Which city is doing LRT? These can be more cost-effective in the long run at certain ridership levels, plus they're usually a better experience for the passenger.

Busses just plain suck.

Given the mention of "small city", I presume this is referring to Canberra: https://www.transport.act.gov.au/light-rail-project

I don't think it's a bad idea as such, particularly if you consider it planning ahead for projected growth, but there are a lot of much larger cities in Australia that could use the same money more usefully.

Building a BRT in Canberra now would be kind of pointless, since traffic jams are essentially non-existent, making ordinary buses rapid enough already.

When I lived in Canberra a year ago I noticed some backed up traffic in peak time near EPIC - however I realised there was only one car lane in each direction, and one bus lane in each direction.

I don't agree that we should always build more roads if there is traffic, but building a light rail solution when the bottleneck is one congested car lane each way seems a bit unusual.

Yes, Toronto, Australia. Obviously.

Is it even still on any rail network? I know it use to be way at the top on the Cityrail posters but a quick check now and it looks like it's been replaced with a coach service.

Sydney is doing them, and it seems okay.

Newcastle is doing a 4km line...

It could well be the Gold Coast, too, which has just finished its light rail in preparation for the Commonwealth Games next year.

Salt Lake City, Utah, has had very good success with light rail.

I'm sitting right next to where they've been drilling on Devonshire street for the past 4 months to move a power cable to central station!

I've taken busses through Sydney for years, and to be honest, I'm really hoping the LRS does what they promise it will, because the bus system here is so bad.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one-third of buses will still be required when the light rail starts operating in 2019 due to insufficient capacity, rising to 80% of current buses by 2031!

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-cbd-and-south-east-light-ra...

I never really thought that light rail would replace buses completely.

One can't help but imagine how many more buses we would need without light rail, no?

True, but if we built any other sort of infrastructure (water, sewage, electicity) that operated at above over 100% capacity from day one, wouldn't we consider a solution with more capacity?

With the light rail already blowing out as of November last year from $1.6bn to $2.1bn [1] I can't help but think of the merit of heavy rail.

My understanding is heavy rail is very expensive, but how much more? I haven't been able to find a comparison of a heavy rail design on this route.

[1]: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sydney-cbd-and-e...

I think it'll be fine for Sydney, but I'm in Newcastle and it seems so daft...

Maybe future capacity planning?