This is a great piece in conjunction with "The Astounding Collapse of American Bus Ridership" (<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/07/21/buses_in_new_york_and_other_u_s_cities_are_in_crisis.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/07/21/buses_in_new_...</a>), which explains why bus policy is so often bad and even counterproductive.<p>In Seattle, transit ridership is up significantly because of grade-separated light rail: <a href="http://seattletransitblog.com/2016/07/16/link-ridership-up-82-in-may" rel="nofollow">http://seattletransitblog.com/2016/07/16/link-ridership-up-8...</a>.
Short version:<p>Urban environments with well planned transit corridors make useful service far more likely.<p>Suburban environments make 'coverage' more likely, but not effective coverage or coverage that is useful for those that would need it the most (anyone unable to afford personal transport).<p>Rural environments are just shafted; there can't even be the pretense of economically viable coverage.<p>I can't help but imagine how self-driving cars would change the above; when you can have an automated taxi take you directly from point A to point B, or maybe share one or two stops at most with carpoolers along the way.
One of the main problems is even when we build transit stops we still do everything else wrong. About two blocks away from the Hayward Park Caltrain station they're building large single family homes. Those should at least be town homes, but really should be apartments. This in itself is a waste of taxpayers money as that station is just sitting there languishing for riders.