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efficient mass transit is often an oxymoron.

Many cities rely excessively on pollution belching buses that only hog space on the already congested roadways. Bogged down in traffic, they are far less fuel efficient and more labor/maintenance intensive than bus proponents claim. Granted, they are the cheapest way to go upfront, and they do add flexibility to the transportation infrastruction. But higher volume traffic corridors will always be served more effectively by more permanent rail systems travelling on their own, unimpeded right-of-way.

There is efficiency and common sense to look at bus lanes and HOV lanes and related improvements to produce mass transit. However, most of the light rail and similar systems have had Rider Usage fall 66 to 85% below initial forecasts and capital expense run 15 to 50% over projections thus yielding a cost per rider times the forecast that most of these things are built from.

A study by Heritage Inst. in '98 says:

While commanding 20 percent of federal surface transportation dollars, public transit today provides only 3.19 percent of the daily trips to work, down 20 percent since 1990. By 1995, more people walked or bicycled to work (2.33 percent and 0.43 percent) than went to work by bus or metro (1.76 percent and 0.9 percent). The chief reason transit's share of the federal budget exceeds its share of the market is its high cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, commuter vans cost 12.5 cents per mile, and buses 35 cents, while light rail systems cost a staggering $3.40 per commuter mile—nearly ten times more than buses and 27 times more than vans.
Transit's minuscule share of the commuting market is not for want of trying or the result of underfunding. Since 1960, state, federal, and local governments have invested an estimated $350 billion (in 1998 dollars) in transit. Over that same period, however, American commuters have been rejecting this turn-of-the-century transportation technology at the same pace as past generations.