Highways, Railways, Airports, Towers Made May Full of Surprises

May 2026 brought a lot of news that seemed like surprises: Pearson Airport began multi-billion dollar improvements, a new highway was built, excavations for a brand new subway line are progressing… and of course there were many developments either debuting as proposals across the Greater Toronto Area or hitting construction milestones, providing plenty to take in and talk about!

Let’s look at our top ten messages, database files and threads from May 2026.

Our ten most read messages

A theme in May would be a surprising number of attention grabbers from more suburban areas of the GTA. Two major development projects in Oakville and one in Bowmanville made a big splash, while projects across Toronto continued to make headlines…Pearson International Airport made a big announcement…but nothing got as much attention as the news that work had begun on a new expressway across the Lake Simcoe area, Highway 425, to connect Highway 400 near Bradford with Highway 404 near Queensville.

11. Two 53-storey tower blocks proposed as part of a larger redevelopment plan near Don Valley Station

10. 35 storeys planned along Eglinton Line 5 in Scarborough

9. Downsview West District resubmission refines plan for former airport site

8. Demolition of the McLaughlin Planetarium for the new U of T building is underway

7. Parallel Bloor condo plans are combined into a 36-story student residence

6. Bowmanville’s Goodyear Lands are proposed for major redevelopment

5. Pearson launches first phase of $3 billion airport upgrade

4. Council approves the revised Ookwemin mining framework in the port areas

3. Huge 27-building residential community proposed for Oakville’s Trafalgar Corridor

2. The Province issues MZOs for the 11-Tower Oakville GO Transit Oriented Community

1. The province interferes with the Bradford bypass

The proposed route and interchanges of Highway 425, also known as the Bradford Bypass, image courtesy of the Province of Ontario

Our ten most wanted database files

It’s no surprise that Toronto’s tallest and/or most prominent construction projects and proposals are vying for space at the top of the list. Front-page stories can push less-sought-after projects to the forefront for a while, as was the case with Q Tower and 4800 Yonge last month.

12. Q Tower

10.1 Marlborough

9. The Pemberton

8. 4800 Yonge Street

7. KING Toronto

6. Pinnacle Lakeside (Phase 1)

5. Concord Sky

4. 23 Toronto Street

3. A Bloor West

2. Shape

1. Pinnacle One Yonge

Workers photoshopped graffiti at the top of the SkyTower at Pinnacle One Yonge, image and photoshopped by UrbanToronto Forum contributor mburrrrr

Our ten most visited threads

Our busiest threads highlight what was most missing from our top news stories this month: that transportation projects are at the heart of much of the activity in our forums, both new transit lines in the city and of course the federal government’s ALTO intercity project, which could in the future connect Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City within a short train ride in some time.

13. Redevelopment of the Lower Don Lands

10. Finch West Line 6 LRT

9. Ookwemin Minising

8. Shape

7. CIBC SQUARE

6. Revitalize Union Station

5. ALTO High Speed ​​Rail Toronto-Quebec City

4. A Bloor West

3. Eglinton Line 5 Crosstown LRT

2. Pinnacle One Yonge

1. Ontario Line 3

The drill head of an Ontario Line tunnel boring machine ready for assembly near Exhibition Station, image by UrbanToronto Forum contributor Kotsy

We’ll be back in early July to look back at the top news stories, database files and forum threads from June.

* * *

UrbanToronto’s research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe – from proposal to completion. Other services include instant reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from the first application.​