Public transit gets consumers to the mall and other shopping areas where they can circulate their hard-earned cash in a capitalist economic system.

Public transit gets individual cars off the road, increases safety of those roads, and makes everybody's transportation more efficient.

Likewise, if you want them to be, so is public transport.

Though, here's a question: I don't think I've ever seen planes classified as public transport — is that just my observations being weird, or is that a true distinction? And if genuine, why?

The fact that long-distance highways tend to be free speaks more to politics than logic, and there are a few notable exceptions (eg Japan) where all expressways are tolled.

And in Switzerland for example you just pay a really high gas tax that funds the highway, plus you have to pay a one time fee and get a sticker, otherwise you are not allowed to drive on the highway.

I think using the train is more like using the car. I can agree that the tracks are a public good, but actually using the train is clearly different from that. Just like the government provides me roads, but not with rides.

> I don't think I've ever seen planes classified as public transport I guess my framework fits that, because while you may need to maintain the air and the airport, the individual flights only help the individual person.

In remote parts of the world, planes absolutely should be classified as public transport. Remote towns in Alaska, for example, are essentially inaccessible without bush planes.

However, planes are expensive to operate on a per-passenger basis, and in most places there are cheaper ways to facilitate helping people move around, especially since most trips from most people are short-distance.

You happen to be misconstruing the two definitions of "public good":

> a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization.

> the benefit or well-being of the public.

As such, something can be a "public good" without being "a benefit".

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZoHHbOut...

If there were no fountain, then many people would get water bottles and that's too big of a hassle.

Defining a public good is quite hard, and any definition will most likely other controversial terms like "reasonably" or "foreseeable" in them. However, I think a public good is something that can be shared by many people in reasonable amounts, and that cannot reasonably be attained by the average individual. It is usually characterized by its scale.

So for example, you can't build your own park, but you can use the public park without blasting your music on max volume.

Right, and if there was no public transit, then many more people would need to buy and drive cars, and that's not great for the public's interest either.

I think there is a difference between providing the opportunity and giving things out for free.

[1] Both because there are higher safety expectations for railways than for roads and because one of the inherent working principles of railways is to bundle individual demand into larger units (a.k.a. trains) that can be moved across the network en bloc. If everybody tried to operate their own individual little train across the network the way you do with driving your car, things wouldn't work out.

My house has never been on fire (knock on wood), but I'm perfectly happy that my taxes pay for a fire department. I don't often use the park up the street that's currently undergoing a massive renovation/rebuild, but I'm happy that my taxes are paying for the renovation. I don't drive on every single road in the city, but I'm glad my tax dollars make it possible for people to get around even in places where I don't need to go. I don't have kids (and don't plan to), but I'm happy that the taxes I pay go toward educating the kids who live here.

Many public transit agencies are run at a loss; I'm absolutely fine with my tax dollars making up the difference. From there it's just a matter of degree: is it fully funded by taxes, or still partially funded by fare revenue? I'd be fine with the former, too.

A lot of public transport runs on fossil fuels. Especially, since Germany was so »smart« to shutdown all nuclear reactors so that coal has become the most important source of electricity again.

They’re about to double the amount of carbon taxes levied on large trucks. That tax used to be used for building new roads but it’s now all being given over to new rail infrastructure.