The campaign was started by and is funded and run by St. Clair merchants. Although a few merchants do live in or near the community, most do not. However they do work there or atleast own property/business in the community. The movement's campaign did broaden the movement to include the community, petitions in stores, churches, festivals, organizations. There is some anti-streetcar sentiment in the community, but much is due to the campaign of businesses. The organzed core remained the businesses as can be seen during their marches on St. Clair where busineses gave workers the time off to attend the march etc. During the last year most SOS members were community members attracted by the campaign.
That said there there are probably more r-o-w supporters in the community as judged by turnout at meetings in the community, responses to questionaires etc. Not a large majority, probably 60-40, not sure. There are also fracture lines between drivers and peds, transit/ bikes. Environmentalists leftys/ fiscal rightys, even ethnic tensions.
The reason one might say that it is not a grassroots movements is because it was organized by the most powerful members of the community, with probably a majority of these anti-streetcar businessmen living outside the neighbourhood. The anti r-o-w campaign eventually attracted a significant section of the community.
On the other hand you could say the same thing about the pro-right-of-way side. Perhaps 50% of the people who initially worked hard on the right-of-way were from outside of the neighbourhood. This quickly changed as riders and environmentalists along St. Clair became organized. The main difference was that the one group had and spent large amounts of money while the other side was broke. Also, of those who were from outside of the neighbourhood working for the right-of-way the vast majority were from nearby Toronto neighbourhoods whereas many of the active businessmen were from the 905.
SCRIPT decided to have only local people involved in the campaign for over a year, whereas the businesses have maintained control over SOS, other than their spokesperson Margaret who previously worked with the Province on EA's. Whether you like or dislike Margaret she is much more progressive than the bulk of the BIA leadership and she lives in the community. Unlike the BIA's she doesn't look down on streetcar riders or consider them lowclass criminals. Always fun to talk to the BIA's to find out their opposition to the right-of-way.
By the way the BIA ran an anti-right-of-way candidate to run against Bravo and Palacio (both were pro r-o-w at the time). Although his name was plastered on St. Clair stores with 'say no to the barrier' on it, he only got 10% of the vote. Unless you live in the community you can't vote.