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A Metrolinx proposal to extend the underground portion of the Eglinton light rail line to Don Mills Road is coming under fire from a local councillor, who is urging the provincial transit agency to switch to a subway instead.

The proposal, if approved, means that about 12 kilometres — instead of 10 kilometres of the 19-kilometre Eglinton Crosstown — would be underground, which “is not where God intended LRTs to go,” said Don Valley West Councillor John Parker, also a member of the Toronto Transit Commission.

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“This is the dumbest way to do it,” he said Thursday. “It’s going to cost more than it should cost, and it’s not going to generate as good a result as we could have had for less money with a different approach.”

Metrolinx is in the midst of collecting public input on a plan to modify an eastern stretch of the Eglinton Crosstown, and scrap two stations in the process. The proposal calls for the tunnelled section of the line to extend from Keele Street across the city and under the Don River before emerging on the surface around Don Mills, instead of Brentcliffe. It would cancel a stop at Leslie Street because of cost, and another at Ferrand Drive.