Most public transport revenue also comes from the capital. While literally millions of London's commuters pay thousands of dollars a year each for the privilege of being herded into overfilled cattle cars twice a day, Welsh/Scots/Northerners don't actually use the public transport they demand and hence it runs at a massive loss until it inevitably gets shutdown yet again.
In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense to do that anyway, at least viewed from outer space.
Stepping away from 'the economy', London's public transport system is used because it's the only option. The roads are at capacity. I say this having driven basically every possible route in rush hour. They are full. I'm often surprised that we don't literally end up having gridlock and just all getting stuck forever.
A metro system in my small northern hometown would be pointless because there's hardly any road traffic so everyone just jumps in their car and has their nice personal space.
I find this quite interesting. Public transport has to be a better option for a critical mass to use it. This can happen either by it being much better (quicker), or by the alternatives simply ceasing to work.
This is incorrect. 40% of 'Transport for London' (TfL) spending comes from fares, and approx. 27% from government [0]. That represents a real cash subsidy of £3.1B per year for londoners.
The disparity in infrastructure spending per resident is even more stark [1]. London receives more than half of all such spending in England despite containing less than a sixth of its population.
[0] https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/how-we-ar... [1] http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/07/london-...
The real issue is does London pay more or less in taxes for transportation than it receives in transportation projects. Considering the population and relative income of London it ends up subsidizing the rest of the UK.