Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback. Most of that return is not direct in the form of ticket revenues, but externalised in the form of economic growth along the metro routes, as well as environmental and social benefits.

Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and loan guarantees) from governments.

> Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback

Actually that's far from the truth. Any form of railway transport, with some notable exceptions like some french TGV lines, are absurd money sinks. The value of railway services in particular but public transportation systems in genetal manifest themselves mainly as externalities.

Right. That's exactly what I wrote in my comment above.

You've stated that there is a payback. There isn't. It's a money sink, and the only way that such a project is justified is mainly by state funding (public service contracts, state-owned corporations, etc)

There is no need for the initiative to be for profit. People are perfectly capable of getting together and doing stuff - in much bigger scale than a metro.

Yes, and when they do, we sometimes call it "government".

Nope. No one is allowed to opt out and people are forced to pay even though they don't want to or straight up can't use it and/or don't agree with it.

No one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country.

The problem with your argument is you seem to want all the benefits for yourself with zero drawbacks. Society doesn't work like this and successful societies will never work like this.

> No one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country.

That's a page taken out of the fascist dictatorship's playbook. If your position was remotely defendable I'm sure that the best argument you could come up wouldn't be a variant of "if you don'agree with me then let me expell you from where you were born".

I don't want any of the "benefits" for the price they're forced to me. That's the whole point.

The market did build those. Look up robber barons.

This was pre car, it's hard to find recent examples.

We did have robber barons build one here, look up the länsimetro.