Yes I think a station on almost every single block downtown could work, but that means a separate tunnel or pair of tunnels under almost every street, assuming a grid pattern. Stations shouldn't serve every tunnel on a block because that makes it too difficult to group people.

What will help is the app and algorithm grouping people nearby headed in the same direction to minimize stops. It also could mean the user agreement for the service allows TBC's app to recommend people walk up to ___ feet further to a station that isn't actually the closest. If there's a station an extra block away that works better for the algorithm pooling people, that's how it's got to be.

Obviously lawyers familiar with the ADA will help write the rules.

Also remember maximizing pooling matters most when tunnels are at and near vehicle capacity. The rest of the time having fewer passengers per vehicle isn't a big deal, other than the expense of providing service through electricity and wear and tear on the vehicles.

At 5 pm downtown starts swarming with people getting off work. There's so many people that getting a bunch of them to the same station for a pod going in the same direction should be easy.

At 7:40 am in the suburbs there's less density so stations have some distance apart, but there's still a bunch of people going towards downtown, so a pod picking them up at a suburban station makes a few stops downtown dropping them off.

For smaller number of people going to less dense locations, the algorithm could request/require people transfer. A few pods cross paths stopping at the same station near or on their route. Some passengers get out and change pods. Maybe the transfer adds a 1-4 additional minutes to those trips, but each vehicle has more passengers.