I agree. The other problem is density which turns into chicken or egg problem. People will ride when it's faster than car. To be faster than car to most people, you need a dense network of bus routes that map to a lot of A->B routes (instead of hub and spoke model where almost every ride goes downtown, you transfer, and go back out to where you need to go). More buses = more money. To justify money you need ridership. And around we go.