To my llist I wanted to add number 11 and 12. I have seen that in many places where bus transit works well the stops are properly spaced out. In those places the buses seem to be more efficient and don't bunch up the way they seem to in Toronto.
My priorities would be:
1. Cancel the York U and Vaughan subway plan. It is a complete waste of time.
2. Improve GO rail service so it runs 18 hours / day, 7 days / week on all lines. There is a GO line and a potential second GO line in Vaughan and by bringing those lines all day service can easily accomodate the transit needs of the area... a subway is not required. In some corridors such as the Weston corridor high frequency service using full size electric trains with multiple doors like a subway could make sense.
3. Focus on subways only in areas where a rail line or vacant land does not exist and dedicated LRT/BRT lanes on the street are not feasible or cannot handle the demand. Possibly under Queen St since the street is not wide enough for dedicated transit lanes plus regular vehicle lanes and bottleneck causing intersections are so close together.
4. Grade separate LRT/BRT at intersections where there are bottlenecks slowing transit service.
5. More facilities for bicycles at station entrances and more bicycle lanes.
6. More diamond lanes.
7. Merge GTA transit organizations after creating checks and balances in the organizations charter/constitution that service expansion and service levels are set by rules and facts rather than politics and development pipe dreams. Development pipe dreams should lay aside land for future transit and create plans for the future, not put shovels in the ground in advance.
8. Convert the Sheppard subway tunnel to carry multi-car LRT equipment for now with ramps to the surface at each end so the line can be extended to Downsview and the SCC quickly.
9. Replace the SRT with regular LRT equipment.
10. Get rid of streets with more than four lanes, four lanes is more than sufficient in most cases and if it isn't then two opposing one way streets located a block or half block apart should be used rather than creating really wide roads.
11. No bus/streetcar stops in the city should be closer together than 300m. Local bus routes should have stops no further than 600m apart. LRT/BRT stops and express bus stops should be located no closer than 500m from each other except in the downtown core and similarly dense areas where the minimum should be 400m. Except for long distance bus services the stops should be no further than 1km apart. New subway stops should be spaced about 1 to 2km apart. And GO stops should be spaced about 2 to 4km apart. There is no reason people can't travel a little bit further to a bus stop for the benefit of speeding up transit across the city for everyone. Having a bus stop every 200 to 300m slows things down too much.
12. Name the stops of all express routes and LRT/BRT routes and equip those stops with shelters, seating, lighting, signage, timetables (or electronic indicator) and a route map.
An example of how items 11 and 12 would be appiled... 510 Spadina.
Current stops: Union, Queens Quay, York St, Lower Simcoe, Rees, Spadina & Queens Quay, Bremner, Front, King, Richmond (NB), Queen, Sullivan, Dundas, Nassau, College, Willcocks, Harbord, Sussex, Spadina. 19 stops in 5.3km (average 290m apart)
What is the point of an ROW if the streetcar is forced to stop that frequently. It is the equivalent of taking the car and having the misfortune of hitting every red light.
Proposed named stops: Union, Ferry Docks (Bay and Queens Quay), Harbourfront Centre (Lower Simcoe), Lower Spadina, Blue Jays Way (with stairs to path along rail corridor), King West, Queen West, Chinatown (Dundas), College West, Harbord, Spadina. 11 stops in 5.3km (average 530m apart)
This removal of stops would cost almost nothing (except for the new Blue Jays Way station with stairs) but would eliminate 8 stops speeding up service on the route. Driving 5.3km at 50km/h should allow the streetcar to travel the route in about 7 minutes plus time spent at stops and intersections... eliminating 8 stops is significant.