I have been taking Phoenix Metro to work two or three days a week. I drive 20 minutes to the most eastern stop on the edge of Mesa, then ride about 50 minutes to the stop directly across from my office. When I drive in, because I can use the HOV lanes, it takes about 50 minutes. So, I add 20 minutes to my commute in exchange for more time to read, some of it is even billable, a smaller liklihood of getting into a fender bender and a generally more peaceful morning.
Phoenix is a western city that was not expected to warm to the train any more than it had to busses. For example, the busses in Mesa come every 30 minutes. That makes riding the bus pretty much impossible.
It turns out ridership is way up for the Metro. The average daily ridership is already over 30,000. The projected daily average for the first year was only 26,000. Nice.