What life was like in Toronto in 2011 when construction began on Line 5 Eglinton

Toronto residents eager for a new transit line had to wait an excruciating 15 years for the arrival of Line 5 Eglinton, which finally opened on Feb. 8 to mostly positive reactions from riders.

As you can probably imagine, though, the project's construction start date, all the way back in 2011, was a completely different time in Toronto. 

So here's a little trip down memory lane at what life was like back when Line 5 started construction as the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. 

Back in 2011, Rob Ford was in his first year of what proved to be a controversial term as Toronto's mayor. Who could ever forget the infamous "gravy train" and the countless crack-smoking headlines that followed?

It was also the year that NDP leader Jack Layton passed away. His wife, Olivia Chow, would go on to become mayor of Toronto 12 years later.

Toronto also experienced a brief yet intense froyo craze in 2011, which saw a proliferation of frozen yogurt chains across the city, only for many to shutter as the obsession waned in the years that followed.

This was also the year the cultural juggernaut that is Game of Thrones premiered on HBO, which would go on to keep nine million global viewers in a virtual chokehold every Sunday for the next eight seasons.

Social media looked very different 15 years ago, too. Though the platform has since been shunned by younger generations, Facebook was at its peak in 2011, when poke wars and Farmville were a popular form of social interaction.

Meanwhile, BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) was perhaps the most popular messaging service, built into the then-it-phone, right before the iPhone craze fully took over and pushed physical phone keyboards into the history books.

U.K. boy band One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" was the summer smash that Toronto radio stations couldn't stop playing, and the (very weird in retrospect) phenomenon of planking had a bunch of people lying on all sorts of objects for social media clout.

Speaking of famous Brits, around two billion people worldwide tuned in to watch Prince William marry Kate Middleton on April 29 of that year. 

@blogto Eglinton Crosstown LRT: Then & Now ✨ 🎙️ @betabriii 🎥 @antonwongvideo ♬ original sound - blogTO

Looking back now, it's wild to see how far the city has evolved and its residents have changed. Imagine what the next 15 years will be like...