[ashelmire]

> Light rail in Philly would be the green lines heading into west Philly

No, those are trolleys. Explicitly not light rail. You can't compare a trolley seriously to the trains we're calling "light rail" in LA and other cities.

'The basic concepts of light rail were put forward by H. Dean Quinby in 1962 in an article in Traffic Quarterly called "Major Urban Corridor Facilities: A New Concept". Quinby distinguished this new concept in rail transportation from historic streetcar or tram systems as:

having the capacity to carry more passengers appearing like a train, with more than one car connected together'

Note that first and second qualifier for light rail, which a one-car trolley with capacity identical to a bus absolutely does not fit. Light rail has a specific meaning, and it's different from trolley/tram by design. If SEPTA or others are calling the trolleys light rail, they are misusing the term.

Additionally, as a counterexample to the issues in the article - the trolleys are taken more by the working poor than the more affluent in Philly.