Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

I mean even just perusing around a lot of metro areas on Google Maps its by far the norm. I know its by far the norm for just about every metro I've spent more than a week or two in.

Definitely not universal, no. And in some place the "norm" can be pretty different, even in somewhat surprising locales. But generally speaking? Yeah, pretty terrible experience for a lot of pedestrians and cyclists in US suburbia.

I mean, most places I've visited traveling around the US suburbia, bike lanes were practically non-existent, there was zero notable public transit at all, and sidewalks were usually an afterthought if they existed at all.

This is not the market for some fruit or some generic consumer good, with competition at all levels and a very flexible incentive structure that will move resources around to make the product as good and as cheap as possible, creating even different grades where demand justifies it.

This is more a piece-wise single provider structure that only has incentives to extract as much money as possible from the user, and substitute services are also pushed up indiscriminately by the government/regulators hierarchy, that sees them as a politically manageable way to fund massive pressure groups.

The NHS works under similar incentives and is also way out of hand by now.

Internally, the incentive to improve processes and infrastructure is much diminished by the fact that money isn't allocated on value or even perceived value, but established budgets that actually get locally lost if they are not spent, so oftentimes spending more for the same is better. Any improvement or extra budget allocation is a power struggle between localities and political pressure groups.

Trying to introduce competition has also been a massive failure. You have companies outsourcing as much of the maintenance as possible to the infrastructure regulator, squatting lesser profitable lines with skeleton-crew service, and actively impeding the entry of other operators.

It's not a matter of subsidies, sweet-spot for prices and passenger capacity. It's much deeper than that.

The Dutch system is primarily public and primarily operated by NS which is a public operator. The Japanese system is primarily private and operated by private companies, and the regulator has a tight control over it. The British system is hard to even categorise. It's a flailing mish-mash of public/private operation that goes back and forth and that is incompetently regulated.

If I compare this to China (just because I travel on the trains there quite a lot whenever I visit), they have a simple price structure - it's all per kilometre (and so weirdly, the quickest trains are often slightly cheaper as they've gone a shorter route), and have 4 set prices - first class (very comfortable, lots of room), VIP (even more space and only the front 8 seats of the train), second class (about the same standard as UK trains) and standing. Occasionally there's also a business class seat too.

An example of the prices, I just checked the app online. For Shenzhen to Guangzhou (136km), the next train is a 90 minute journey. The price of the standing seat and the second class are the same, first class is 25% higher, VIP seat is first class plus 50%, business seat is VIP plus 100%. If you pay for a seat, you get allocated seating and nobody would dream of sitting in your seat and not moving. The base price in this example is second class at about £8 for the journey, the most expensive ticket is about £28.

There is a bullet train half an hour later that takes 30 minutes for the same journey, because it goes a more direct route, it's cheaper and the second class ticket is under £5. This also has sleeping cabins (not useful on this route as it's between 2nd and 3rd stations on a very long journey) which is about £24.

Standing tickets used to be priced at a discount, but they seem to be the same as the second class tickets nowadays. I guess this discourages people from getting them (there are over 10 trains per hour for this route, so you'd just pick a different train) but it means your expectations about sitting or standing are made up front when buying the ticket and if you absolutely have to get on the train and don't mind standing, you can. But most people would wait for the next train.

Obviously, the peak time trains can sell out quickly, so people book earlier or later as required for a train with availability. Normally, tickets go on sale exactly 2 weeks early, but even on the day there's usually seating availability on one of those "local" services (like this one that's just under 100 miles) within the hour, and for the long distance ones there's usually some availability same day, maybe just at an inconvenient time. But the prices are the same whenever travel, so it's about choosing a ticket that works right for you.

Also, because the prices of all the tickets are the same, even though you have pre-booked tickets, there's more flexibility. Every ticket can be changed for free once before you travel, so if you get to the station early and there are seats available on the train you want, you can cancel yours and get those seats without penalty. Even more amazingly, if you miss your train, you can still cancel it and rebook a later train with only a 20% penalty, as long as you do it within 24 hours of your scheduled departure.

Yes, Chinese trains are subsidised, but it's a wonderful service. Delays do happen, but nowhere near as bad as the UK, on a 4-5 hour journey over 1000+ kilometers I've sometimes been a few minutes late.

Mind you, aviation in China is also amazing. I remember deciding one day while travelling to bail on a city because the weather forecast was another week of rain. I got a ticket for a 1500 km flight (2.5 hours) the day before the flight for £100, which is comparable to the cost of a train but about twice as fast (I think it would have been 7 hours). The airlines aren't subsidised, but these do sell out around busy periods like public holidays and the prices can balloon at those times.

But anyway, the elasticity in China is done on seat availability, not pricing. If a train is full, you book another one, so if a specific time is important to you, you book further in advance. But whenever you book, if you have a ticket, at least it's going to be a pleasant journey and reasonably priced. Sometimes if a train is unexpectedly sold out, about an hour or two before departure they'll add an extra carriage or two to increase capacity, and again this tickets are priced at the standard price.

I am all for good public transport but a nominal price is better than free. It's a similar issue with public health system: a completely free one gets abused.

People say they don't want immigrants because of crime (whether that's a reasonable concern is a different topic entirely), but it presupposes that laws against crime aren't enforced. If we had stricter law enforcement would people worry about (immigrants, the homeless, etc.) less?

2) If there's sufficient money and will available to fund the transportation system to that level, then sure, that's great. But in most cases, I think it's better to just direct expansions in government train budgets towards expanding the network, not making it cheaper. Most people who drive cars don't drive because trains are expensive, they drive cars because there's no train at the time and place they want. Making trains cheaper doesn't address this problem.

That's very easy to say, and very unpopular to actually do. People on the country side would for example not feel it's fair for them to pay for the much more complicated public transport system in the city, when they get one train going by their village every few hours for it.

Neoliberal governments don't do this, but they lie about why.

Other than that - of course you could.

Governments also lie about who gets subsidised, and why.

Generally subsidies go to the oligarchy, which makes constant attempts to "cut wasteful and inefficient public spending", because the oligarchy believes poor people don't deserve nice things.

(Not just rhetoric, btw.)

It's a political issue, not a practical one.

There are sociological reasons why you might want some kind of fare income, but they're more to do with adding some token resistance to accessing the system than making money from it.