Comparing Seattle's rail to our debacle suffers from your failure to take real world information into account. 
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Seattle is a mainland city with a massive road infrastructure spread out over a larger area versus the Nei's restricted land area and limited main roads, space to build.
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Seattle also has some lower cost construction ground level rail versus none in the Nei.
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Mainland construction costs are lower than in the Nei. They also have competent rail management. Nei does not.
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As for the rest of you post, cherry picked data. Same as HART. Sorry but twice nothing is still nothing.