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mike gets a lot of flak here. there are a lot of people who criticize him for being tautological, or idealistic, or being unwilling to read others' posts.

but he has studied this and makes some good points here. a long lrt line through a heavily traveled arterial in toronto may be the best compromise of a limited budget, but it's really not going to change much. at-grade lrt works in smaller centers with less traffic, or on shorter lines. unfortunately that's not the case here. it's not all doom and gloom, as anything is better than the status quo. it'll be an incremental improvement, as grade separation will eventually be needed if/when the city has the budget/motivation to break the grip of the car.

it's not that toronto doesn't have money. for the past several decades, toronto's urban form has been dictated by the car and the development industry. money was disproportionately spent on roads and infrastructure out into the wilderness, sprawling out via relatively low density for its population, and rendering it prohibitively expensive to service via public transit. even if the public transit systems of well functioning, similarly populated cities overseas were overlaid over toronto, things still wouldn't work as well, as it's inherently more difficult to service larger areas through transit.

you could argue that toronto has tiny lots. while that may be true, it also has a huge metro population that spreads far into the horizon. ideally the areas outside of old toronto's historical core (hint hint most of north york, etobicoke, scarborough) would have been progressively upzoned to higher densities. no one should preserve postwar balloon frame housing, as it was never intended to stand forever. the population would then be living in denser areas that are also closer to the core and thus more easily serviced by transit. that ship has sailed, but one can always dream.