Sorting that wikipedia table by recovery ratio, I see most of the profitable ones are in East Asia and distance based:

Osaka (OMTB) 137%, Hong Kong MTR 124%, Osaka (Hankyu Railway) 123%, Tokyo Metro 119%, London Underground 107%, Singapore (SMRT) 101%, Taipei Metro 100%.

Clearly it is possible to have profitable subways, so I don't think we should drop profitability as a goal.

The business entity that owns the subway being profitable is not the same as the subway being profitable. MTR for instance is a real estate developer as well as a subway operator:

"As compensation for the cost of building railway networks, the government grants the MTR Corporation land development rights along its rail lines, stations and depots – an increasingly lucrative business in recent years amid a red-hot property market."

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2136403/...

It's well understood by the locals that the Hong Kong (and possibly other Asian cities) system reaps most of it's revenue from land rights around/immediately above the stations. In

In Asia transit hubs are often also retail hubs and the commercial rents become profit for the public transit system. This makes perfect sense as the retail value of the nearby land can most obviously be credited to the transit system.

I'd imagine that the problem with the United States is that this real estate was sold early on or was never owned by by the transit system allowing the spillover benefits of transit hubs to be captured by private interests.

Yeah, majority of Hong Kong subway stations has malls on premise. Not sure it's owned by MTR too, but it's there.

Farebox recovery ratio is not a measure of net profit, it is a measure of operating profit specifically for transit assets, with only fares counting as revenues. In other words, the MTR's subway lines are profitable entirely by themselves. The real estate profits are just a cherry on top.

Isn't that part of the problem? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall hearing from someone that the MTA sold a good portion of its real estate and so lost sources of income.

I'm not all knowledgeable in this, so if someone who knows more of its history can chime in please do.

The statistics are misleading. I can say a bit about Japanese subways; they generally have handful profitable lines (e.g. Midosuji line in Osaka Metro---previously known as OMTB---, or Ginza line in Tokyo Metro) and lots of non-profitable lines. For private subways like Hankyu, the codevelopment of subway lines and neighboring metropolitan area was crucial for their long-lasting profitability (in this sense, Hankyu is not a subway corporation). If we want profitability as a goal, we should just drop those non-profitable lines or subways in general, but of course that would be a public disaster.

Just because a profitable subway exist does not mean it's possible anywhere in the world. The location, geography, culture and population density all affect profitability.

> The location, geography, culture and population density all affect profitability.

I would argue none of these should be issues in NYC except for the "culture", if in that you include mismanagement culture.

Its true subways have lots of positive externalities not captured by the fares, that it would actually be better to have a deficit subway system than to not have it at all, both for economic reasons and plain welfare, but there's no need to abandon the profitability goal for that.

IT is possible to devise a tax system that will capture some of that positive externality and make the subway better. It should be intuitive that the properties that got amazing value increases due to the subway should have an increased tax burden on them. A subway-proximity tax could be enough to turn subway profitable: and to easily fund expanding it!

Yeah, but they offer extensive coverage and are reliable - also somewhat expensive. To get such thing for NY - you need to drill a lot more tunnels and fast and make sure trains run on time.

I don't think you need to drill tunnels. That hasn't happened (much) in London, yet there's been a marked improvement in the core service over the last 20 years.

London's network is older and has smaller tunnels. It also only has single tunnels in each direction (so if a train breaks down the whole line stops).

The difference is that the network has had steady investment under single management for a prolonged period. Londoners have suffered through closures for engineering work, but ageing systems have been upgraded and gradually the benefit is being felt.

Never been to NYC but I think that the MTA rail coverage is way lower especially in the non Manhattan boroughs compared to the London Underground, Overground, DLR and National rail. You could get from any point in London to anypoint for less than an hour only by rail and walking.

> You could get from any point in London to anypoint for less than an hour only by rail and walking.

Whilst in general I agree with the sentiment of your comment, this is not true. Lots of residential areas in Greater London will have ~20 min walk to nearest tube or overground, and if you're going across the city, the train part of your journey can definitely be > 40 min.

As an example, I've got two friends, one lives in Wimbledon (far south), the other in Barnet (far north). It takes quite a bit longer than an hour for one to get to the other's house.

> I've got two friends, one lives in Wimbledon (far south), the other in Barnet (far north).

That isn't a fair assessment. Metro lines are used to enhance mobility within urban areas. Their goal is to replace cars and 20-30min walks with a 5-10 metro ride with an additional 5min walk. That's why typically subway stations are placed about 500m to 800m apart, and the system's commercial speed is designed to be around 50km/h.

For long commutes, such as going from far north to far south, there is an entirely different system: commuter rail. Their stations are further apart, their commercial speed is higher, and so is the passenger volume.

Just to provide an example, Madrid is served by both rapid transit network (madrid metro) ans a commuter rail system (madrid cercanias). It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to cross Madrid riding the metro network, but the commuter rail takes about 15 or 20 minutes.

That's an ideal and not actual reality.

Taking London as an example, there aren't many ways to cross London in such a way using commuter rail (ThamesLink currently and Crossrail in the future are probably the only two?). Most people would still use the tube.

That's why 1hr + journeys in London are not uncommon.

(edited to add) London and New York are also much much larger cities than Madrid. It's not really a fair comparison.

It is a fair assessment, because I did take into account commuter rail, which is not any faster - a quick Google maps check says both tube and rail (of any form - overground, national rail, etc.) journeys come to around 1 hr 40 mins.

Yea, MTA also includes Long Island RR and Metro North. NJ has Path and NJ transit.

NYC isn't circular so going from Bronx to Brooklyn is 30 miles.

> also somewhat expensive

Ha, what? My old commute on the Singapore MRT - 5 stations - cost me the grand sum of SGD$1.07 (USD0.78). Even to the airport is only a couple of bucks.

Tokyo isn't quite as cheap but it's still very affordable.

I don't know about the others, but Hong Kong's system has far fewer stops and is mostly cheaper (it's distance-based and exceeds New York's flat fee at the high end) than New York's. The reliability difference rings true, though.

That's fuzzy accounting. For example tax revenue from NYC subway-generated activity isn't counted (and missing taxes on subway generated windfalls are ignored completely), but Japanese commercial profits near trains is counted. The Subway is a multi billion (trillion?) dollar handout to landowners.

Thank you for the link. The ratio in Paris where I live is 30%, but I think it's not just subway that's included, but also light rail around the city, tram and buses. Still with the price we're paying I would have though the ratio would be higher. It must be caused by fare jumpers and the work for renovation/new lines. It's also not helped by the yearly strikes by the local union for political reasons.

The article should have mentioned this, as well as why rider volume is down.

I expect it to break even or turn a profit. It's the most perfect way to gauge it's true economic value. Unfortunately for tax payers, it's only subsidizing otherwise intolerable commuting conditions, and acts as a strong subsidy to downtown property owners.

> It's the most perfect way to gauge it's true economic value.

Seems like an incredidibly narrow-minded way to gauge its economic value to me.

Well, why? The OP has asserted that NY transit delivers vast economic benefits that offset its loss making nature. Fine, I can buy that to some extent, but how big exactly are these benefits? How do we know they're actually so big and not in reality quite small?

Well, we could do some one-off studies and hope that Excel is used properly, but why? We already have mechanisms that figure out the value of things and allocate resources appropriately, they're markets. The unviable nature of public transit suggests systematic resource allocation problems, created politically. If there were really such huge beneficial side effects, it wouldn't matter if ticket prices rose a lot, that'd just get priced in to other things like cost of goods near transit stops.

For instance maybe every ride in NY should be 2x or 3x the current price for the costs of the system to be worthwhile, but public transit is usually government owned and politicians aren't willing to bite the bullet on that.

(This is all kind of beside the point that NY's transit problems are mostly due to localized cost absurdity, but...)

I don't disagree that it's hard to quantify the exact economic value, but you can't use a free market to solve coordination problems like public transit.

Coordination failure in stages:

1) A transit line that goes where you want, when you want for only a fraction of your trips means you need a second means of travel the rest of the time.

2) Having a second means of travel on hand (e.g. a car) means that you're less likely to use the transit line when it would work for you.

3) Lack of use of the transit line leads halted growth and reduced service.

4) Reduced service further drives users away

5) Evidence of failure causes a loss of investor/government support.

6) Transit line dies slowly to the extent that political inertia allows.

Or to put it another way, asking a transit line to pay to for itself is like saying "if human beings really wanted world peace they could have all just disarmed!", ignoring the fact that until everyone else is disarmed you'd be a fool to disarm yourself.

And if you succeed and build a critical-mass, sustainable system you've just swapped your market problem for a natural monopoly and have to use non-market techniques to deal with the monopoly service provider. (And now we're back to NY)

> (This is all kind of beside the point that NY's transit problems are mostly due to localized cost absurdity, but...)

This is the entire point. You cannot dismiss it. What conditions allow the costs to rise so high in NYC?

> A transit line that goes where you want, when you want for only a fraction of your trips means you need a second means of travel the rest of the time.

Why should anyone want to go any place, and what makes them so entitled to receive such a transportation service? People, like businesses, will follow economic incentives. I'm sure landlords and real estate developers love the metro system, it brings great value to the otherwise less desirable realestate. For ever dollar someone doesn't pay to ride the metro, that's a dollar more in rent an apartment can charge.

You have to look at the big picture and figure out who these mass transit systems actually benefit.

Everyone wants to go everywhere - because people live Everywhere and have jobs Everywhere and their friends live Everywhere and there are stores Everywhere.

No one is entitled to anything - you added that word apropos of nothing in my post.