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That's a very American point of view.

Here in Paris, public transit is run by the state since the war and works really well. It's going to be open to private concessions in a few years (buses first, subway in 20 or 30 years) because of European regulations, I'm not sure it will change for the better...

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Yes, the topic of the thread is US transit. Saying "this works fine in Europe" is at best a non-starter.

Governments are different. What works in France may not work in NYC for all sorts of reasons. For better or worse, the US federal government and most state and local governments are not good at running anything in an efficient manner.

In NYC in particular, the subway is run by the New York State-owned corporation, MTA. It's not that bad, but it's known for slowness and huge cost of any projects it undertakes. Half of its budget is subsidies.

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