4 ms·

Who would buy it? The system has $40 billion in debt, plus pension obligations, plus union contracts. The only way to make money on this privately would be decl

• FreakyT 9y ago
  Completely agree -- not to mention that the reason it stopped being privately owned in the first place was that the original companies went out of business.
  • oconnor663 9y ago
    Wasn't there some story about the city prohibiting them from raising fares? I don't have a source though.
    • andrewla 9y ago
      I wasn't aware of this, so I looked around a bit and found this [1] from a book about the history of the subway system. Apparently they kept trying to raise it, but were blocked by the mayor, Walker. Of course, the first order of business after it was taken over by the state was to raise the fare. Edit: found the underlying case, [2], but it looks less than straightforward -- the fixed fair was a condition of the leases on the right-of-way of the train system, and the attempt was made to charge a second fare when a certain boundary was crossed. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=LYSVd43vZwQC&lpg=PR13&ots=xIlUM2l1N4&dq=irt%20fare&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=LYSVd43vZwQC&lpg=PR13&ots=... [2] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/279/159/case.html https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/279/159/case.htm...
    • fjsolwmv 9y ago
      Even in model Japan privatized rail, the govt still regulates fares.
• valuearb 9y ago
  The city is going to have to eat the debt/pensions anyways. Privatize so they can get help paying that debt, and system improvements can’t be held hostage anymore.