Previously Houston had a system much like DART buses with convoluted route systems that served the entire service area equally poorly. Thus, ridership suffered. Instead, they focused on route efficiency, prioritizing corridors with high potential for ridership (high levels of origins and destinations), and increased frequency to improve reliability that you wouldn't be standing for an hour waiting for the next bus and improved travel speeds to get you to your destination. The market is responding. And because it is responding so strongly, I have to imagine this will lead to bumps in real estate value along some of these frequent bus corridors.
And they did it without a change to the operating budget, which means service levels of certain areas dropped. Such is the trade-off when acknowledging the inherent hierarchical nature of transit. All areas and all people can't be served equally. And the effort to do so undermines the overall service level and, in turn, ridership.
