A long while ago I went in to the Crosstown public office, to ask about the surface segment between the Brentcliffe and Don Mills portals. It's been so long that I figured my comments had gotten lost in the bureaucracy but I actually got a response this week.
I suggested that the LRT should be on the south side of the street rather than the median in order to completely eliminate conflict between cars and LRVs (since Leslie is the only intersection and it is a T to the north). They said:
Basically they decided that the median is generally a good place for a surface ROW, so LRT will always be in the median regardless of context.
It makes sense that the LRT would be completely in the median in the original EA, because it was entirely on surface so any reduction in conflict from a side-of-road alignment would be offset by the conflict created by crossing to the side of the road. But now that we have an underground segment at Don Mills, we can consider the Don Mills-Brentcliffe surface segment independently of the eastern surface segment and that was the whole point of my comment.
The reason LRT is safe in the median is that left turns are permitted exclusively on protected signal phases. Protected signals are not somehow limited to left turn movements, they can be used for any type of movement which conflicts with the ROW, regardless of its location. Some protected right turn signals do exist in Toronto: on Eglinton at Allen Road westbound, and I think they are being installed with Queen's Quay's new south-side streetcar ROW as well.