I thought the choice of options was pretty clever.
No one who has ever made executive presentations to a fickle and divided decisionmaking body would ever think of putting three equally appealing options in front of their principals. (If you ever sold for commission, you get it as well) The point is to forces people to get off the fence and make painful choices and set priorities. The more you make two options similar, or let people recognize the status quo, the more indecisiveness and circular debate you sow.
Option 1 discards through traffic (that's a key point for Councillors to get their head around), provides the transit priority, makes a nod towards public realm issues for those driving towards the 'urban' philosophy, maintains some realism about needing to provide vehicular access for deliveries etc. It's definitely viable.
Option 2 also discards through traffic but mingles streetcars and autos. That forces the point.... if there is no stomach for separating transit, then to vote for it, you must accept the public realm improvements and no through traffic. To me, this is the sacrificial "straw man" argument that hopefully nobody likes. (If it is preferred, then you have narrowed your pushback/dissenting debate to the one key issue....getting streetcars through).
Option 3 maintains through traffic, but discards public realm improvements while protecting the transit priority. To me, this is the "safe" option designed again to keep progress happening if the suburban councillors balk about the broader limitations on the auto. If they carry the day on this one, they can say they have "saved" the motorist.....while TTC gets its separate lanes.
My take - it's a pretty clever strategy that forces people to give up some aspect of the status quo. Our Council will mess it up, and may defer the whole idea rather than make these choices.....but that's the problem.
- Paul