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.