$2.5 billion is absolutely absurd, and I think that's pretty well-understood. I might go ahead and say that $6 billion for streetcars that offer no improvement in travel time from a local on-street bus is a bit absurd, too. Who's to say they won't have mega-cost-overruns, too? St. Clair is hardly on-time, on-budget. Unlike subways, local residents do not want streetcar routes, especially once they discover that Transit City will cost hundreds of lawns and thousands of trees. These will all be held up in consultations and neighbourhood fights for years, when a subway that will last forever could already be done construction.
It's amazing how no money is ever available for subways, how it's absolutely unaffordable, but $6 billion for streetcars to places that I guarantee many of you have never visited is perfectly reasonable. Tell me why TTC-run streetcars are so great? They built St. Clair, supposed to be the model for all these lines, and the travel time savings (by the TTC's own optimistic numbers!) is less than 10%. A few hundred million on the things -- fine -- but $6 billion when we supposedly have not-a-dime for any other mode? Why, other than extreme streetcar fanboyism, has York Region asked for and received two subway lines, but Toronto doesn't want a single one, even with 100% of the money available from the province.
Why the hell should we spend $400 million or more (including an elaborate underground transfer facility at Don Mills) for a streetcar west of Kennedy when you suggest that we may well tear it out again in 15 years? It's not gonna happen. Once that thing is built, we have it forever, just like the Scarborough RT.