Walk past Queen and De Grassi this week and the site looks different than it did over the summer. The hoarding is taller. Crews are tying rebar cages and pouring concrete in a spot that was mostly excavation and utility trenches a few months ago. As of September 7, Metrolinx has started building the columns that will eventually hold up Leslieville's new Ontario Line station, and that work is scheduled to run into next May.
If you've lived through the last year of fencing, flaggers, and the occasional streetcar detour, it's tempting to assume this is the disruption everyone warned you about finally arriving in full. It isn't. What's happening on Queen Street right now is the visible, structural middle of a much longer build, and it exists in this exact form, above the street rather than underneath it, because Metrolinx rejected an alternative that would have torn up more of the neighborhood than this one ever will.
Why the Station Is Going Up in the Air
The original question Metrolinx had to answer wasn't whether to disrupt Queen Street. It was where to put the disruption. Building the station underground would have meant tunneling nearly 40 metres deep to clear the Don River and the sewer mains along Gerrard Street, close to as deep as a nine-storey building is tall, which would have added three separate escalators and four to five extra minutes to every rider's trip. It also would have required acquiring homes along McGee and Saulter Streets and hitting the property that's home to Saulter Street Brewery, along with several nearby parks. The added cost for going underground: more than $800 million.
Metrolinx president and CEO Phil Verster put the tradeoff plainly when the agency explained the decision: "Tunneling under a city isn't an invisible solution to building needed transit." He added that "there's a perception that digging below ground means less disruption but that is not necessarily the case. In fact, it's not even feasible in certain locations."
So the station is going up on the existing rail corridor that already runs through Leslieville and Riverside, on a bridge that Metrolinx plans to raise from its current 3.9 metres over the street to 5 metres. That's why you're watching columns go into the ground at street level instead of hearing about a years-long tunnel closure. The piers you're seeing this month are the physical form of that choice.
What's Actually Happening at Queen and De Grassi Right Now
The current stage is concentrated construction, not a street closure. Crews are working on eight columns in the south work area at Queen Street East and Strange Street first, then moving to eight more columns in the north work area at Queen and De Grassi. Work runs largely Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., though Metrolinx has noted that some concrete pours may need to continue without interruption once they start, since stopping partway through a pour can compromise the structural integrity of a column. If you hear activity outside typical hours near the tracks this fall, that's most likely why.
Traffic in the curb lanes on both sides of Queen continues to flow in both directions during this stage. The heavier work is happening in the centre streetcar right-of-way, which is where the rail corridor and the future station columns actually sit.
The Timeline Most People Are Missing
Here's the part that changes how you should think about this fall's construction. The pier stage running now is scheduled to wrap around May 28, 2027. After that, the station's superstructure, the part that actually spans Queen Street, doesn't start until late 2027 and is expected to take another five to seven months on its own. The City of Toronto's own staging documentation for the joint Gerrard and Leslieville station work shows related structural phases extending well into 2028, which lines up with a project this size having more than one major construction stage rather than a single finish line next spring.
The detour experience many Leslieville residents already lived through in April 2026, when the 501 and 301 Queen streetcars were replaced by shuttle buses between Coxwell and Parliament for over a week, was tied to TTC track and cable maintenance that the transit agency scheduled to coincide with early Ontario Line work near the future station site, not the station construction itself. The real transit disruption is still ahead. Transit analyst Steve Munro, who has tracked the project's construction staging closely, notes that each of the two new stations will require a five-month period where streetcar service is removed entirely so Ontario Line work can proceed without energized overhead wires running through the site. Munro is also direct that the full transit change plan for that stage hasn't been published yet, so nobody can tell you the exact months yet, only that it's coming after the current pier work finishes.
One resident commenting on Munro's coverage, describing years of rerouted 501, 503, and 504 service in the east end, called the cumulative effect of the ongoing changes "agonizing." That reaction tracks with what the data shows: this month's piers are loud and visible, but they're not the heaviest transit hit of this project. That's still ahead, likely in 2027 or 2028.
Phase by Phase, What Changes and When
| Phase | Timeframe | What you'll see | Transit impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site prep and utilities | Jan–June 2026 | Fencing, excavation, relocated utility lines | Occasional short-term streetcar detours tied to track maintenance |
| Pier construction (current) | Sept 7, 2026 – May 28, 2027 | Rebar cages, concrete pours, columns rising at Queen & Strange, then Queen & De Grassi | Curb lanes open both directions; work concentrated in centre right-of-way |
| Superstructure | Late 2027, continuing into 2028 | Station structure spans Queen Street | Five-month full streetcar suspension planned; exact dates not yet published |
What Doesn't Change This Fall
The neighborhood around the work zone stays open. Metrolinx has stated that businesses in the area remain accessible throughout construction, with signage and paid duty officers directing pedestrian and vehicle traffic where needed. Jimmie Simpson Park and its recreation centre, McCleary Playground, and Bruce Mackey Park all sit close to the future station and remain reachable on foot during this stage. Once the station opens, Metrolinx projects roughly 9,500 residents will live within a 10-minute walk of it by 2041, with about 4,000 people expected to move through it during the busiest travel hour of the day.
For now, the practical read for anyone living near Queen and De Grassi this fall is straightforward. Expect noise during daytime hours and occasionally later if a concrete pour is underway. Expect the sidewalk and curb lane configuration on Queen to shift slightly as work moves from the south columns to the north ones. Don't expect a repeat of April's shuttle bus detour just yet, since that was maintenance-driven, not construction-driven. And don't mistake this stage for the worst of it. The heavier transit disruption, the kind that pulls streetcars off Queen for months at a stretch, hasn't been scheduled yet.
If you're weighing what construction like this means for a property near Queen East, whether you're thinking about timing a sale around it or trying to understand how a station two years out might change what a home nearby is worth, Amanda Beecham has spent two decades reading exactly this kind of neighborhood change in Toronto's east end. Let's Connect if you'd like a conversation grounded in what's actually happening on the ground here, not a guess from a portal listing.
