The whole point of these travesties is NOT to move people around, but to spend taxpayer money to reward campaign contributors and secure public works jobs to buy votes. Any actual benefit is accidental and unplanned.
On top of all that, “light rail” systems have the “proof-of-payment” fare collection system, where you buy a ticket and ride, and sometimes there will be a fare inspector on board and sometimes not, so there’s a lot of fare evasion, never mind some of the lowest fare recovery ratios around, quite often well under 10 percent.
true words