I think in such places it makes sense for a municipality to pay for Uber rides for residents, instead of maintaining bus routes.

Or have minibuses that are smaller and come more frequently. Find a few drivers willing to work after hours as a second job perhaps and let them drive smaller shuttle buses or larger passenger vans.

When big buses stop their routes the smaller ones would start.

The key is frequency and dependability.

Labor is a huge cost and these transit agency budgets are thin

this is a problem that autonomous driving could fix more easily than the general driving problem due to the fixed route, but good luck having the bus driver union not throw rocks at your AVs

I like the sibling comment idea of using AI eventually.

But in general for public transportation I think running at a loss is not unreasonable. It's nice if it's profitable, but it's ok if it isn't. Hopefully it's reducing emissions, giving people who can't or don't want to drive reliable access to their employment, etc. is still worth it.

the problem, generally speaking, is even if it reduces costs per ride, if it becomes popular it quickly becomes too expensive.

New York City tried replacing its dial-a-ride accessibility public transit service that required 24h advance appointments with an e-hailing subsidy and blew out its budget. https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/06/22/mta-paratransit-ehailing-...

Some places are experimenting with dial a ride shuttles

The next bus is loud, uncomfortable, slow, filled with other people you don't want to share space with, stops every 2 minutes, and doesn't go where you want. The bus is run by a government that doesn't care what you want, and probably is either more expensive than you want, or basically "free".

Transit systems need to be about twice as fast, comfortable and convenient as car options to be competitive, and in the US political and operating environment of the last 100 years, it's not happening. Suburbs broke two major rent-seeking dominances-- urban property owners AND transit unions. Together those actors preserve a terrible experience and the path to a car-free future is doubtful precisely because it would require overcoming those social groups in addition to solving major technical and capital problems.

The transit systems used to be private. They went broke competing with free highways.

Compare this to Japan, where transit is still going strong because the highways must recoup revenues via tolls.

That's only part of it. Do you mean intra-city transit or inter-city transit? Highways are used by car drivers to move within the city (or between cities in the same metro area, such as between Yokohama and Tokyo), not just between far-apart metro areas.

One huge difference between the US and Japan here is parking. Having a car is one thing, but where are you going to park it when you arrive at your destination? If you're driving between two towns or smaller cities, this might not be an issue, but if you're driving between Yokohama and Tokyo, it probably is. The car is only a feasible choice if you're traveling between points where there's a place for you to park. So of course, this drives a lot of traffic onto the trains and keeps ridership very high.

Both, and both. Both intracity transit and Amtrak is a total joke, and if anything Amtrak is significantly worse, with some intercity connections not even having daily service.

This is entirely a policy choice. America subsidizes parking by requiring very high parking per place, and since they’re required to build it anyways and there is so much supply it is always free.

Japan does not subsidize parking like this, in fact quite the opposite. There is no free street parking and to buy a car you need proof of a parking spot to store it in, and parking is more of a market as a result.