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.
"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/...
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.
I'm not all knowledgeable in this, so if someone who knows more of its history can chime in please do.
I would argue none of these should be issues in NYC except for the "culture", if in that you include mismanagement culture.
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!
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.
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.
