I don't understand why so many people assume that public transport needs to cover cost with fares. It provides immense public utility, even to the people who don't use it. It makes perfect sense to subsidize it. And it's not like taxes on cars pay for all their externalities.

I don't understand why so many people assume that others should pay for the services they consume.

Why should a relatively poor upstate new york taxpayer be paying 50% of the fare of some young finance bro going to work?

Also removing prices removes information. For instance the ferry costs something like $15 per rider to operate compared to around $5 for subway. With both trips at the same price to the consumer, you make the marginal rider indifferent to the two in terms of price where it would be beneficial to have that information to save money and divert resources to the more effective mode

I don't think the flow of money is from Upstate NY to NYC. And to take your example to it's logical conclusion, we'd end up in an AnCap paradise. Why should I pay for ANY socialized good or service that I don't use. Such as roads to places I'll never go, schools my child doesn't attend, and medical procedures that I don't need?

Size is important in that regard. I have less of an issue paying for socialized goods on a local level than I do at a much larger level. I'm willing to help a neighbor out, but less willing to help out someone on the other side of the earth. Local level is also more transparent and the officials in charge are more likely to be held responsible. I have more access to my mayor than I do my governor.

> roads to places I'll never go

Gasoline tax and toll roads are a good way of linking those who benefit to those who provide the good.

> schools my child doesn't attend

A lot of people move out of high tax neighborhoods when their kids graduate high school. I don't think school should be tied to real-estate anyway because it creates really perverse dynamics (people without money end up going to the worse funded schools). So that model doesn't exactly work well right now

> medical procedures that I don't need

I buy health insurance voluntarily and gladly pay for medical procedures that I don't need on the off chance that I need an expensive medical procedure in the future

After all, why should the city dweller pay for the roads being used by the upstate new yorker?

Right, the better estimate of how economical transit lines are would be fares + gain in property value from the presence of the lines. (Or, to get the units right, fares/year + gain in locational rental value/year.)

Or to look at it another way: assume some genie offered to dismantle the NYC train/subway system for free. Assume you're the government and only care about maximizing revenue. Would that be a good deal? Of course not, even if the system wasn't self-sustaining from fares.

Imagine if the trucking industry had to absorb the cost of the roads they damage.

Don’t they already do that through more expensive registration fees? “Apportioned” and (sometimes) commercial plates cost more than Joe Shmoe driving a Civic.

No, they don't pay anywhere near enough. https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-indu...

> The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project,

> The competing services for infra in NYC are cabs, car pools, private buses, bike rentals, scooters, subways.

You're conflating the infrastructure with the service on top of it. The equal comparison would be railroad project to motorcar roads & bridges. And the latter also have their share of cost overrun stories...

(Also, bridges are the rare case where a ship can compete. But, well, every rule has its exceptions.)

Oh and the fact that it's (even unreasonably) expensive has no bearing at all on the argument. There ain't gonna be some competitor building their own railway line regardless, or especially since the first one was so expensive.

Its an interesting example, subways seem to have some minor room for competition, so the argument against privatization based on "there cannot be competition" does not quite apply.

Even here though, there is a coordination problem to ensure various companies remain mutually compatible.

Competition on public transport is limited by the fact that you often need a cohesive network to get from A to B via C & D. If multiple companies cooperate on crossover ticketing and align their schedules, yes, it can work. Even more likely to work is a model where a central authority opens tenders for specific services, and transport companies can compete on that.

Then again, I don't think it's viable to build subway tracks and tunnels to compete. Even if you have space under the earth, there may not be space for more stations, and good station locations are important too.