Mono... doh!

Fraters has a great article about light rail up on their site, with references to Minneapolis and Phoenix's light rail systems, plus multiple Simpson's references.

Baltimore is another city that is convinced of the joys of light rail. In the five or so years that I've lived in Baltimore, including my freshman year of college when I didn't have a car, I used the Light Rail exactly once.

Usually with mass transit you get the advantage of speed compared to a car - take the Metro in DC, and you zip under the massive traffic jams and horrifically designed streets on the surface. That helps to make up for the lack of privacy and crush of humanity that you have to deal with.

With light rail, you get the annoyance of standing three inches from someone who hasn't bathed since Bush Senior was president, but you get limited speed advantages, since the light rail goes on surface streets and actually stops for traffic lights. About the only advantage with light rail is not having to park when you get to where you are going - but due to the slight number of stations and their locations, chances are you have to drive to the station to park anyway - cutting out another possible advantage, being able to get drunk and not have to take a cab home - since you still have to drive from the station to home.