I’m not sure it’s a feature that public transit agencies allow popular commuter routes to become ridiculously overcrowded by siphoning off the funds for fare subsidies and mostly-empty buses no one wants. My government for a while was clearly trying to shift the incentives to favor bus over car commuting, but half the time the bus was so full that the driver wouldn’t even let me try to get on. The agency was not out of money. Instead, it had spent the money on a new route from nowhere to nowhere that passed my apartment every 10 minutes and was consistently empty, while at the same time downsizing the vehicles used on commuter service.