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Comment by dexterdog | Hacker News Reader

There is a point here. Public transportation is great, but under the incredibly inefficient management of the government it will almost always cost anywhere from 2x to 10x what it really should. That means it not only costs more, but takes longer to complete and is possibly irrelevant by the time it is actually usable. This wasn't the case in the past as much it is today and it's only getting worse.

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This almost reads like a mad lib of every surface level, trope-like critique of publicly funded initiatives without actually saying anything at all of substance.

Government may be inefficient at times but so far they've been the most consistent purveyor of public mass transportation. It may not be great but I think in the larger picture the general public is probably well satisfied with transit that is consistent if you polled riders.

No mass transit system makes a profit, at least the last time I talked to someone who was heavily involved in the numbers. They require a subsidy of, what was it, 70%? That doesn’t make it wrong, but it has to be considered.

That is wrong. The Munich public transport system has been turning a profit for at least 15 years out of the last 17. For the two missing years, I did not find numbers or sources, but it's probably the same.

Pretty sure there are others that run successfully.

BTW only road systems where you pay for every mile you drive (see e.g. motorways in France, Spain, Italy) turn a profit. All others are, basically, just a waste of taxpayers money ;-)

It's usually failed policies and nincompompous administration that make public transport systems fail.

Sources: >https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre... >https://www.swm.de/dam/swm/dokumente/unternehmen/swm/geschae...

MTR in Hong Kong was making $2B per year in profit. The model they use is largely the same one being tried in Florida where real estate projects are integrated with the rail system.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-pr...

No road system makes a profit either, but very few people seriously discuss getting government out of the road business.

The Metrolink in Manchester - the UK's largest light rail network - is entirely funded by fares and receives no operational subsidy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Metrolink

The cost of a blue line ticket in Chicago — a line running from downtown out to O’Hare and out west past city limits - is $2.50. If you take it every day, a monthly pass is... $120 or so? That’ll take you anywhere: buses & trains.

Do you have an example of where this a) exists b) isn’t government-run, c) cheaper?

$105, and you can get it pre-tax with the right employers.

I disagree that public transportation is great, it's shit, it's crowded and uncomfortable. I avoid it outside of Amtrak. I don't agree with the article but if the choice is CTA or Uber pool im taking Uber for roughly the same cost.

Where do you take Uber pool that is similarly priced to CTA?!

Didn't even use a throwaway account to make your slightly dissenting opinion, brave.

I see the same things in my area with the light rail that was years late, millions overbudget and still is largely underutilized. I am a proponent of mass transit but not every plan is worth endorsing.

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