> Rush hour is more of a problem than people will admit; the biggest issue with public transit (in general) is that it is horribly "unprofitable" (for whatever you want that to be) except curing crush-time. >

Hold on, if we talk about efficiency and profitability, you also need to compare to roads. You can't on one hand subsidise road/car travel and at the same time demand profitability from public transport.

If we would make road charges actually cover the costs it would become completely unsustainable in rural areas and would likely not become profitable in urban centers (factoring the price of the real estate of roads into the equation would likely increase cost significantly) except for rush hour.

The main thing that will bring cost of public transport down is going to be self driving, not cars but trains.