Also attending were about thirty other folks besides NTA sparkplug and event organizer Mike Wyatt and speakers Rob Kennedy and Dick Wagner. Ken Golden, omnipresent at all meetings transportation or land use, was not, recovering as he is from heart surgery. Besides playing the role of light rail advocate, Rob Kennedy moderated the event. Kennedy served on the city's feasibility study of light rail and is a strong proponent. He started by giving the usual overview of the characteristics and benefits of light rail, which, as has been widely reported, has been proposed to run from Union Corners to Hilldale in its initial configuration.
Light rail is characterized by short headways, frequent stops, and service within an urban area.
The St. Louis experience was held out as an example for Madison. It took about seven years from the time that grass roots groups formed to promote it until the system, now widely viewed as a success, went into service. A Madison characteristic that is often pointed to as making light or commuter rail especially feasible for a city of this size is the Isthmus, which centralizes urban development. Another is the concentration of employers provided by the state government and University of Wisconsin. Use of technology such as the Regio Sprinter, which was unavailable at the time of the study, could cut that cost by as much as a third, in part because it eliminates the need for the overhead catenary used by electric systems.