The liberals don’t care about cost per mile and all that technical stuff.
The liberals want to encourage use of mass transit. Mass transit works well in some cities, but not in others. But to the liberals, it doesn’t matter if light rail can pay for its operating expenses and building costs. They think that mass transit should be heavily subsidized because of all the usual enviro-extremist reasons. And they are passionate about saving a planet.
On some issues, you just can’t talk about facts and figures to the liberals. The emotion of saving planets and “investing” in our “infrastructure” makes reasoned discussion of issues impossible.
How much energy does it take to install light rail?
What is the so-called carbon footprint of constructing a light rail system?
How long does it take to re-capture all of that expended energy and/or carbon?
10 years? 100 years? 10,000 years?
No on knows and no one cares. It is the ultimate feel-good technology for flat-earth no-growth uber liberals.