Contrary to the campaign claims about the efficiency and time savings of rail transit, the opposite must be true, or people would just use public transit and read the morning paper on the way to work. The automobile is immeasurably better suited than a train for segments one and three. The cost-benefit analysis of Measure A does not miss the mark by a few percentage points. The measure is too expensive by hundreds of percentage points. One of them, Los Angeles' El Monte Busway, accommodates the three-legged nature of commuting.
Buses deploy to residential areas in the morning, making normal local-loop runs.
The reason the El Monte Busway works so well is that it delivers a complete solution to the commuter, not an expensive train that goes from nowhere to nowhere. City Hall says that once the light rail system is built out and integrated with both BART and commuter trains, it will be effective. The problem is that the BART and commuter rail proposals are even more expensive than the light rail proposal. And three expensive bad ideas don't add up to one good idea. Also, the excuse that we should expect under-utilization until the system is built out is simply not borne out by the ridership statistics in any U.S. city.