I agree.

This:

> I suspect that removing half of the bus stops in a city will piss people off and cause even less ridership.

is thrown out but how do we know it's true? That commenter throws it out as their opinion but my opinion is the opposite -- the stated preference will be that people think it's bad but the revealed preference will show even more ridership as travel times improve.

I suspect the evidence here would fall mostly on the side of "it increases ridership", though it's probably hard to study, as it's rarely done in isolation, but more commonly as part of route redesign.