Keeping Trolleys = Denying Service to New Areas?

Looking over the service changes for September, there is an impressive slew of improvements to outlying areas. A lot of routes that were peak hours only now get midday and Saturday service, other routes have been extended into the evening and Sundays, and new late night service is being added to Terwilleger and Heritage Valley. Suburban service is seeing a major increase this fall, just as it has pretty much every fall for the last few years. The budget increases for these new services would have been approved back in December 2007 as part of the 2008 budget, which also included funding for the operation of the exisiting trolley bus system.
What makes this striking is the fact that in June during the debate on the trolleys, the city's transportation manager, Bob Boutiller, made the case that suburban areas were crying for service, being denied needed service increases and would continue to be so, because of the trolleys. He famously said that all the new ridership was coming from the new subdivisions, with no growth in the inner city (in spite of all the new condos springing up in Downtown and adjacent areas).
The service increases this year prove that new subdivisions are not being denied service. If anything, the area that is being denied service is the inner city, which is only gaining a few slight increases, despite overcrowded buses at all hours of the day, in some cases. The local buses along Jasper Ave between 124 St and Downtown are all carrying heavy loads, and are at near capacity. Indeed, some of the routes that need service increases the most are the trolley routes. Of course, increasing trolley service would reduce the cost of running each bus, since the fixed cost for the overhead would be divided over more service. Plus, increases on inner city routes is more cost effective, since there is an established ridership base to build on.
It is clear that new subdivisions are not being unreasonably denied service, and that the whole arguement was made by mangement, to make it seem as though they had a legtimate reason to get rid of trolleys.