Not being paid off, but they knew that the stations were placed in locations that would encourage developers to invest in new construction projects. That's the goal of transit oriented development. I don't think they were wrong doing that, but there were a lot of things that could have been done differently.
I think the sections going through the already developed parts of the city - uptown and downtown - should have been tunneled or elevated. Yeah, money...it would have cost more and all that, but at least we'd have the beginning of a pseudo-subway, similar to Ottawa's O-Train or Stuttgart Stadtbahn. This is good for very long term planning. They are both light rail systems, but have many underground or elevated sections in the urban core so that there is zero interaction with traffic. This means it's faster and more direct. Headway is probably a lot better too. This means it can move more people, faster, which is what you want when you're deciding whether to use public transit or to simply drive.
But I seem to be the odd one out on this forum thinking this would have been a good long term choice for us. But rapid transit should mean rapid...fast...able to move a lot of people. The LRT moves people alright, just very slowly for most of its network. Above ground sections work elsewhere, admittedly, but not really in the cores. Though they still did some major mistakes on the more suburban above ground sections too, particularly when it comes to places like Hayward Ave where it takes forever to make that turn, and continues to go slow along Courtland even though it's entirely separated from traffic.
Tl;dr - Bury/elevate it in the core. This would still allow developers to build new condos/offices/etc, but it would move a lot faster. Keep the rest above ground, maybe elevating on a viaduct where needed (Hayward...or at least they could have done something different here). This would still allow them to route the LRT to underdeveloped areas like Mill, Borden, Blockline etc and developers can still go crazy with all the real estate there.
I think the sections going through the already developed parts of the city - uptown and downtown - should have been tunneled or elevated. Yeah, money...it would have cost more and all that, but at least we'd have the beginning of a pseudo-subway, similar to Ottawa's O-Train or Stuttgart Stadtbahn. This is good for very long term planning. They are both light rail systems, but have many underground or elevated sections in the urban core so that there is zero interaction with traffic. This means it's faster and more direct. Headway is probably a lot better too. This means it can move more people, faster, which is what you want when you're deciding whether to use public transit or to simply drive.
But I seem to be the odd one out on this forum thinking this would have been a good long term choice for us. But rapid transit should mean rapid...fast...able to move a lot of people. The LRT moves people alright, just very slowly for most of its network. Above ground sections work elsewhere, admittedly, but not really in the cores. Though they still did some major mistakes on the more suburban above ground sections too, particularly when it comes to places like Hayward Ave where it takes forever to make that turn, and continues to go slow along Courtland even though it's entirely separated from traffic.
Tl;dr - Bury/elevate it in the core. This would still allow developers to build new condos/offices/etc, but it would move a lot faster. Keep the rest above ground, maybe elevating on a viaduct where needed (Hayward...or at least they could have done something different here). This would still allow them to route the LRT to underdeveloped areas like Mill, Borden, Blockline etc and developers can still go crazy with all the real estate there.