[Willie Green]

Which is better: to spend really huge oodles of money equipping all buses with wheelchair ramps which take up space and...
or to spend somewhat less money on a secondary system which

You make a very good point with which I have only one objection.
I favor light rail as the primary system of local mass transit. Let passengers (including those in wheelchairs) board directly from an elevated platform without having to negotiate steps on the vehicle. Buses and specialized handicap vans could still have their place in the overall mix of transit to provide flexibility. But they should be secondary to the more permanent main transport routes.

[supercat]

I favor light rail as the primary system of local mass transit.

Light rail requires a right-of-way which costs about as much as a lane of highway and yet on most routes will transport far fewer people and zero cargo. While there are some routes in which the flux (people per hour) will be better than what can be done on a road, on most routes the reverse is true.

[arthurus]

Light rail is wonderful for the companies that build them and the politicians who profit from them and the bureaucrats who run them. In my small city we are forced to support buses that travel everywhere with seldom more than 2 passengers and often with none. And it is because we cannot be a "modern" city without public transportation. The bus system in the 50s and 60s at least had a rationale. It transported the maids from their side of town to the big houses on the other side of town. Nobody else rode it then and near nobody at all rides it now.