Toronto transit developer Metrolinx has awarded a €4.4bn privately-financed tunnelling contract to a joint venture of Ferrovial and Vinci Construction Grands Projets for the city’s Ontario Line mega project.

Set to last more than seven years (89 months), the JV will bore a 6km twin and build seven stations, six of them underground.

The JV is responsible for financing the work. Vinci said it has already mobilised credit from 11 banks.

Ferrovial said it was its construction division’s biggest ever project.

The Ontario Line will run 16km from Toronto’s southwestern downtown at Ontario Place to the Ontario Science Centre in the northeast. It will have a mix of overground and underground sections, and sections shared with other lines.

It is expected to carry up to 388,000 passengers a day and provide more than 40 connections to bus, streetcar, light-rail transit and regional rail services.

Elsewhere in Ontario, Vinci is working in a joint venture on a 28km extension of Ottawa’s Confederation Line.