Random route service is difficult to efficiently serve with mass transit. Public transit doesn't have to be specifically mass transit, but the collective need of "I need to go from random place A to random place B and later return" is almost never going to line up with a mass transit solution.

True, but I still firmly maintain that with good transfers you can get transit close enough to car levels of service so that it doesn't matter. Of course such service is a lot more expensive to run than current service - but it is still cheaper than the costs of owning a car.