Where privatization has been done in Europe service has largely worsened. Shouldn't be surprising since these services are fundamentally a natural monopoly.
New York's subways were built by private companies. So were America's railroads.
> Where privatization has been done in Europe service has largely worsened
Counterpoint: Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_land_grants_in_the_Un...
The government gave them over 700 000km2 of land as an incentive. In case that number means nothing to you: That is France. Or Texas.
These rights of way were also essential to building the first information superhighway: The telegraph network.
America has always built great infrastructure, when people in office are willing to spend dollars for the public good.
Absolutely. I’m not arguing for the superiority of private enterprise. Just that we shouldn’t be biased to one model versus another, particularly when it comes to building versus operating infrastructure. It’s eminently true that this infrastructure was built by private companies. Same is true for what Uber is proposing. The lesson is that there needs to be public guidance, not that we should say no to protect bus drivers or whatnot.
Didn't this cause a lot of problems, which is why they were eventually consolidated under a public authority?
I do find interesting and cool that private urban transport seems to work well in Japan and do wonder what's the system around this private ownership to have it work as well as it does.
They went bankrupt. So the city bailed them out. Then New York City went bankrupt. So the state bailed us out.
That's not even remotely true. Which I only found out two paragraphs into this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_S... because it was apparent to me that you leaving out the rest of the story (i.e. why the city took over the subway) was misleading.
It absolutely is. The lines were mostly built with private resources. Before 1913, the city didn’t own the lines. (IND didn’t open until ‘32.)
The lines’ burial happened at the behest of the state. But none of it was cleanly public or private. My point is private or public involvement shouldn’t be an automatic DQ. Public institutions can be efficient. Private ones socially useful.