I had no idea how much damage the new busway will cause to Yonge Street. It is obvious to everyone (even Steve Munro, of all people!) that a subway is appropriate for this location, so it makes little sense to spend hundreds of millions to build a bus lane, only to have to tear it up a couple years later. I've also been a bit confused by the whole setup, especially south of Steeles, since the TTC routes make frequent stops while the YRT routes run express. Yonge Street is already pretty wide. Adding more lanes woudl not be good for businesses.
The issue for the owners, as I understand it is is that Viva was going to build its busway with a long-term dream of converting it to LRT or subway. Not surprisingly the shopowners along Yonge were saying, "We'd rather you just build a subway now if you're going to do it later anyway, after ruining our frontages and spending years on construction."
It seemed like a pipe dream, and they sounded nutty, until Move2020 came out. The region was all set to start building the busways and slammed on the brakes, crossing their fingers that this will really happen and soon.
Now the owners are all gung ho that this subway can happen and they don't want it to slip away.
With all the talk of demand here I haven't seen anyone mention the HUGE condo proposed for the old Hy & Zel's plaza. The local residents don't mind growth but there's a proposal to replace the plaza (just north of Golden Star) with 2X32 storey towers, 2X39 storey towers and then, I think, a 3 and a 10-storey. I'm sure the developers licked their chops a bit when the subway announcement came out.
What's weird, if I'm not mistaken, is that McGuinty's plan still included funding for Transit City's LRT from Finch to Steeles - seems a bit redundant but I guess the GTTA will be figuring out the nitty gritty.
I'm also guessing stops at Steeles (Cummer is too close to Finch), Clark/John and 407/Langstaff.