"One of the first modes of rail travel to face a long-term decline was light rail"

"One of the first modes of rail travel to face a long-term decline was streetcars [aka trams, or light rail]. Streetcar route-miles peaked [in the U.S.] in 1919, a century ago. And streetcar trips fell along with route-miles. There were two main causes: cars and buses. Both had the advantage that they were not on rails. Cars could take their passengers wherever they wanted to go and buses could change their routes in response to changes in demand....
    "[I]f there was a conspiracy to destroy streetcar [aka light-rail] companies, the [government] should 'indict everyone who bought an automobile' between 1920 and 1950....
    "[L]ight rail [by the way] is a misnomer.... 'A typical light-rail car built today weighs about 50,000kg, while a typical subway or heavy-rail car weighs 40,000kg.' Nor are the rails they ride on lighter than subway rails. Why, then, is it called light rail? [Let's consult] the 'Glossary of Transit Terminology'. It’s called 'light' because it has a light volume traffic capacity. In short, light means low capacity. The real high capacity carriers ... are buses.
    "Not surprisingly, 'light rail' does not clearly boost transit ridership. In ten of the 17 urban areas that have built 'light rail' since 1980, trips per capita and transit’s share of commuting fell. Those two measures rose in only three of the 17 urban areas. The Los Angeles County transit agency’s experience is instructive. It cut bus service to minority neighborhoods to fund more-expensive rail lines to middle-class neighbourhoods. The NAACP sued and got a court order restoring bus service for ten years. But after the court order expired, the LA transit agency cut bus service and built more rail lines. Result: the system lost five bus riders for every new light-rail rider. Interestingly, the fatality rate for light-rail riders is four times that of bus passengers.
    "The costs for light rail are eye-popping. Orlando’s SunRail, which opened in 2014, had only 1,824 daily roundtrip passengers in its first year of operation. In 2016, the local government agency running SunRail admitted that fare revenues were less than the cost of operating and maintaining the machines that sold tickets to riders... Orlando could have saved money by giving a new Prius to every roundtrip rider every year."

~ David R. Henderson, from his post Romance and Reality: A Review of Romance of the Rails by Randal O'Toole [Amazon]