There is a city south of here that had a very good light-rail system that consisted of streetcars and dedicated right of way and its ridership was very large.
It then came to pass that the powers that be thought buses would be a big improvement to the rail system. The riders of the transit system screamed, how could powers that be be so stupid as to remove their precious streetcars, and ridership dropped. The powers that be said to fix the loss of ridership, we will add more buses. And ridership continued to drop and drop.
Then several years later the powers that be said we have to get people out of their cars and off the freeways. Their solution was to build a light-rail system. And the people screamed how could the powers that be be so stupid as to want to build a light-rail system, and definitely “not in my backyard.”
So the rail system was built. Surprise, surprise, people started to use the light rail and ridership grew and grew.