Ridership on light rail has declined ever since its peak in 1945. At that time, about 50 percent of urban travelers took transit, but today, despite massive subsidies, barely two percent ride buses or trains. But somehow it's politically correct to want more government transit, not so the voter can ride it, but so some other schmuck will ride and therefore get out of the voter's way on the freeway. Because freeways are Politically Incorrect. And here we thought Political Correctness was dead.
People clearly vote with their steering wheels for freeways.
That is why freeways are so crowded. People have shown by their choices that they love freeways. The only thing they don't like about them is that freeways are too crowded during rush hour because everybody else loves freeways so much. Somehow the notion has taken hold that to relieve this crowding, we need to revert to a failed nineteenth century technology. Light rail is only a trolley system, and trolleys died out a half a century ago.