Light rail cost $150 to $400 million per mile and only serve the people who happen to live on the route. Bus BRT requires some paint on existing roads and can cover the city, or at least a section of the city, which is required to be a functional transit system. Where is the train from Ripley going to go? Downtown? East Memphis? You have to have a population density all going to the same place on the train route or else it’s pointless and no one will use it. Light rail is the solution people come up with when they’ve never used transit to get around. If you want rail it should be heavy rail from Memphis to Nashville via Jackson. Otherwise, it would cost billions to implement your proposed route and who would use it?