Early verdict on Toronto’s Line 6 is sharply negative despite high awareness

January 13, 2026 (Toronto, ON) – A City of Toronto-wide poll from Liaison Strategies finds that while most Torontonians know the new Line 6 Finch West LRT is open, early public impressions of the project are overwhelmingly negative, driven by concerns about reliability and service disruptions during the first weeks of operation.

Line 6 Finch West officially entered service on December 7, 2025, operating between Finch West Station (Keele) and Humber College. In the weeks since, it has been a regular feature of local coverage, too often for the wrong reasons, with much of the attention focused on disruptions, delays, and technical issues that are clearly shaping how Torontonians are judging the rollout. Over the last 90 days, 44% of media coverage has centred on service problems, compared with 32% focused on the opening of the line.

The Liaison survey finds 77% of Torontonians say they are aware that Line 6 Finch West is now in service however, awareness has not translated into goodwill. When asked whether the line has been successful so far based on what they have seen, heard, or experienced, 70% of Torontonians say it has been unsuccessful, including 62% who describe the rollout as “very unsuccessful.” By contrast, only 18% describe it as successful (13% somewhat, 5% very), while 12% remain unsure.

Conducted from December 19-21, 2025, using interactive voice response technology, the poll surveyed 1,000 Toronto voters. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.09%, 19 times out of 20. Media statistics were retrieved on January 12, 2026 and includes TV, radio, digital and print coverage.

Liaison Strategies is one of the most accurate polling firms in Canada. It ranked #1 in accuracy in the 2025 Ontario election and #2 nationally in the 2025 federal election. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC).

David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies, said the following:

"People have been waiting for the Finch West LRT to open for a long time and there was heavy coverage of the opening. We knew that there would likely be growing pains, but advertisements promoting the line, found on subway trains and TTC buses, promised a "smooth" ride - it has been anything but."

"It's not a surprise that Torontonians were aware of the new line because we can see in the last 90 days there was heavy coverage before the opening, and that big spike you see is the coverage from December 7 when the Finch West LRT goes into service. Despite that, negative coverage of the line, focused on service problems, has overtaken that positive coverage of it opening."

"Mac Bauer, the man who ran against the LRT and won, represents approximately 4% of coverage all on his own."

"After the line opened, the Mayor moved to make improvements and you can see that accounted for 9% of total coverage."

"They say you never get a second first impression - and so far the first impression has been that this line has been a mess with 70% saying Line 6 has been unsuccessful, the vast majority of whom say it has been very unsuccessful."

"The question now is whether trust can be rebuilt, and, just as importantly, who Torontonians will hold responsible if it can’t. With the Eglinton Crosstown expected to open any month now, we should be asking whether the hard lessons from Line 6 will actually be applied to the next major launch. We were told, implicitly, at least, that the Ottawa LRT experience would sharpen how these projects are rolled out."

"Maybe it did in some respects. But it’s difficult to look at this opening and conclude it was fully thought through, especially when the line was scheduled to operate at a pace operators knew would be materially slower than what the public had been led to expect. Given that content why were ads placed on the TTC extolling that the ride would be "smooth"?"

"When it comes to the blame game, the good news for the City, and for Mayor Olivia Chow who is expected to seek re-election, is that a majority of Torontonians, 54%, hold Metrolinx responsible. Only 21% say it's the TTC, with a further 2% saying it's the City of Toronto."

"City Hall has already taken steps aimed at making the line run faster, but those kinds of changes don’t show up overnight. In the meantime, the coverage will keep coming, good or bad, and that coverage will continue to shape how Torontonians feel about transit well beyond this opening. If the Finch West LRT can’t be stabilized and improved, future mayoral hopefuls pitching new above-ground LRTs may find the public far less receptive than they expect."

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Detailed Poll Report:

About Liaison Strategies
Liaison Strategies is a national public opinion research firm. With 12 years of experience in Canadian polling, David Valentin, principal, has fielded hundreds of projects at the municipal, provincial and federal levels and appeared across Canadian media to discuss insights. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), Canada’s voice of the research, analytics, and insights profession both domestically and globally.