I certainly worry about the usefulness of the M-1 line. My fear is that it's going to be another People Mover, which I believe is the most expensive public transport system in the US (if it can even be called that). It's a joke, and it's existence is a source of ridicule instead of pride. It also has the unfortunate side effect of being one of the few counter examples of the axiom that public investment in transportation is good for the local economy, giving fuel to critics who are against a regional rail system. Maybe M-1 will work. I'm skeptical, but I hope for the day when I'm proved wrong. I still have yet to find a good answer to the question of what need it's filling. If it's a showcase for what light rail can be, with the hope that it will eventually be expanded, then I sincerely hope it's a wild success. The investment happening along side it in Detroit at the moment is encouraging, as a $2bln development was just announced last week. Hopefully the pump is primed and the time in history is right to see some real change. Given the history of the region, however, one can be forgiven for not being overconfident.

Dallas has the largest light rail system in the country and it's total shit.

A thirty minute car trip takes two hours by public transit if everything goes smoothly. Minus the walking. You could get on a highway clogged with a flaming semi truck accident across four lanes and it will clear up faster than you could make the distance on public transit. This is not hyperbole, I have literally done this.

Buses don't run on time, they run early because the drivers run the route as fast as possible and so they can kill time parked at a stop. You will be late if you show up on time. Trains are twenty minutes apart on a good day, if you can even make it to the station. Living next to the station would be optimal but all the apartments they build there have parking lots full of luxury SUVs and you know those bougie fuckers don't ride the train.

If you ride a bike you will just die.

To add to this, quality has to be quantified, and that's tougher to do. I've never been to New York, but I'm sure that's still the best.

However, I do live in DC and was raised in San Francisco, and I can say without a doubt that DC is light years better.

Here is DC, we have the Metro, an expansive bus system throughout the DMV area, a light rail system between DC and Baltimore (MARC), our streetcars are due to open this year (thank GOD finally on H St.), and we have Amtrak. NOVA has started the process of a new kind of street car just this month as well that would essentially be a bus with dedicated lanes and control over the traffic lights system for uninterrupted travel. All of this flows quickly and smoothly, so much so that people are actively involved in making it better regularly, and minor issues are a big deal that people address. That's nice.

There are of course issues, but compare to SF. In San Francisco, we have BART. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) runs through the Bay Area in a smattering of the suburbs and throughout the city. It's terrible. Trains are, firstly, extremely old, old enough to regularly cause problems. They're slow as well, physically and in their ability to reach stops. Half hour waits between trains aren't uncommon. On top of this, they treat their employees so poorly they go on strike on a regular basis. It's also massively overcrowded. The bus system is an absolute worthless nightmare. Nearly impossible to predict, overcrowded, and slow, with terrible routes that take far longer than they should. Their one good system is the MUNI, their light rail, and while I didn't use it much, it was smooth and quick, it was always massively overcrowded. Many times I used it, I had to wait three cars before being able to get on. And that's only in the city proper. If you're out of city limits, good luck doing anything without a car.

Of course the west coast is more spread out, especially the bay area, making it especially difficult to coordinate these things, but it doesn't change the fact that outside commuting on BART to the city, it's effectively useless.