In my opinion most in the US are far too concerned about running public infrastructure plans at a profit. The example that comes to my mind most readily is mas

In my opinion most in the US are far too concerned about running public infrastructure plans at a profit. The example that comes to my mind most readily is mass transit. Living in Taiwan, I've seen absolutely amazing changes over a relatively short amount of time. In 1997, Taipei city was hellish. literally millions of people drove their scooters to and from work every day, traffic was terrible, commutes were slow and air was so bad that it was common to see people walking on the sidewalk wearing facemasks. Now, there's a fairly extensive subway system that links to both a traditional rail system and a high-speed rail (top speed 300km/h) that goes to every major city on the island. In Taipei, commute times from one side of the city to the other dropped from 3 hours to less than one. People don't wear masks to walk on the sidewalks anymore, either. The system has been a major improvement economically, environmentally and in terms of quality of life. In fact, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that subway system saved the city. However, it was an investment. Nobody expected fares to pay the costs of constructing the subway directly. The government spent the equivalent of over 30 billion US dollars on it and while it was undoubtedly a good investment, it was one that only the public sector would undertake.