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In the US, the government took over public transit, usually after making life hell for it, and then proceeded to not adequately fund maintenance. NYC is a grea

In the US, the government took over public transit, usually after making life hell for it, and then proceeded to not adequately fund maintenance. NYC is a great example. In exchange for access, two companies signed contracts with the city that limited prices to $0.05. They built a large portion of the existing lines and made a good chunk of change. But the City wanted to own them, and inflation stepped into the picture decades later. Turns out, a nickel wasn't worth the same anymore and couldn't cover costs. Rather than allow prices to rise, the City bought up the two companies while building a third system (the IND). It also doubled fares after unifying. Hmm.... Then it put out an elected board to vote on fare increases. Guess what the winning stance was? No increase. Eventually the system decayed as the subsidies didn't cover maintenance and deferred maintenance eventually became a major issue. The system today still has 1930s and 50s technology. If anything, the US public transit systems (which had similar stories in other cities) are evidence against American governments running infrastructure. We are underfunding other important pieces of infrastructure from roads to bridges to sewers, so the next few decades should be fun as cheaply built suburbs deal with infrastructure costs rising.

rmah 10y ago
I lived in NYC for over a decade. Generally speaking, the train (aka subways) is comprehensive, fast, safe and reliable. While a few parts may be very old, the trains are all relatively new and quite nice. Oh, and fares have increased many many times. Many people always complain when it does. And NYC is still building new subway lines. Construction is underway right now on a new east side line.
ant6n 10y ago
The new York subway is used often as an example of how well the private sector can build infrastructure. But really, those two private systems (bmt, irt) where the original PPP. New York city actually backed those systems with municipal loans (bonds), which is a pretty big subsidy - and a setup of "private profits, public losses". In any case, the two private systems are badly designed relative to one another: bad transfers, redundancies. The IND built by the public is overall much better designed. The fact that both the private and public where able to build giant subway systems in the 10s-40s but it all fell apart after, should give some idea that it wasn't anything inherent to being public or private that allowed building it and made it difficult later, but other factors.

rmah 10y ago

I lived in NYC for over a decade. Generally speaking, the train (aka subways) is comprehensive, fast, safe and reliable. While a few parts may be very old, the trains are all relatively new and quite nice. Oh, and fares have increased many many times. Many people always complain when it does. And NYC is still building new subway lines. Construction is underway right now on a new east side line.

ant6n 10y ago

The new York subway is used often as an example of how well the private sector can build infrastructure. But really, those two private systems (bmt, irt) where the original PPP. New York city actually backed those systems with municipal loans (bonds), which is a pretty big subsidy - and a setup of "private profits, public losses". In any case, the two private systems are badly designed relative to one another: bad transfers, redundancies. The IND built by the public is overall much better designed. The fact that both the private and public where able to build giant subway systems in the 10s-40s but it all fell apart after, should give some idea that it wasn't anything inherent to being public or private that allowed building it and made it difficult later, but other factors.