The hydro corridor was shot down with Transit City - which greatly prioritized stops on Finch compared to speed. In hindsight (and foresight for those who were paying attention back in 2008-2010), most people would have preferred the speed of the Hydro Corridor LRT, however it would have required some buses on Finch to serve seniors, etc.
For most of North York, the corridor is 400m north of Finch, which would likely take about 450s to walk (at 0.9 m/s or 3.2km/h, 2.0mph), or about 7.5 minutes.
And at many of the concession roads (Keele, Yonge, Leslie, Don Mills), more pedestrian would likely prefer the northern alignment.