Public transport shouldn't be treated as a simple commodity. Having good public transport increases the land value, decreases maintenance costs for roads, incre

Public transport shouldn't be treated as a simple commodity. Having good public transport increases the land value, decreases maintenance costs for roads, increases revenues for local shops, decreases polution and noise and the follow up health care costs and so on. So a public transport service can be year after year in the red, while hollistically generating a ton of value for everybody in the city. In my eyes the ig orance toward rhese other benefits is a shortcoming of the neoliberal ideas that have been popular over the past decades. Sure you can make a public transport company more financially viable by cutting services, but that comes with a hidden cost elsewhere. The goal should be to have public transport so good, reliable and clean that people won't even feel a need for a business class. Maybe this is my bias as someone who had the pleasure of growing up in the alps with very good public transport systems, but hey, why not.