Comment by rafram
1 day ago
In 2022, the NYC Subway budgeted about $0.75 per passenger-mile (and that was during Covid, when ridership was very low) [1]. You’re really overestimating how much public transit costs to run. Private vehicles are an extremely inefficient way to move people around, hence the cost of Uber/Lyft/taxis.
[1]: https://data.transportation.gov/Public-Transit/2022-2023-NTD...
That's a useful data set. Thanks for sharing.
NYC is special in that it's one of the few places that subways make sense in America. That said, operating costs are common but extremely misleading way to measure transit costs when new tunnel costs $2.2B/mile.
The proper way to recoup the capital cost is through the increase to land values that arise from building the railway. You buy land around the future stations and put a shopping mall or business center on top.
That and/or land value tax, yes.
> NYC is special in that it's one of the few places that subways make sense in America.
The built environment is not fixed or exogenous. NYC is great for the subway because it was built around the Subway. If America followed international best practices, it could go a long ways towards steering other places' built environments too.
NYC is special in that it's on of the few places that subways make sense in America. That said, operating costs are common but extremely misleading way to measure transit costs when new tunnel costs $2.2B/mile.