I've thought about this a lot, and wonder if the last mile problem could be lessened with an uber style pickup you suggest. I have a civil engineer relative who follows this stuff better than I do, and he says all the pilot programs he's seen (in the US) tend to be wildly unprofitable.
That said, I think that some program like this is essential to bootstrapping a really good transit system. The last mile problem really does stop a lot of would be commuters and is a huge, largely hidden cost, in regional transit planning. You could have fewer, more reliable trunks, that can run less reliably after core commuting hours, all because you have ways of alleviating the pain associated with difficulty getting to out of the way places. This allows people to make life decisions that they might not otherwise be able to make. And once you have a solid core, you can continue to grow it, by continuing to encourage long term ridership. Couple this with increasingly aggressive zoning changes to allow for density, and I think you could really grow out a transit system in 10-20 years.
But this is a fantasy of mine. It would likely be wildly unpopular to run an unprofitable program long enough to make all of this possible, and would probably only work in regions that have the potential for good transit anyways. You'd also need a large cohort of YIMBYs, that while currently growing in many regions, aren't guaranteed to still vote that way in a decade when they have more to lose.
Most bus systems in the US are wildly unprofitable and quite costly. My local system is just under $10 per unlinked trip (i.e. get one on bus). That makes getting from point A to point B not much cheaper to provide than Uber because it will usually involve a transfer.
Everyone would be better off in an Uber type system but there's no appetite or budget to subsidize rides at the level people would use it
Don't calculate the amortized (over a reasonable 30 years if you also ignore inflation and major maintenance/refurbishment costs) capex of the proposed Dallas red line northern extension, seen in a per-passenger-mile figure.....
(I got 54ct per passenger mile just in capex (well, a capex-based view on the cost of having the track there and operable; costs from direct wear and tear of running trains and electricity and the trains themselves are additional)...)
That said, I think that some program like this is essential to bootstrapping a really good transit system. The last mile problem really does stop a lot of would be commuters and is a huge, largely hidden cost, in regional transit planning. You could have fewer, more reliable trunks, that can run less reliably after core commuting hours, all because you have ways of alleviating the pain associated with difficulty getting to out of the way places. This allows people to make life decisions that they might not otherwise be able to make. And once you have a solid core, you can continue to grow it, by continuing to encourage long term ridership. Couple this with increasingly aggressive zoning changes to allow for density, and I think you could really grow out a transit system in 10-20 years.
But this is a fantasy of mine. It would likely be wildly unpopular to run an unprofitable program long enough to make all of this possible, and would probably only work in regions that have the potential for good transit anyways. You'd also need a large cohort of YIMBYs, that while currently growing in many regions, aren't guaranteed to still vote that way in a decade when they have more to lose.