What they seem to be designing around here is that you take a self driving car through the low density last mile and then a train through the majority of the route.

If there was traffic along the last mile then it would be a good candidate for a regularly scheduled bus route. But for many areas there isn’t really traffic and not enough trips to jusitify all the bus routes it would take to fully cover the area.

And yes this is all a result of atrocious urban planning, but as a way to fix what already exists it seems promising.