Curtis wrote: there has been a drive to divert all bus riders to MAX, then back to busses on their commute.

The numbers do not show this. Over the past 20 years since the first implementation of MAX, there ratio of boarding rides to originating rides has remained relatively constant. (Originating rides count complete one-way journeys, regardless of whether transfers are involved. Boarding rides are count how many people step onto a transit vehicle, regardless of whether it is the first stage in a journey or a transfer.)

If masses of transit users were indeed being forced to make transfers, then this ratio would have changed dramatically over the past two decades.