s repeated commitment to lead Ontario by example when it comes to achieving accessibility for people with disabilities.
People with disabilities have faced and continue to face far too many barriers in public transit systems in Ontario. I would welcome an opportunity to meet with you to discuss this issue, and I look forward to your response to our inquiries.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont
Chair Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
Twitter: @davidlepofsky