My cousin's a civil engineer with the city, and I pick his brain about LRT stuff whenever I'm back in the city. A couple things:
The tunnel under Steven Avenue exists, you can see the tunnel head when you're passing by City Hall underground now. It's walled off, but there are provisions for stations at City Hall and Bankers' Hall at least. Any second downtown route that bypassed the tunnel (forfeiting the investment) would be more expensive by the amount originally spent to prepare that route, a detail overlooked in some quotes on what another downtown route would cost.
Underground LRT in downtown is a must, regardless of the cost. As it is the LRT has hit capacity on 7th avenue - there are only so many trains you can stuff through a street with stop lights on it. You can put way more through underground, obviously.
This talk of rerouting west LRT to MRC is rediculous. The current leg has been in the works for years and years, way before Bronco's time. One poster suggested he as a vested interest in the current alignment because of business interests. If that's true, it's coincidental.
The whole purpose of the Bow BRT line was as a stop-gap until the much-needed LRT leg is built.
There is a plan long-term to have a west leg up Bow, the SE leg (alignments down to a short list but still TBD last I heard), and a north leg up Centre St (or similar), so you end up with a system that looks like a big asterisk across the city.
A final note - I live in Toronto, where the subway system is good at what it does, but way too limited for the scale of the city. Investment in proper rapid transit (ie underground downtown) is WORTH IT! Streetcars, etc. have some role to play, but they've been used as subway substitutes here and the result is inferior service for a supposedly "world class" city. With massive cuts to the TTC, more like "world class dump" from this commuter's perspective.
RG
P.S. Anyone but Bronco!
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