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Waiting for neighborhoods to "densify" before adding rail transit is a fool's errand: as long as the neighborhood has no rail service it will never reach those densities. If a neighborhood is already built out as a car-centric neighborhood, the extra space needed for auto infrastructure (parking lots, driveways, wide roads etc.) limit the maximum density--and puts a ceiling on how much new development can be practically added to a neighborhood. Keeping out rail transit is a favored strategy for neighborhoods that want to maintain their low-density, suburban status. If you can't feasibly live in a given neighborhood without a car, it won't get that dense. Traffic will eventually worsen as new car-centric developments are built farther out, and the neighborhood isn't protected from economic and demographic shifts, but at least they won't have to worry about high density as long as they can keep the trains out.
On the other hand, if a city has a plan to prioritize infill, such as in a former industrial area, they can promote higher density by building the transit first, zoning for density and incentivizing infill development. Then, the built environment doesn't have to be constructed first and foremost for the automobile. It doesn't have to ban cars or any silly nonsense like that--just build for pedestrians and transit first, cars second (which means don't put huge parking lots in front of everything, and design the public realm around pedestrian travel rather than high-speed auto travel.)
BRT is touted as a low-cost alternative to light rail, but actual BRT (with dedicated right-of-way and stations rather than bus stops) costs just as much to build as light rail, and because BRT can't MU or carry as many people as light rail, operating costs are higher (each bus needs a driver.) Streetcars actually are less expensive than light rail, but they serve a different purpose--they're great tools for moving people around a small urban area over distances that are too far to conveniently walk but poorly suited for driving (for example, because parking is cruddy on either end of the ride.) They aren't used like light rail, to move commuters moderate distances into a central district (basically a smaller version of heavy rail.) A lot of these so-called "light rail" programs are actually more streetcar-oriented programs, people just don't necessarily know the difference.
Buses have their own purposes--they're better suited for lower population densities around 8 units per acre. That's still uncomfortably dense for a lot of suburban areas, and buses still don't work very well in subdivisions designed to maximize land sale and slow traffic through use of cul-de-sacs and feeder streets. Commuter rail and light rail using "park-and-ride" lots are a stopgap between low-density/anti-density residential communities and urban communities where traffic is bad and there aren't enough places to park, by putting the "parking lot" on cheap land near the park-and-ride.
I see problems with light rail. Often lines have too many stops and little express service so it's no faster. True, electrification allows better acceleration but also adds to cost. I think commuter rail works better for long distances.
"The Federal Railroad Administration defines high-speed trains as operating at speeds over 90 miles per hour. The Chicago to St. Louis high-speed trains are proposed to operate at a maximum speed of 110 miles per hour where safe and practical."
As far as I know, the speed limit in the US for all rail traffic is 79 mph. Higher speeds are allowed IF that section of track is equiped with advanced signaling for higher safety. Also, in cab signals are required for speeds above 79 mph. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it being. That is an old law though so...
If you want people to give up their cars and use public transit more often, you need to give them a reason to. By offering a form of transport that is competitive with the car in terms of comfort, roominess, noise, convenience, etc. Something only light and heavy rail can come close to doing. Just because its public transit doesn't mean free market forces don't apply. Public transit must be able to compete with the private automobile or else it will fail. Cities are beginning to realize this.
Detroit ended up like Detroit because they tore through their own city with highways, making it trivially easy to get in and out of the city by automobile, and far more difficult to use other transit modes.
If you want people to give up their cars and use public transit more often, you need to give them a reason to. By offering a form of transport that is competitive with the car in terms of comfort, roominess, noise, convenience, etc. Something only light and heavy rail can come close to doing. Just because its public transit doesn't mean free market forces don't apply. Public transit must be able to compete with the private automobile or else it will fail. Cities are beginning to realize this.
The "private" automobile is utterly dependent on public roads. But the advocates of the "free market" will deny this all day long, while decrying public transit expenditures a fraction as large as "creeping socialism," and denying that public transit was ever a private industry, before the government began subsidizing the automobile with socialized roads.
Pork spending. There's lots of federal dollars for rail projects. Portland is a good example... they spend about 5% of Transportation spending on road maintenance, and it has horrible roads. They rake in $22 million a year in parking, but that's porkmarked for Public Transit. They've spent tens of billions of dollars on Public Transit over the last three decades (compared with $13 million a year on road maintenance). Light rail has had zero impact. Public transportation use has remained flat at just under 15% in the twenty years that light rail has been operating and expanding. Why? Because Portland is not a big city. Until congestion slows down automobile traffic to the point that public transit isn't massive suck, most people are not going to use the inferior mode of transportation.
It's not particularly environmentally friendly, either. Portland's MAX line gets the equivalent of 49 mpg/passenger. You could beat that by incentivizing car pooling. With what money? Well, why not use the money spent incentivizing public transit? A yearly pass costs $1000 a year, and for every dollar the user pays, the tax payer kicks in another $4.65.
You can do a ton of incentivizing with $4,650. Personally, I'd start with bicycling. Whatever Portland has been doing is working on that front. The percentage of people bicycling to work has doubled. So do more of it. The fact that Portland currently plans to spend only $30 million a year on bicycle infastructure, which has proven to be vastly more effective in getting people off the road than costly light rail projects, not to mention the $440 million operating budget of TriMet, plus a few hundred million a year in capital projects, which has proven to do nothing is a travesty and waste of public funds. I can't say that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at bicycling every year will double the percentage of people riding to work as happened in the last two decades. But that doesn't matter. Even if bicycle ridership remains flat, that won't be any different than is happening throwing it at public transportation.
After you've exhausted all possible bicycle projects (which will probably take all of a few years), turn to carpooling. A typical family sedan with two passengers is better for the environment than light rail which is better than a bus. But why stop there? Remember, there's $4,650 in free money for every person you get off transit. Why not offer that as a credit on electric cars? A Leaf gets about 100 MPGe. Start with people registered for carpool parking with the city. They're now eligible for a subsidized Nissan Leaf! Current lease payments are $329 a month, so let's say the government picks up some of the tab, say $200 a month. The city comes out ahead and saves $2,250 a year versus what they'd pay for someone on an annual transit pass. Even as a single-occupant vehicle, the Leaf is better for the environment, but by starting with carpoolers you maximize the benefits. That will also encourage solo-drivers (who probably drive something getting 20-30 mpg) to carpool to work in their Nissan Leafs which get 200 MPGe/passenger, or more.
I see problems with light rail. Often lines have too many stops and little express service so it's no faster. True, electrification allows better acceleration but also adds to cost. I think commuter rail works better for long distances.
Commuter rail and rapid transit are meant for long distances. Light rail is cheaper than both and I will bet gets used when one or the other might be a better idea from time to time.
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