Misses one of the advantages of buses over light rail: flexibility to change. My hometown of Austin, TX is no role model for urban transit, but we have added b

Misses one of the advantages of buses over light rail: flexibility to change. My hometown of Austin, TX is no role model for urban transit, but we have added bus-only lanes downtown in recent years, and also moved bus lines around a bit to use the existing number of buses and drivers more efficiently. A lot of this was based on feedback from users and also in response to the way the city changed over time. Light rail, intrinsically, is more expensive to modify, and harder to get buy-in to modify. This means that, if your city population is changing at all fast, you will inevitably end up with a rail system that is at best, built for the city you once were. Buses, because they use the same network as the cars, are inherently better suited for adapting quickly (uh, I mean "less slowly") to the way the city changes.