I think treating it as vital infrastructure is one way to get it to work properly (assuming federal, state, and local gov't can get their act together enough to

I think treating it as vital infrastructure is one way to get it to work properly (assuming federal, state, and local gov't can get their act together enough to do a good job of it), I don't know much about the historical precedent but I would imagine a lot of public systems in Europe work that way. But private companies seem to have done a good job of making Tokyo's system work well (see my comments above about how since they own the land on stations, they have a huge incentive to make it painless to get to them and derive profit from that); I wonder if given the general ineffectiveness of American bureaucracy right now, if a private approach with the right incentives would be more politically feasible. That all said, I think the article brings up plenty of good points about how transit has been hobbled in the USA, that aren't entirely attributable to the business vs infrastructure mindset.