@ B-D to STC higher priority than Sheppard-STC
I agree that extending the B-D and getting rid of the SRT is a no-brainer and is much higher up on the list than extending Sheppard. But that doesn't mean that Sheppard doesn't deserve it as well. I'd like to assert, we're not a poor country! by any measure. The argument "we don't have enough money" or "it won't necessarily work here," are sorry excuses for either arbitrary subway hate or TC brainwashing victims.
In terms of money, we're one of the highest GDP per capita countries in the world, which will only be getting larger in the global market. Laurier said that the 20th century would be Canada's? (I think.) The 20th century will have nothing on the 21st century for Canada. Toronto is also the 5th largest city and metro in North America, set to become the fourth in a short 20-30 years. If you wanna look at London, the GTA's almost 2/3 the size of Greater London and, as I said, is set to almost double within 30 years. With the greenbelt, that'll force much of the growth upwards. If London can afford 400 km of subway, why are we condemned to a mere 60, to grow to about 70 or 75 with current upgrades over the next 25 years? I don't think that any city in the world looking at anything like that would propose such little true rapid transit expansion.
We could easily build Sheppard extension and the B-D extension both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. In fact, it could easily be both, as well as a myriad of other projects, like starting the DRL, starting an Eglinton subway, getting the Yonge extension going, extending the B-D west to Sherway, etc. It all doesn't have to come at once, which is what Transit City's doing. An opportunity was seen to win over the public with a plan that would essentially negate the impact of poor government funding, which had a paranoia surrounding it after the Harris era that still continues today. The truth is, Harris isn't coming back. I know he seems like a monster under your bed, waiting for you to come out to grab you, but he's not. He's dead (if only really, at least in concept.) Between McGuinty's transit offensive (which will require equal backing from a future competitor,) as well as Metrolinx, which will begin providing a huge amount of funding on it's own, we're not going to see another Harris era for transit expansion.
And I'll say it again, the original study said that there was individual route density to support a subway to Victoria Park. The study also showed that the connection with Downsview, Agincourt and STC were justified by the connection of urban centres and network effectiveness. That means that while the area in between VP and Agincourt and Agincourt and STC, there might not be the density or route ridership to justify subway, but the amount of travel between those nodes requires both the speed and capacity of subway.
The new study has pathetically skewed the figures towards LRT. The TTC's expectations for subway are totally unreasonable, yet their expectations for LRT are essentially none. The line's ridership could even drop, and they'll say "we saved on money and the riders that have stayed get an extra 3 minutes taken off their travel time, so it was a success."
Then is the total propaganda over subway costs being totally expensive. Most, if not all, the stations on Sheppard were drastically overbuilt, yet it still clocked in well under $200 million/km in today's dollars. For a totally tunneled subway using smart and conservative building techniques, the price of that could still stay under $200 million/km for at least another decade.
Before Miller came along with his "revolutionary" and "visionary" Transit City plan, subways were considered to be a necessary part of transit development and urban growth. He half tricked, half shoved it down our throats, and now we have to do something before we suffer for a half-assed, poorly thought out, totally socialist "hit every ward but don't care about the numbers" Transit "plan."
