It’s an ownership problem primarily - cities can blame states and states can blame the fed and the fed can blame the contractors. By the time anyone can figure

It’s an ownership problem primarily - cities can blame states and states can blame the fed and the fed can blame the contractors. By the time anyone can figure out who’s really at fault it’s election time again. Swiss cantons have virtually complete authority over their territories - it’s not surprising to me their large projects go much more smoothly: there are a single entity in charge and at blame. In American society we deal constantly with our division of power: funding comes from all levels and therefore a single hiccup can break the entire chain. Suggesting that a city or state have authority over its own systems makes one persona-non-grata in most conversations - even in SF where our Mayor doesn’t have the authority to even replace the MTA director. The failure of American politics isn’t that we’re all federal or all local - it’s that the buck stops nowhere. Fascism and confederacy have their obvious issues: but inability to build a subway is not one of them.