| Laird | |
| Style: | Toronto Transit Commission |
| Address: | Eglinton Avenue & Laird Drive Toronto, Ontario |
| Country: | Canada |
| Coordinates: | 43.7133°N -79.365°W |
| Connections: | TTC buses |
| Structure: | Underground |
| Platform: | Centre platform |
| Tracks: | 2 |
| Accessible: | Yes |
| Status: | Under construction |
Laird is an underground light rail transit (LRT) station under construction on Line 5 Eglinton, a new line that is part of the Toronto subway system.[1] It is located in the Leaside neighbourhood in East York at the intersection of Laird Drive and Eglinton Avenue. It is scheduled to open in 2024.[2]
This station's entrances are both on the south side of Eglinton. The main entrance is at the southwest corner of the Laird Drive intersection replacing a small strip mall and the secondary one is east of that in the Leaside Centre parking lot, just beyond the Pier 1 Imports store.[3]
On the east side of the station, there is a third track between the eastbound and westbound tracks, either to store a train or to allow a train to change direction due to an emergency or a change in service. On the west side of the station, there is a diamond crossover.[4] [5] Laird station is the easternmost underground station in the main tunnel; the line will emerge onto Eglinton about east of Brentcliffe Drive and change to predominantly on-street operation in a dedicated right-of-way in the centre of the street east to Kennedy station.Destinations include the many commercial establishments to the southeast: Leaside Centre, the SmartCentres on Laird, and the Leaside Business Park on Eglinton.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne officiated at the ground-breaking for the station on June 30, 2016.
As of December 2021, the underground portion of the station is structurally complete[6] and was constructed by "mining", a technique more formally called sequential excavation method (SEM). Laird, and stations were all constructed by this method, while the other underground Line 5 stations were built by cut-and-cover. According to Crosslinx, SEM is more common in Europe and the Crosstown is the first project to use the technique in Toronto.[7]
The station's mined cavern is long because it contains a crossover and a storage track in addition to the train platforms. Both the station platforms and the adjacent switching track assemblies are contained within a single circular tube, and there are no support columns between the tracks. Using cut-and-cover would have disrupted approximately of Eglinton Avenue.[7]
At Laird, two shafts were built on the south side of Eglinton Avenue on both the east and west sides of Laird Drive. From the vertical shafts, workers mined horizontally towards and above the twin tunnels created by the tunnel boring machines. Large pipe-like sections are used to support the roof of the excavation. Then, workers gradually excavated down to the liners of the twin tunnels, which were removed. When the excavation was finished, there was a multi-storey cavern with an arched ceiling, which provides enough strength to support the ground above. The tunnel walls were sprayed with shotcrete, a special concrete that cures in ten minutes. Excavation was done slowly, about 1.5 metres per day; mining work proceeded on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis using two crews of ten workers each.
See main article: List of Toronto Transit Commission bus routes., the following are the proposed connecting routes that would serve this station when Line 5 Eglinton opens:[8]
| Route | Name | Additional information | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | Eglinton | Westbound to Mount Dennis station and eastbound to Kennedy station | |
| 51 | Leslie | Northbound to Steeles Avenue via Leslie station and southbound to Donlands station | |
| 88 | South Leaside | Westbound to St. Clair station |