AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Video by Blind Disability Advocate Reveals Ridiculous Difficulties Navigating New Eglinton Crosstown Station Due to Metrolinx Accessibility Bungle
June 5, 2026 Toronto: A new online video, just released during National AccessAbility Week, reveals how the Ontario Government’s Metrolinx shockingly bungled accessibility for blind public transit passengers on the long-awaited Eglinton Crosstown transit line. AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky shows how Metrolinx messed up the wayfinding floor markings installed to enable blind passengers like him to find their way through the new Chaplin station’s four different levels.
“We blind people need a proper cane-detectable wayfinding path on the floor to find our way through each of this station’s four levels, since each level is completely different and unpredictable,” said Lepofsky. “But Metrolinx only provides wayfinding markings to the elevators, not the escalators or stairs. Who at Metrolinx made the bone-headed decision that we blind people should only use elevators. In over 50 years riding TTC, I always prefer to use the escalators or stairs.”
TTC’s transit station elevators are notoriously unreliable. A person must take two different elevators to get from the surface down to the trains. If either elevator doesn’t work, passengers who need elevators are out of luck at that station.
It’s quicker to take escalators or stairs for those able to do so, rather than waiting for two successive elevators. People with disabilities who must use the elevators may have to wait longer if Metrolinx only directs blind passengers to the elevators, and if they otherwise could use stairs or escalators.
“It appears that that this outrageous decision isn’t limited to the Chaplin Station,” said Lepofsky. “Making this even more ridiculous, Metrolinx knew blind people might use the stairs, because it installed tactile warning bumps on the floor at the top of the station’s staircases. They knew we’d want to have the option of the stairs, so why didn’t they provide tactile floor wayfinding to the stairs?”
The Eglinton Crosstown line is just the latest in Ontario Government accessibility bungling in Toronto area transit station construction. In May 2019, the AODA Alliance released a video that revealed serious accessibility problems at other new and recently renovated Toronto-area public transit stations.
“These new Eglinton Crosstown stations are quite a challenge to figure out, in sharp contrast to the simpler old subway stations in downtown Toronto,” said Lepofsky. “This video highlights just one of the Eglinton Crosstown line’s accessibility problems.”
In 2022, Metrolinx made a commitment that all stations on the Eglinton line would be accessible. TTC claims the Chaplin Station is accessible. Metrolinx could easily have prevented this bungle when designing the Eglinton Crosstown line. As it is, the Ontario Government took far longer than expected to build it and spent 13 billion dollars. Given its record of poor performance on accessibility, Metrolinx should not be allowed to design and build any more public transit stations.
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Link to Chaplin Transit Station Bungle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syRJX0_n0p8