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I think the comment you reply to perhaps fundamentally misunderstands the economics of public transport. You raise good points about the benefits of having cent

I think the comment you reply to perhaps fundamentally misunderstands the economics of public transport. You raise good points about the benefits of having central planning for these things, but IMO the most important factor the people often mis is: public transport is not meant to be a revenue generator. Where almost all the efforts tend to collapse is the misguided and frankly idiotic notion that public transport should be directly self-funding or even profitable. The benefits of a well functioning public transport - and Switzerland is definitely a great example - are huge, but indirect. It is a force multiplier, it makes the economy function much better by allowing people to get to where they need to be en-masse and efficiently. It multiplies the number of people that can get to the city center and shop there, and by making this journey fast, safe and reliable, people will be more inclined to do it and spend money there. The $1 that is spent on public transport comes back in multiples in terms of commerce that it enables. Artificially crippling it by forcing it to generate revenue at the source will reduce these indirect benefits. The tragedy is that the indirect benefits are more difficult to quantify, and often get ignored in the face of punchy public hysteria about how much money is "wasted" on public transport... NB: I'm not saying that it should be a money sink, cost control is an important function in any organization. It's about the primary objective that public transport should fulfil.

noduerme 1y ago
>> The tragedy is that the indirect benefits are more difficult to quantify, and often get ignored in the face of punchy public hysteria about how much money is "wasted" on public transport... I think this view is much more prevalent in Europe. As absurd as Elon Musk's little tunnel under Las Vegas was, at the time, the American view was wild enthusiasm that some private company was doing something profitable to improve our lousy transit system. That's how desperate people were at seeing the ballooning costs of never-ending high speed rail projects that never even broke ground. Private transit was how the United States was built, all for profit, from the transcontinental railway up to and including the takeover and destruction of the city trolley lines by General Motors so they could put their busses on those rights-of-way. That was the point where it all went wrong, again, because a single conglomeration too large to fail managed to get the government to allow them to monopolize the market. This is where a control economy and a monopolistic market economy meet in a horseshoe. Monopolistic or "late stage" capitalism is increasingly difficult to distinguish from a command economy. That doesn't mean that the center between them isn't a very productive place. Whether crucial services like health and transport and housing are 20% private like France or 80% private like the US, is a matter worth debate. What really matters is that there's valid competition and freedom in both government and markets. Transport can always find ways to be both profitable and efficient, as long as there is sufficient competition. But under a monopoly (government or private) it winds up only being profitable or efficient. [Side note] Speaking of externalizing costs, I probably wouldn't be the first to note the amount of human waste on railway tracks throughout Switzerland. Just sayin'.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  The main alternative to buses is private cars running on public roads. Those public roads are a massive subsidy for private cars. If private cars paid directly for their road usage, then it's much more likely that private bussing could successfully compete. From the other perspective, a solid mass transit system significantly reduces the need for roads. It's likely cheaper for a city to expand its road capacity by adding buses than by adding lanes.
- panick21_ 1y ago
  > Private transit was how the United States was built, all for profit, from the transcontinental railway up to and including the takeover and destruction of the city trolley lines by General Motors so they could put their busses on those rights-of-way. This is only partly true. The transcontinental railroads got a huge amount from the government. Most specially land, and land that they didn't really even 'own'. It was the US military that made sure that land was available. And the trolley bus lines were private, before cars this was better, but the right of way was not guaranteed. And once cars were allow the same rights, their business collapsed. It wasn't really General Motors, that accounts for a very few lines, trolley lines on streets that allowed cars simply weren't possible anymore. If those trolley lines had understood this problem they would have continued owning the land instead of selling all the land. That was their biggest mistake. But even then, most would have simply turned into real-estate companies, rather then to continue to run the trolley. > What really matters is that there's valid competition and freedom in both government and markets. > Transport can always find ways to be both profitable and efficient, as long as there is sufficient competition. But under a monopoly (government or private) it winds up only being profitable or efficient. If you look at private US railroad history, there were many, many, very inefficient practices. In practice, individual railroad companies were just local monopolies. And those local monopolies did a very, very bad job working together. > [Side note] Speaking of externalizing costs, I probably wouldn't be the first to note the amount of human waste on railway tracks throughout Switzerland. Just sayin'. This is a problem that has been dealt long ago. No modern train have this anymore. Well to be more accurate, those trains still run sometimes, but the bathrooms are locked. But the same happened everywhere on the world.

noduerme 1y ago

>> The tragedy is that the indirect benefits are more difficult to quantify, and often get ignored in the face of punchy public hysteria about how much money is "wasted" on public transport... I think this view is much more prevalent in Europe. As absurd as Elon Musk's little tunnel under Las Vegas was, at the time, the American view was wild enthusiasm that some private company was doing something profitable to improve our lousy transit system. That's how desperate people were at seeing the ballooning costs of never-ending high speed rail projects that never even broke ground. Private transit was how the United States was built, all for profit, from the transcontinental railway up to and including the takeover and destruction of the city trolley lines by General Motors so they could put their busses on those rights-of-way. That was the point where it all went wrong, again, because a single conglomeration too large to fail managed to get the government to allow them to monopolize the market. This is where a control economy and a monopolistic market economy meet in a horseshoe. Monopolistic or "late stage" capitalism is increasingly difficult to distinguish from a command economy. That doesn't mean that the center between them isn't a very productive place. Whether crucial services like health and transport and housing are 20% private like France or 80% private like the US, is a matter worth debate. What really matters is that there's valid competition and freedom in both government and markets. Transport can always find ways to be both profitable and efficient, as long as there is sufficient competition. But under a monopoly (government or private) it winds up only being profitable or efficient. [Side note] Speaking of externalizing costs, I probably wouldn't be the first to note the amount of human waste on railway tracks throughout Switzerland. Just sayin'.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
The main alternative to buses is private cars running on public roads. Those public roads are a massive subsidy for private cars. If private cars paid directly for their road usage, then it's much more likely that private bussing could successfully compete. From the other perspective, a solid mass transit system significantly reduces the need for roads. It's likely cheaper for a city to expand its road capacity by adding buses than by adding lanes.
panick21_ 1y ago
> Private transit was how the United States was built, all for profit, from the transcontinental railway up to and including the takeover and destruction of the city trolley lines by General Motors so they could put their busses on those rights-of-way. This is only partly true. The transcontinental railroads got a huge amount from the government. Most specially land, and land that they didn't really even 'own'. It was the US military that made sure that land was available. And the trolley bus lines were private, before cars this was better, but the right of way was not guaranteed. And once cars were allow the same rights, their business collapsed. It wasn't really General Motors, that accounts for a very few lines, trolley lines on streets that allowed cars simply weren't possible anymore. If those trolley lines had understood this problem they would have continued owning the land instead of selling all the land. That was their biggest mistake. But even then, most would have simply turned into real-estate companies, rather then to continue to run the trolley. > What really matters is that there's valid competition and freedom in both government and markets. > Transport can always find ways to be both profitable and efficient, as long as there is sufficient competition. But under a monopoly (government or private) it winds up only being profitable or efficient. If you look at private US railroad history, there were many, many, very inefficient practices. In practice, individual railroad companies were just local monopolies. And those local monopolies did a very, very bad job working together. > [Side note] Speaking of externalizing costs, I probably wouldn't be the first to note the amount of human waste on railway tracks throughout Switzerland. Just sayin'. This is a problem that has been dealt long ago. No modern train have this anymore. Well to be more accurate, those trains still run sometimes, but the bathrooms are locked. But the same happened everywhere on the world.