I can say it offered the least disruption during construction, the ability to connect three major employment destinations (airport-Megamall-downtown Mpls) together in a fairly straightforward route,
I agree.
It's important that the Hiawatha route does connect major destinations and is long enough to be useful, unlike flops like Detroit's people mover monorail: http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/Detroit/DPM/ which loops the downtown in a radius that is pretty much walkable.
I think Hiawatha will be less successful in between. The stops are too far apart, the population density is too low, and the walk to the stations is often awkward. Parking is also limited, discouraging "intermodal shifts" from car to rail line. Prospects for higher density redevelopment along the middle of the line are somewhat limited in the near future. If you live near a stop (but not too near to hear the clanging bells) it will be nice, but I bet a significant number of people who live in between stops (say.. at 23rd ave south and 35th street) will see the trains go by but never bother to make the 10+ minute walk to get to a stop. I'm sure millions were spent on traffic and usage studies to model what most people could grasp intuitively by just driving down Hiawatha and walking around a bit. Oh well.
All in all a step in the right direction though.
Mike Jensvold
East Isles
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