Hi all,
After spending some time on opening day documenting the new TTC Line 5, I believe that the slight northern shift of the light rail tunnels is incorrect, and I have a few sources to back this up.
Line 5 runs partially underground through a twin tunnel bore. The underground stations in this section feature island platforms that are noticeably wider than some other typical TTC platforms, so the tracks must be some bigger distance apart. It seems that instead of widening both tracks some equal distance from the highway=primary, the northern (westbound) tracks have been pushed to run under the buildings on both sides of the street, which is not only a slightly unusual look but also inaccurate.
I think the confusion would have probably come from the fact that during construction, it was the northern side of Eglinton Ave. that was blocked off. I suppose this may have led early mappers to think that the tracks were centered around the northern side.
However, from station maps and videos like this one that show a hallway extending under Eglinton Ave., to me it’s now quite clear that tracks run directly under Eglinton. There’s also this planning document(p.155) from 2010 that shows an alignment very precisely, though some things like crossovers are outdated. This document from 2022 may be of interest too.
Not sure if I wrote too much for a small change like this, but I’d like to fix this asap before I start detailing the new stations.