Either you (Kerry) got the facts wrong or Jim Koch is suffering from selective amnesia. He was the President of ODU who brought the MAGLEV to campus (see for example, http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/odumag.htm),

With all due respect, it dosen't take a genius to figure that one, the folks I ride public transit with every day knows that. It's all the buz with the low income folks on the bus, it's common sense. The trains are only circlying downtown, without going all the way to the beach, or the peninsula, or even Portsmouth, it is useless.

Oh, by the way, if I was making what Suchet's making, I'll say that same dumb thing he did.

kill it now and cut the losses, it will only get worse

Mr Shucet, CEO of Hampton Roads Transit,.. I don't expect he would do a Jon Cash and say something unsupportive of his current paid responsibilities! The Government has nothing to loose, its not like they actually create the money that was spent to build this railroad!
Like Waterside, it will be a novelty, then the shine will wear off, maybe get some bad press as it consistantly operates in the red...eventually the Pilot will do a poll on what should be done with the old light rail system.
Hey! How about that $30 million dollar cruise ship terminal!

Dr Koch's comments are correct. Granted the cost over run is huge; but what is done - is done. Now we have no choice but to live with it. This phase of the light rail has always been billed as a "starter line". Until it goes somewhere, success will be difficult to achieve. Fast forward YEARS ahead ... the starter line has been expanded years ago to the ocean front with a stop at the convention center, and up to the Navy base with stops at Norfolk Sentara Hospital and ODU. Branch lines run through the newly expanded midtown tunnel to Portsmouth, through the 3rd Hampton Roads Harbor crossing to Hampton & Newport News and the shipyard. Ridership has steadily risen as the price of gas got above $10 per gallon and internal combustion engines are banned in the metro areas of downtown Norfolk and the Town Center of Virginia Beach. The tolls on the tunnels, bridges, I-264 & I-64 are now set at $15.00. Looking back 25 years from the year 2035; the Norfolk officials may be remembered as visionaries for laying the foundation of the transportation system! Well, it could happen!

As 9 out of 10 Village Idiots can plainly see, carving out 400 ft wide swaths of asphalt to move 100 lb to 300 lb humans, the sole occupants of 6,000 lb, 300 hp SUVs, to a 50 acre parking lot somewhere, is far more viable than rail traffic. Economics is not about accounting; it's about behavior. This is the behavior and mentality of typical Hampton Roads residents. On this basis, Koch got it right.

Now, let's go over this again. What are the credentials that make Koch a genius?

HRT Pres. and CEO Philip Shucet notes that other transit systems, including private cars on public roads, are subsidized.

Economist Paul Krugman notes that and makes another point in his blog today.

“But in a way that misses the larger point: urban transportation is an area in which we know that market prices bear very little relationship to true social costs. Even if you ignore environmental impacts and the national security implications of oil imports, the fact is that driving in an urban area, especially in rush hour, imposes huge congestion externalities on other people. And I mean huge … And rail transit takes people off the roads, thereby yielding a large benefit that doesn’t show in [the rail transit] books."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/transit-economics/

Include this in cost/benefit.