The problem with billionaires guessing what lowly commuters want is that they focus on speed and comfort instead of the more mundane issues as "bum with distinct urine smell", "person who ate several garlic cloves the evening before" and "menacing group of youths".
The problems you point out can't be solved by more money for public transit, and are not what people in countries with better public transit than the US complain about.
From a UK perspective (commuting to London 60+ miles each way) speed and comfort are an issue.
See the "new" trains by Siemens on the Bedford - Brighton line which have worse comfort and reliability that the older electro stars.
Do the trains actually have comfort or reliability problems, or do people just assume they must? The seats look incredibly thin, but are actually much more comfortable than the ones they replaced IME. Early days saw a lot of train cancellations but that was due to not having enough trained drivers rather than any technical issues.
Not from my experience the elctrostars where much more comfortable for longer > 20 min commutes and there are no power points and no tables at all in standard.
Also affordability for those on minimum wage.
A train ride cannot be more expencive than the car, then the car will be used.
In the U.K. it often is.
Yes, that's what I'm complaining about. Here in Sweden the fuel for planes are so subsidised that it's most of the time cheaper to fly than to take the train. And if you go alone by car shorter distances it's about the same price as the bus. If you are two in the car it's already much cheaper.
Monorails are a working technology, but still niche. China has 140Km or so. Japan has about 80Km. They're useful when you have to cram a transit system into a built-up city. The switch problem has been solved. But there's still little standardization; each is a one-off.
BART started as a gadgetbahn. Active suspension. Solid state motor control. Computerized train control. Very fancy. All three of those systems had major problems in the early years. Forty years later, everybody has those features.
Japan is building a maglev from Tokyo to Nagoya and on to Osaka. It makes sense there. Those are Japan's three biggest urban areas, and they're in a line. There's a mountain range in the way, and so much tunneling is required (about 250Km) that the tunneling cost is more than the maglev cost. 45Km of the route is already running in test, so most of the debugging is already done. Started in 2007, planned opening 2027, coming along nicely.
The Morgantown (WV) personal rapid transit system, built in the 1960s, is still running. Last year it got a refresh - new electronics and propulsion. Works OK, but was never cost-effective.