> Why don't we try to induce demand on public transit? Make it cheaper, subsidize it like we subsidize roads/parking, add additional routes.

Good systems do; most systems don't, for lots of reasons.

1. Public transit is for poor people, and poor people don't fund re-election campaigns

2. Subsidizing public transit is spending the public's money, and the public has spent decades being told that "socialism" is going to take away their freedom and choice; in this case, the government is going to put more of YOUR tax dollars into public transit and then TAKE AWAY your cars.

It becomes a vicious cycle:

1. Transit is under-funded (or the funding is maintained but not increased to match rising ridership and costs)

2. Service has to get cut in areas with low ridership (e.g. areas with a lot of retirement communities get cuts to route frequency)

3. People get mad because now their buses run less often so they have to leave earlier or later than they wanted to

4. Why are we paying these people when they're just giving us worse and worse service?

In the end you wind up with a scenario where people are voting no to additional transit funding, and pointing to the direct results of under-funding as their explanation - look how bad service is, why would we give them more money? [0]

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/transit-refe...