Commuter Rail is not Light Rail!
There's been a lot of confusion about Commuter Rail and Light Rail. They are both forms of passenger rail, but there the similarity ends. You can't call one the other!
Commuter Rail goes over longer distances than Light Rail. For example, compare the system maps of our proposal to the T2 Light Rail plan from 2002. The system we're proposing for Jefferson, Hardin, and Meade counties would travel from here to Elizabethtown via Fort Knox. It would not be a Louisville project, but a Kentucky project. Contrast that to the T2 light rail line we almost build a few years ago, that went from downtown to just outside I-265. That would have been purely urban and suburban.
Commuter rail stops are farther apart spatially, and the trains are timed farther apart too. That's because each train holds an effectively infinite number of people. Not kidding: 160 people per 2-level gallery car, times however-many cars - Chicago runs 10-car trains at rush hour - so 1600 people per train load - that's more than we'll ever need per run except at special events like Thunder over Louisville.
Light Rail is lower capacity, but still way ahead of buses.
In transit currently the #1 expense is the cost of labor. With both types of systems you get better labor efficiency than with buses, but commuter rail is higher still than light rail. For example, Nashville's Music City Star runs with one conductor and one engineer per train, and about 320 seats for passengers, so about 1 worker per 160 people. A city bus holds 55 people, and requires one worker. So commuter rail is about 3x more cost effective on the #1 expense of pubilc transportation.
Of course, the other big expense is diesel. Right now it's not bad, but this could become costly in the future if long-term trends continue. Most light rail systems run from overhead electrical wires, so they are free to run off of any form of power once it's converted to electricity. Essentially, light rail is the ultimate flex-fueled vehicle, it can run from something as dirty as coal to something as green as solar. In practice it will probably run off whatever source of electricity is cheapest at the time. Most commuter rail, including the system we're proposing here, runs off of diesel, basically the same thing we use to power our buses. So we're tied to diesel prices. However, the fuel efficiency per passenger of commuter rail is much higher than buses. (citation needed).
Coming Soon - I hope - Stills and Video of Light Rail and Commuter Rail in action.