Reasons for proposing LRT that don’t induce me to make barfing noises in public
1. There’s a corridor where we’ve done everything we can to improve bus service, and there’s extra room for additional ROW so that LRT would provide additional capacity for future growth which isn’t expected to reach heavy rail levels;
2. There are multiple destinations we endeavor to tie together in order to unify it as a district, and there are intensive development plans, real plans, with financing and approvals, not just hot air;
3. There are developers or foundations with cash in hand committed to helping build and run the facility for at least 25 years.
We can squabble about the marginal benefit of each type of investment–and we will, since public value is always contested–but these strike me as sensible reasons for proposing LRT in mid-sized regions.
How about as a modification for #1: “Bus service has desperately needed improvement for decades but it hasn’t happened due to politician and DOT apathy towards transit, ridership almost certainly justifies LRT, and bus riders have already dealt with overcapacity ridership for long enough to wait another 20 years for BRT to be overwhelmed before getting LRT.” My guess is most mid-sized cities have at least one corridor that meets that requirement – and many mid-sized cities have already heard vague promises of bus improvements from DOTs and politicians as a means of avoiding dealing with obviously overcapacity transit.