Comment by ehnto
8 hours ago
It's fair to note that Japan's private rail networks have often been joint public/private investments, but I don't think that negates your point.
I think public transit is something the public should invest in, profitable or not, as a service to ourselves (the public). But it can also be done profitably in certain circumstances.
I think trying to get the incentives right is important and that "public" transit rarely gets it right. It relies on politicians to fund it and they have so many strings being pulled on that they can rarely give it the funding it needs. It will always show up as an expense and as such there will always be an incentive to cut funding to "lower the expense". If they ever have a surplus it will be syphoned off to something else instead of invested.
Of course many cities have great "public" (run by the government) transportation for some definition of "great" but many have issues of funding. IIUC, NYC and London are both seriously underfunded. Conversely, AFAICT, these private Japanese trains in a city of a comparible size are not. If you don't want to compare to Tokyo, then compare to Osaka
https://www.keihan.co.jp/corporate/ir/individual/
https://www.hankyu-hanshin.co.jp/docs/integratedreport2025_j...