$1.3billion to keep a few hundred parking spaces on street? Ridiculous. Build an underground garage or two if needs be.
"$1.3 billion to keep a few
dozen parking spaces on street?..." There, that's more the case really.
I don't know if anyone has taken in that Main and Queen streets were just recently narrowed to single lane through traffic through the area of Four Corners anyway to accommodate on street bike lanes, centre left-turning lanes, etc.. So the area is not averse to single lane traffic flow. Dedicating two lanes to LRT would be simply a further extension of this realignment, imo. Further to this, a dedicated ROW north from Nanwood to Wellington along Main, with no left turns allowed through that entire stretch, would actually help to ease traffic flow through the area. There are ways of getting from one side of Main to the other by going around. Throw in one or two protected/signalized pedestrian crossings midway.
This can actually help traffic in the area by not allowing E-W routes through the area. Because there are no direct crossings of Main through this stretch, today we see people making right turns onto Main, immediately jumping to the left lane, then holding up a lane of through traffic waiting to make the "quick" left. So, eliminating that movement would actually help smooth out traffic flow.