I never understood why Sheppard East (oops, correction made) was deemed TC line 1. Finch West would have been simpler to construct, would have replaced a massively busy bus line and the interchange with the Spadina line would have been in place before that line even opened whereas there will surely be some impacts to doing so later either within the station itself or to connecting services dodging trucks servicing the portal construction. Add to that in the benefit of hindsight Mammo being for that project before he was against it so toeing the Ford line and scrapping it would have been harder for him with shovels in the ground. Once Finch West was off and running I think the demand for both extension in both directions to Yonge and to Humber College and elsewhere in the city would have been significantly boosted as long as it was well run and there was no scrimping on service or on security - there is a significant reduction in perception on Dublin's LRT Line A because of a failure to curb antisocial activity.
By contrast the Sheppard line had more caveats - what was the interface with Don Mills going to be, for how long was it going to run isolated before the connection with the subway was done - but amazingly the one piece of it that Metrolinx wanted DID get done: the Agincourt grade separation. No 2021 completion date for that!
