better route alignment would appear to have less environmental impact

How was the Ontario Line's circuitous route finalized? A route which better followed either Queen or King St would appear to have less environmental impact (eg. noise, vibration) and would be a natural upgrade to replace those busy streetcar lines through downtown Toronto, freeing up scarce roadway space on downtown streets for emergency and delivery vehicles etc.  The previous plan for the Downtown Relief Line (DRL) was a result of extensive community consultation and detailed consideration of environmental impacts; yet no objective comparison was made by Ontario/Metrolinx, between the DRL option and the Ontario Line.

Angling the Ontario Line southward to connect to the Exhibition GO station, and again southward to the non-existent East Harbour GO station makes little sense, when considering urban populations and transit demands. Both GO stations are so close to Union Station that few GO riders would transfer at those locations, between GO and the Ontario Line.

It seems Ontario's reason for proposing a longer routing via East Harbour is simply to economize, by sharing and widening the existing GO train right-of-way, to accomodate above-ground Ontario Line trains.  As explained in other comments that have been submitted, the "cost" of this above-ground routing would be the imposition of significant noise, vibration and safety impacts, which could be avoided if this subway was built entirely underground.  This is a huge once-in-a-lifetime expenditure which is requesting significant funding from the federal government; I would hope that the Ontario Line would implement the best alignment to serve the most persons, and best construction design (eg. tunnelling), and to minimize environmental impacts (noise, vibration etc)