The 2008 “streamlined” Environment Assessment for the Sheppard LRT of the 2007 Transit City plan summarily rejected a subway option in one paragraph with no supporting documentation. Only one other option, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), was considered by the 2008 Environmental Assessment. This was rejected in favour of LRT in less than one page with little detailed discussion.
There was no reference in the 2008 EA to the extremely detailed findings and strikingly different conclusions of the prior 1992 Environmental Assessment. Thirty years of planning for the Sheppard Subway and examination of a comprehensive set of transportation, social, environmental, land use and economic factors were simply ignored. A summary comparison of the findings of the two studies is provided in the table below.