The Hurontario LRT, officially the Hazel McCallion Line and formerly known as the Hurontario–Main LRT, is a light rail line under construction in the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The line will run along Hurontario Street from Mississauga's Port Credit neighbourhood north to Steeles Avenue in Brampton. The line will be built and operated as a public–private partnership by Mobilinx, a consortium of private European and Japanese companies, with provincial transit agency Metrolinx retaining ownership of the line. It will be the only street railway operating in the Greater Toronto Area outside Toronto proper.
Upon opening, the Hazel McCallion Line name will be used. The name honours Hazel McCallion, the longtime former mayor of the City of Mississauga. In 2022, the provincial government announced the line's renaming on the occasion of the former mayor's 101st birthday. As of July 2025, no route number or map colour for the line has been officially announced, though constructed signage and Metrolinx's promotional materials suggest the LRT will be assigned to Line 10 and represented in a cornflower blue colour.
A later phase of the line is planned to continue north beyond Steeles Avenue (adjacent to the Brampton Gateway Terminal) along Main Street to Brampton GO Station in downtown Brampton. The entire line was originally intended to be built in one phase, but in October 2015, Brampton City Council voted against allowing the LRT to run along the Main Street portion of the route because of concerns of low ridership projections, impacts on Brampton's historic downtown, and the preferences for an LRT along an alternate route. However, in January 2025, Ontario premier Doug Ford announced the extension of the line north of Steeles into downtown Brampton via a tunnel.
Construction began in 2020 with completion initially projected by the end of 2024. As of April 2026, Metrolinx has not publicly announced an expected completion date, insisting their presentation to Mississauga City Council be done in private. Mayor Carolyn Parrish has cited 2029 as the projected year.
History Background The cities of Mississauga and Brampton have determined that rapid transit along Hurontario is required due to the chronic overcrowding of Mississauga's (and the suburban Greater Toronto Area's) busiest bus routes, 2/17 Hurontario, which carry more than 25,000 passengers a day, combined with the numerous high-density development proposals along the corridor and the high growth in both cities. They identified three options: light rail transit for the entire corridor, bus rapid transit for the entire corridor, or a combination of both (light rail south of Mississauga City Centre and bus rapid transit north of it). After three public information sessions, the residents of both cities favoured light rail transit along the full length of the corridor.
Costs
In 2016, the LRT line was projected to cost $1.4 billion. (Prior to the cancellation of the Brampton portion of the line, the estimated cost was around $1.6 billion.) On April 21, 2015, the Government of Ontario announced that it would completely fund the line, not including local capital costs such as utility relocations, surface upgrades, and landscaping.
When Mobilinx was chosen as the winning bidder, the total contract value was $5.6 billion. This included $4.6 billion to design, build and finance plus $1 billion to operate and maintain the line for 30 years. The line was previously costed at $1.2 billion for capital costs only. The City of Mississauga is expected to cover the operating and maintenance costs.
Benefits Mississauga plans to use the Hurontario LRT to spur commercial development and employment opportunities along the line. By 2016, downtown development had consisted mostly of residential towers, as Ed Sajecki, Commissioner of Planning and Building for Mississauga, believed developers felt it was too expensive to provide parking for large office towers. Sajecki expected that the LRT will eliminate the need for downtown parking. With the LRT, downtown population was expected to double in less than two decades from the 2016 estimate of 40,000. According to then-Mayor Bonnie Crombie, Mississauga is planning for mixed-use zoning along Hurontario including accommodation, businesses, commercial, retail and arts-cultural development.
Criticism
In 2015, many in Brampton were critical of the LRT's original route through the city's downtown. The fear was that the LRT on downtown Main Street would adversely affect the heritage aesthetics of old city centre. Brampton city council voted against the Main Street route, and Metrolinx initially cancelled the section on Main Street. Since 2019, Mississauga's mayor and city council have been disappointed with Metrolinx's decision to initially cancel the Mississauga City Centre loop in order to reduce costs. In January 2018, the residents of the Kingsbridge Garden Circle area were advocating for a stop in their area which would be between Highway 403 and Eglinton Avenue. The Eglinton & Hurontario stop would be the nearest, about to the north. Residents claimed that 10,000 people live in the area. Mississauga's commissioner of transportation and works said the request came too late as procurement to construct the line was in progress. One estimate for the extra stop would be $850,000. In addition, some residents later advocated for the relocation of a proposed traction power substation near their neighborhood fearing it would be unsightly and lower property values. The substation would be a container-size structure that would sit in an expropriated area of a parking lot. Some residents in Mississauga and Brampton were concerned about disruptions due to construction, aesthetics and the cost of the project. Some residents have said that the LRT is stuck in construction chaos, has impeded traffic, and ultimately will do nothing to improve transit in Mississauga, as the LRT is replacing an existing bus route.
Design changes Main Street extension
Before its cancellation, the Main Street route was controversial. At a Brampton Council meeting on July 8, 2015, five of the eleven councillors opposed to the Main Street route argued that the LRT plan was being directed by Mississauga with Brampton absent from negotiation. They demanded an alternative route funded by the provincial government.
On October 28, 2015, Brampton City Council voted 7–4 against allowing the LRT to run along Main Street through its heritage downtown area, as originally planned by the province. Without this agreement, the province has indicated it would move ahead with the project, terminating the LRT at Steeles Avenue/Brampton Gateway Terminal instead of Brampton GO Station. Opposed council members had also previously cited a lack of projected growth along the northern half of the proposed Brampton route to support an LRT.
Proponents said the Main Street route advocated by the province would have revived the city's struggling downtown core. However, opponents argued that the Main Street route lacked potential for ridership and future growth. According to City of Brampton's transit ridership data, the current ridership along Main Street has an average of 200 riders per hour per direction on weekdays and Brampton's downtown has a ridership of about 450 passengers an hour. Opponents were also concerned that running the LRT on Main Street in Brampton's historic downtown would diminish its heritage character and have an impact on downtown parking. There was also a concern that the city might have to pay up to $100 million for relocating utilities, road resurfacing, traffic redirection, landscaping, etc.
Although all councillors were in support of an LRT, they disagreed on the route it should take. Councillors opposing the Main Street route have proposed running the LRT east or west along Steeles Avenue and then north to Queen Street where it would then possibly continue east from Brampton's downtown area to the Bramalea GO Station or possibly all the way to the terminus of the western branch of the Toronto subway's Line 1 Yonge–University at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. In March 2013, Brampton City Council asked city staff to consider two alternative routes north from Steeles Avenue, either (1) partially north on Main Street, east to Peel Memorial Hospital, north to Queen Street and west to Brampton GO Station, or (2) north on Kennedy Road, west on Queen Street to Brampton GO Station.
Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig said the provincial money allocated to the Main Street route in Brampton would now be available for other transit projects across the province. However, McCuaig also said Metrolinx would be open to evaluate alternate transit proposals from Brampton for provincial funding for the next round of transit initiatives. On November 3, 2015, Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca announced that the funding for the cancelled Main Street route will be invested in priority transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area which might or might not include Brampton.
At its February 20, 2020, meeting, the Metrolinx Board of Directors endorsed a prioritization framework for a proposed Frequent Rapid Transit Network that was inclusive of a reinstated LRT extension from Brampton Gateway Terminal to Brampton GO Station; with a forecasted ridership of 5,500 in 2031 and a proposed line length of along Main Street, the project scored 'medium' with a preliminary benefit-cost ratio of 0.66–0.90.
In January 2022, Brampton city staff were working on two alternative plans to reinstate the LRT extension from Brampton Gateway Terminal to Brampton GO Station in downtown Brampton. One plan was to extend the LRT on the surface at a cost of $500 million. The alternative plan was to put most of the extension underground costing $1.7 billion. Brampton prefers the underground plan and is asking upper levels of government to cover the extra cost of the preferred plan. City Council approved the recommendation to progress the LRT extension study to 30% Preliminary Design and to prepare a Draft Environmental Project Report for both alternatives. Brampton needs to replace its aging water mains, and the choice between a surface or underground LRT extension must be made before Brampton can finish planning for water main replacement. Brampton politicians, including Mayor Patrick Brown, have been advocating for the Main Street extension. On February 27, 2023, Brampton Transit staff presented a project update to City Council, noting that design development updates and inflation have increased the costs of the surface alignment ($933 million) and underground alignment ($2.8 billion). City staff still recommend the underground alignment due to perceived benefits in travel time savings, infrastructure modifications, downtown revitalization, operations and maintenance, and protection for a future extension. Brampton's preferred underground option would have a surface stop at Charolais Boulevard and underground stops at Nanwood Drive and Brampton GO Station. With a surface alternative, all stops would be on the surface with an additional stop near Brampton City Hall.
City Centre loop A roughly branch-loop is planned around Mississauga City Centre and Square One Shopping Centre. The loop would serve most of the City Centre at a walking distance of , and include stops on Burnhamthorpe and Rathburn Roads, and a still-undecided north–south street. It was initially cancelled on March 21, 2019, when Metrolinx announced that the downtown loop would be dropped due to financial restrictions beyond the spur to the stop on Rathburn serving the City Centre Transit Terminal. Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie indicated that the rest of the loop could be built as a later phase. In September 2021, it was listed as one of the city's six transportation priorities by Mississauga City Council.