No, the switch to buses was a pragmatic one. In order to fund improved transit you need an RTA and in order to get different areas to join an RTA you need to provide service to them.


Now part of the problem is that the region is just plain cheap. If the RTA had a .5% [[half a percent) income tax, and 15 years of that tax was borrowed against, you could build the entire 110 mile BRT route as light rail right now. And that doesn't include any federal money.

The RTA's total income is 105 billion dollars, and 110 miles of light rail would cost about 6 billion [[at 55 million per mile).


That doesn't cover operating costs, but the Vancouver SkyTrain actually makes money [[not counting capital costs). Fares and advertising is more than the operating costs. It's completely grade separated, which means it can go faster and it can be driverless [[don't have to pay drivers), and because it's driverless you can run trains every 5-10 minutes all day long [[even off peak hours) without spending tons of money. So you get higher quality service, and very low [[possibly negative) operating costs, which is great. The problem of course is that the SkyTrain is the same technology as the People Mover, and no one would ever go for that...