If you look at how many people go in debt to own cars or the amount of credit on cars, you would see poor numbers there as well. Cars are incredible money sinks. There is a reason why Uber doesn't operate its own fleet.

If public transit billed by value it would easily be kept afloat. But the value proposition in most cities in America just isn't there, because they simply aren't dense enough. It's not a mythological idea. It's simple math.

> funny you mention Seattle, a city that blew over their recent rail budget by half a billion dollars [1]. plus is it also a city deferring maintenance to hide the costs of their folly.

Funny you mention things going over budget because nearly all infrastructure projects in this country do - yes, including roads. This is a problem with our government, not mass-transit solely.

In your very own article, the reasons stated for the price increase have nothing to do with mass transit inherently. They would be true of any infrastructure project.

By way of contrast the Millau Viaduct[2] cost approx. €400 million and the Øresund Bridge[3] cost approx €2.6 billion — and represents an order of magnitude more engineering challenge.

Civil engineering in the US just seems to cost a lot more than in other developed countries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bridg...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge

They have freedom to travel, but not freedom to live where they want. The United States has entirely banned dense housing in everywhere that people want to live, and this consequently makes transit impractical. Get rid of zoning restrictions on housing, and we'd be in a much different place.