Cross City Express

While the greatest focus of the GTA Transit 2050 Plan is to connect the GTA with frequent urban services, there remains a need to create a service that can compete with the freeway on speed.   The Express Line is the answer to that call providing a service that sprints across the city at 120km/h and connects Brampton to Pickering through Mississauga, Etobicoke, Toronto, and Scarborough with only eight stops along the way.  Through transfers with all the other services this route connects to, transit trips will become shorter for trips across the GTA.

This line would open in 2045 after CP freight service has been diverted north of the city which is a large project proposed to be funded in part through Alto high-speed rail investments which free up the corridor for high speed trains arriving from Ottawa.   This route would start at Brampton Centre station, follow the recently abandoned railway corridor to Meadowvale, and join the Milton line stopping at Erindale, Cooksville (just south of Mississauga Centre), and Etobicoke Centre.  Avoiding the hustle and bustle of Union station the train would cross the north side of the city core with stops at Davenport and the historic North Toronto station just north of Bloor Centre).  To the east the line would provide quick connections to Don Valley (east of Midtown Centre), Agincourt (a short trip west from Scarborough Centre), and Pickering Centre.

The new Express Line, connecting to or near seven major places to grow centres would become one of the cities most critical pieces of transportation infrastructure, connecting people quickly across the GTA.