This is not very well thought out, hence the fact that I thought that this was an April Fool's joke at first. It seems to be nothing but a laundry list of defunct proposed transit projects. If we want City Council to actually approve this (and especially to get the right, including Rob Ford, on board):
- Sheppard west of McCowan needs to be a subway. East of McCowan, LRT makes more sense, and combined with the Scarborough-Malvern LRT would be useful.
- Don Mills needs to be a subway, and I think that a subway along Don Mills including north of Eglinton could easily be the busiest of all the lines. It would certainly outperform the Spadina subway north of St. Clair for sure.
- Eglinton can probably make do with a LRT, but needs to be a high capacity LRT like the Calgary/Edmonton system, and absolutely has to be grade separated between Laird and Don Mills. This will maximize its capacity, since this will be a very busy line.
- Replacing Scarborough RT with subway is too expensive. Overhauling the existing Scarborough RT is perfectly adequate (albeit requiring a transfer). If the Stouffville line is double tracked and gets high frequency service, there is no need for a Scarborough subway as well, too much redundant capacity.
- There should be high frequency GO trains on Lakeshore and Milton/CP line as part of this plan, these are very important.
- Get rid of the Zoo LRT. This is a waste of money.
Also getting money from Ottawa and Queen's Park will not happen due to the large budget deficits. If we want money from them, there will have to be a referendum on higher taxes (either a sales tax or road tolls). Finally, this plan would have a much better chance of passing if transit improvements for the 905 are included. These include high frequency GO service on all lines, the Hurontario LRT, the Yonge subway extension north of Steeles, replacing the Mississauga BRT with LRT between Renforth/Eglinton and Square One, and various bus improvement projects.
