Don't think I've posted in this thread yet....was the ROW worth it? The streetcar was already there and ~$100m is a very small sum to pay in an effort to improve the operation of the line and change some streetscaping along the way. We should be spending $100m on every arterial in the city to squeeze some cheap and effective improvements out of our existing transit system.
Bus stops in the suburbs basically are only at a) intersecting roads, b) schools, c) apartment buildings, d) occasionally there might be a plaza or factory far from an intersection. It's completely normal for any and all of these to be 100-200-300+ metres away from each other and nothing in betwen but a parking lot or a park or backyards. Downtown routes have far, far more intersecting roads and more street-facing buildings between roads so there's many more opportunities to put a stop. Downtown doesn't really "require" more stops than a suburban street, but since the downtown areas are less nodal and since pedestrian traffic is less funneled, you can get a finer grain of convenience by having more stops. If they added more stops to some suburban routes, no one but parkour enthusiasts hopping fences would use them. With the TTC's [mis]management of routes, the results on paper of removing stops may not materialize...they'll find a way to lose that time back again.
