Media reports: 28 workers on Eglinton Crosstown LRT test positive for COVID
More than two dozen workers on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT site in Toronto have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks.
The 28 employees who have tested positive work at eight sites across the $9-billion mega project. In a statement to CP24, a spokesperson from Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS), the P3 entity building the light rail line, confirmed that 17 of those cases were believed to be acquired through the community, while 10 others were infected at work. One case remains to be determined.
As a result of the outbreak, about 70 CTS employees and construction workers are self-isolating because of any potential exposure.
“We are monitoring the situation on CTS sites closely to ensure they remain accountable to the requirements of our contract,” Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins told CP24. “The Ministry of Labour will also act independently within its authority, to make sure CTS lives up to its obligations to provide a safe environment both on and around their construction sites.”
CTV News reports that since the pandemic began in March 2020, 65 people who work on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT project have tested positive for the virus. The project normally employs 1,500 people across 24 sites between Black Creek Drive and Kennedy Road.
The consortium has been careful to report each case to Toronto Public Health. It also revealed that its sites have been visited 27 times by inspectors from the Ministry of Labour between March and December of last year. Inspectors issued 23 orders during those visits for such violations as needing to provide more hot water at wash stations, cleaning wash facilities, wearing masks when not socially distanced and social distancing on breaks.
The construction project was awarded to Crosslinx by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario in July 2015, and was originally anticipated to be completed in 2022. That completion date looks increasingly unlikely, and Crosslinx has indicated on a number of occasions that the pandemic has caused significant delays in its work.
In October, the consortium launched legal action against Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario because of the project authorities’ refusal to acknowledge the effects of the pandemic on the project schedule.
“The extent of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the project schedule is yet to be determined. This requires extensive consultation with Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario, and our legal action is one step in that process,” said the statement from Aikins.
Metrolinx has disputed those claims. In October, CEO Phil Verster said Crosslinx was behind schedule on the project well before the pandemic began.
“CTS has achieved their monthly production rates in only four months out of the last 26 months,” he said in an open letter. “On February 18, 2020, well before COVID-19 hit us, we already declared that CTS was not going to meet their completion date of September 2021 and that the project was unfortunately going to be delayed well into 2022. Since our announcement, CTS’s performance has not improved, despite our active support.”