Your observations on US LRT are accurate, but, I thought you might want to hear my logic on the quoted portion.
All this is IMO.
A) Toronto is more like NYC than any other city in the world (I might add that it is cleaner, safer, and, friendlier). Like NYC, Toronto is made up of four progressively inclusive components.
1) The City, with a population of some 2.5. (NYC with 8.0)
2) A 'close' (a lot of kms here, but this is relative) metropolitan ring with about 5.5 million people, including the City (NYC with about 19 milion)
3) A 'further' ring, often called the 'Golden Horsehoe' which includes 1 and 2 with a population of 6.5 million. (NYC with about 22 million)
4) An outer 'Golden Horsehoe with some 8.1 million (NYC portion of the megalopolis is harder to define, but, somewhere around 25 million.)
The relative population ratios between city and metro area are surpisingly similar with Toronto city have about 38% of the standard Golden Horseshoe's population, and, NYC about 35% of it's equivalent.
Toronto and NYC, together, when compared to most US large cities, have extremely good steel wheel public transit (Montreal does too, but Montreal is a delightfully different entity, riding on rubber tires
). In addition, near the borders and extending out of the city limits of each city, other than commuter rail (GO and LRR/North Metro/Jersey), both cities have very autocentric metro areas (the 401 can be a world class nightmare, and Long Islands I-495 can be horrid too).
Also, both cities, outside of their affluent urban residential cores,have wide swaths of rich and upper middle class suburbs outside of the city limits (yes NYC has Jersey and Toronto has Hamilton, etc) . Centimillionaires (and a few billionaires) live in the suburbs of both cities (also clustered in Lower Manhattan and in the areas defined by the Bloor Street Line to the north, University to the West, and, Yonge to the East.)
Both cities have significant concentrations of the poor, many of whom receive government assistance.
Both cities have tensions with their suburbs and their provincial and state governments concerning social welfare costs, educational equality, public transporation funding, policing, etc.
Toronto is now a great city- a great city where much of its growth reflects the auto age (thank G*d for the enightened thought behind building the subways in the 1950s- 1960s and not tearing up streetcar lines) While NYC became a great city before the auto age, much of it's growth since WWII reflects the auto age.
The differences between ethnicity, income levels, and, race, while older in NYC, affect each city similiarly in terms of finance, and, sharing power.
Don't get me wrong. I would far rather live in Trana than in the Big Apple, but, Toronto is beginning to reflect some of the social angst that has affected the greatest city in the US for generations. However, like in NYC, the price being paid is less than the rewards the city provides.
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Street cars are great for local trips / feeder routes, no doubt about that, but grade separated mass transit is best for the backbone of systems (such as subways and skytrain). An LRT can also act as a backbone if the vast majority of the system has its own rail bed / row akin to a heavy rail train. 
Linear Mode
