This seems way too tightly focused on this one issue. If it were the case that longer distances between stops alone would result in increased ridership, then Las Vegas ought to have better ridership than most European cities by this article’s stats. Does it? Well, those stats aren’t mentioned in the article, but I’d be surprised, given that for the US cities for which I am familiar with their bus service, the average distance between stops is actually inversely correlated with the quality of the service. Hmmm.

I’m sure bus stop distance optimization is a good thing to do at the margins, but this article is not convincing that it’s the biggest problem with US bus service.

It's arguments is that all the better things are impossible to do without political will and money and therefore we should implement their bad idea.

Bus stops at the margins are actually cheapest because it often consists of a pole which is skipped 90% of the time. At the margin you already have fewer stops further apart and there is basically nothing to trim. If nobody is at the stop 90% of the time does it mean we don't need it? No. Your riders in that area may largely not be commuters and grandma needs to get out of the house and go to the store periodically.

You are paying near zero for 10 stops over 5 miles so that each run the bus can stop at a different 2 at a cost of 30 seconds per run.