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> It's not like tram | streetcar services can't be built to run safely an profitably. During the era of private subways in New York City, regulations fixed the

by Aunche 2y ago

> It's not like tram | streetcar services can't be built to run safely an profitably. During the era of private subways in New York City, regulations fixed the price of subway fares and it would be political suicide to change this. After decades of inflation, subway companies were forced to operate at a loss and eventually had to be taken over by the city. > I guess the big question here is what makes the USofA so poor at delivering functional public transport? I suspect that the reason the government is so inefficient at a lot of things is a curse of the country having to much money. Most of the smart people work in lucrative careers, and most of the very passionate people become entrepreneurs. The are politicians who are both, but they're incentivized to politick rather than write effective policy.

IIAOPSW 2y ago
I don't like calling the dual contracts "the era of private subways". The history of the subway is such that every time it starts to look like it fits an ideological narrative (be it pro-capitalism or pro-socialism), you learn some detail that completely pulls the rug out. Yes the price of a subway fare was originally fixed at 5 cents. But that wasn't some top down "regulation" imposed on otherwise successful private ventures by lefty city government. The reality is the subway was never wholly public or private. In modern terms it was built as a P3. The city contracted to have the subway built, but it did not have all the funds it needed for this project, so part of the payment was that the contractors would be granted a monopoly to also run the service and collect the fares for 50 years. The 5 cent fare cap was one of the stipulations which the city put into the contracts so that the private companies couldn't turn around and gouge the public using their monopoly on something built with large public subsidy in the first place.

by Aunche 2y ago

IIAOPSW 2y ago

I don't like calling the dual contracts "the era of private subways". The history of the subway is such that every time it starts to look like it fits an ideological narrative (be it pro-capitalism or pro-socialism), you learn some detail that completely pulls the rug out. Yes the price of a subway fare was originally fixed at 5 cents. But that wasn't some top down "regulation" imposed on otherwise successful private ventures by lefty city government. The reality is the subway was never wholly public or private. In modern terms it was built as a P3. The city contracted to have the subway built, but it did not have all the funds it needed for this project, so part of the payment was that the contractors would be granted a monopoly to also run the service and collect the fares for 50 years. The 5 cent fare cap was one of the stipulations which the city put into the contracts so that the private companies couldn't turn around and gouge the public using their monopoly on something built with large public subsidy in the first place.