New rail services won't get people out of their cars - the proper academic phrasing being "is not likely to produce significant shifts in travel patterns". And new rail won't encourage denser development - "smart" being the propaganda adjective. Those are the two major conclusions of a study "The Impacts of Commuter Rail in Greater Boston" by Eric Beaton published by the Rappapport Institute for greater Boston at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard U.

see http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/rappaport/downloads/policybriefs/commuter_rail.pdf

Every objective study has shown the bogus nature of rail promoters claims for supposed external benefits of government subsidies for rail, so this is just another in a long line of scholarship on the subject.

(The author uses the term commuter rail to cover all passenger rail whether metro style, light or diesel on freight tracks, the last being usual sense of commuter rail.) TOLLROADSnews 2006-11-05