AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Disability Advocates Press Metrolinx CEO to Stop Its Foot-Dragging on Fixing Obvious Accessibility Problems on the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT Lines Revealed in Widely-Viewed AODA Alliance Online Videos
August 31, 2026 Toronto: The grassroots non-partisan AODA Alliance just wrote Metrolinx (letter below), pressing him to stop Metrolinx foot-dragging on fixing disability barriers that Metrolinx itself created in Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT stations. Earlier this summer, two successive new AODA Alliance online videos revealed shocking accessibility failures, garnering extensive media coverage.
The first video revealed that Metrolinx botched the tactile floor wayfinding tiles needed to guide blind transit riders through new labyrinthian Eglinton Crosstown stations. A second video exposed that in the newly renovated Finch West station, Metrolinx failed to install an elevator for riders with disabilities to go up one floor from the Finch West line to the Yonge University Spadina line platform. Instead, they must try to get up an absurd ramp, which is longer than a 747 jumbo jet.
“Metrolinx plans to waste public money and many months of unnecessary delays instead of actually fixing these accessibility problems,” said AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky who co-produced these videos. “We’ve written Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay to ask for a face-to-face meeting where we can press him to get Metrolinx to fix these and other accessibility problems on Lines 5 and 6.”
Metrolinx has not explained why it failed to install an elevator in the Finch West station for riders with disabilities to transfer from Line 6 to Line 1. It instead has given non-responsive cookie-cutter answers to media inquiries, and no answers to the AODA Alliance.
Beyond fixing these two disability barriers, the AODA Alliance is calling for two broader solutions to the recurring accessibility failures in new public infrastructure. First, it calls on Metrolinx to engage an independent accessibility audit of Lines 5 and 6, with its report and recommendations to be made public. Second, the AODA Alliance has pressed the Ford Government since taking office to strengthen Ontario’s weak accessibility laws for the built environment, such as the outdated Ontario Building Code.
“In 2005, the Legislature unanimously passed the landmark Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act after we tenaciously campaigned for it for a decade,” said Lepofsky. “Metrolinx’ accessibility blunders are further proof that the Ford Government disobeyed that legislation by failing to lead Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities by 2025.”
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky at aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Learn more at the AODA Alliance website’s transportation page.
Text of the AODA Alliance’s August 31, 2026 Letter to Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay
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
August 31, 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 Barriers Facing Passengers with Disabilities on the New Eglinton Crosstown Transit Line (Line 5) and the Finch West Transit Line (Line 6)
We request a meeting with you to discuss next steps to address the serious accessibility problems on the two new transit lines that Metrolinx built in Toronto, the Eglinton Crosstown Transit Line (Line 5) and the Finch West Transit Line (Line 6). We appreciated the virtual meeting with you on June 23, 2026, and the virtual meeting on August 28, 2026 between Metrolinx’ Amy Kelly and representatives of the AODA Alliance, the Alliance For Equality of Blind Canadians and Balance for Blind Adults.
We appreciated your encouraging approach at our June 23, 2026 meeting. Contradicting your approach, however, Metrolinx is not now on a constructive path for remedying the accessibility problems on these important new public transit lines. Information we have obtained since our meeting with you show instead that Metrolinx is instead on a path of unnecessary delays for many months, with no real assurance that any of these accessibility problems will be eventually fixed. Making this worse, Metrolinx is now in the process of designing and building more stations, with a serious risk that the same accessibility problems will be recreated in those new stations. Your intervention is needed to redirect Metrolinx onto the right path.
Tactile Wayfinding Problems Facing Riders with Vision Loss
We have pointed out a serious problem with the tactile wayfinding markings on the station floors that Metrolinx has installed to enable riders with vision loss to find their way through the large labyrinthian stations on Line 5. This was brought to your attention in our June 8, 2026 online video which has gotten substantial public and media attention.
Since our June 23, 2026 meeting with you, Metrolinx has told us that your senior management team, evidently not including you, have decided that Metrolinx will design and issue a request for proposal (RFP) for some sort of external consultant to gather user feedback on “customer experience” regarding the problem of seriously deficient tactile wayfinding in the Eglinton Crosstown stations. That is prone to mean a delay of as much as six months before an RFP is issued, and an external consultant is hired to begin doing the work. After that delay, there will be more months before Metrolinx receives a report from that consultant. Piling on yet more delays, we fear that Metrolinx will no doubt take months to review that report. It will be at least two years if not much longer before work begins to install any fixes to this obvious problem.
We have advised Ms. Kelly that there is no need for and no benefit to Metrolinx hiring an external consultant at public expense for that purpose. It is not even clear what Metrolinx means by gathering information on “user experience”.
We have provided ample clear information showing that it was insufficient to only install tactile wayfinding markings in new stations that lead to elevators. Riders with vision loss need tactile wayfinding markers to lead them as well to the option of escalators or stairs. When Metrolinx responded to media inquiries about this issue in light of our June 8, 2026 online video, Metrolinx never denied that this wayfinding deficiency is real and a serious a problem.
Our wayfinding concerns are so obvious and clear that they were recently backed by a unanimous motion by Toronto City Council for riders with vision loss. After all this input, does Metrolinx’ senior management team dispute the existence of this problem? If so, what do they base this upon?
Put simply, there is no need to collect information on “user experience” to prove the existence of a self-evident problem of which you are aware. An outside observer to these events could readily conclude that Metrolinx’ senior management team is simply dragging its feet, stalling and drag out this issue, before having to install corrective measures. Whether or not that is their motive, it is the obvious effect of their approach.
At our June 23, 2026 meeting, you asked us to help you figure out how such accessibility problems arose at Metrolinx in the first place. I respectfully suggest that the senior management team’s response after our June 23, 2026 meeting with you is a good illustration of the root problem.
When we spoke with you on June 23, 2026, we suggested that it could be useful for Metrolinx to promptly bring together some riders with vision loss to give focused feedback on different choices for tactile wayfinding markings. This could be done to address the issue Metrolinx raised with us at our last meeting, namely Metrolinx’ stated concern that riders need to know which wayfinding path is leading to the elevator versus the stairs/escalators. As I adverted to at our June 23, 2026 meeting, Metrolinx could set up a demonstration venue at some location (not necessarily a transit station) with different tactile markings on the floor. Riders with vision loss could give feedback on the relative merits of different options.
As we explained to Ms. Kelly, no independent consultant needs to be hired to do this, after a protracted RFP process.
We have also explained to Ms. Kelly that even in advance of any of this, there are two immediate fixes that Metrolinx can and should now install to the deficient wayfinding, without needing any independent consultant or any user feedback.
First, it is good that on the Line 5 train platforms, there are tactile directional indicators at several points to guide riders with vision loss to the stairs and escalators, and not only to the elevators. However, on the Cedarvale station’s Line 5 platform, Metrolinx failed to install a wayfinding marker to one of the escalators, the one used to go up to transfer to Line 1 heading southbound. Why did Metrolinx think riders with vision loss needed wayfinding markers to guide them to the escalator to transfer to Line 1 northbound, but not to take a different escalator at the other end of the Line 5 platform to transfer to Line 1 southbound? This makes no sense.
Metrolinx should now review each platform on Line 5, identify where it failed to install a tactile path to some sets of stairs or escalators, and fill the gap.
Second, Metrolinx should now implement a tactile path on floors of Line 5 stations at levels where there is no elevator present. These wayfinding markers can guide riders with vision loss to go from one set of escalator/stairs to the next route through the station. For example, let me deal with the situation of a rider with vision loss who arrives at the Eglinton and Yonge station on Line 5 and who wants to transfer to Line 1. This is an important route.
The rider must go up two floors. If they prefer to use escalators and not elevators, they must take an escalator from the Line 5 platform up one floor to a concourse. They must them find their way to a second escalator some distance away, that goes up to the Line 1 platform. There is no wayfinding marking on the concourse floor to guide them. Installing one cannot confuse riders with vision loss who are using elevators. As I understand it, there is no way for any rider to get onto or off of an elevator on that concourse level.
Speaking for myself, I have gotten lost on that concourse level several times, trying to travel this very route, after training three different times to avoid errors.
There are concourse levels in other Line 5 stations which have no elevator entry on them. This should be fixed at all of them.
Metrolinx can and should fix these two problems now, even if it will take a little longer to fix other wayfinding issues.
Other Accessibility Issues
We would also like to speak with you about what Metrolinx will do to fix the other serious accessibility problems at Line 5 and Line 6 stations. When we met on June 23, 2026, we urged you to get a comprehensive independent accessibility audit of Line 5. We subsequently suggested that this should extend to Line 6.
Metrolinx has now had two months to consider this. We want to know what you have decided to do and when it can get started. If Metrolinx is to undertake any RFP process, it should be for the consultant to conduct this comprehensive independent accessibility audit of Lines 5 and 6.
This independent accessibility audit of course is nothing akin to the RFP for riders with vision loss to share their user experiences. It applies to all barriers and all disabilities. It involves Metrolinx being told what the barriers are and what the fixes should be.
As well, last month, we released a video showing that it was wrong for Metrolinx to install no elevator in the Finch West station for people with disabilities to go up from Line 6 to Line 1. Instead they must go up a ramp that is longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
On July 21, 2026, I wrote you to ask why Metrolinx did not install an elevator. Metrolinx has not yet answered.
That video got a good deal of media attention. Reporters asked Metrolinx why there was no elevator for that transfer point at the Finch West station. Metrolinx gave standard form answers to the media about its commitment to accessibility, but did not answer this pivotal question.
We hope and trust that you are open to meeting again, and that we can arrange this quickly.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont
Chair Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
Twitter: @davidlepofsky
CC: Marcia Yale, President AEBC president@blindcanadians.ca
Michelle McQuigge, CEO Balance for Blind Adults m.mcquigge@balancefba.org