New York has one of the highest state tax rates, 2nd to only California. It is absurdly high given the quality of public transportation. They cant have it both ways.
A good example of this issue would be the escalators in BART. BART installed these shitty escalators 30 years ago that don’t work well outside and are prone to breaking down, plus homeless defecate on them... Instead of replacing the escalators that constantly break (or installing a bathroom... they’ve all been closed since 9/11...) they just keep fixing the escalators over and over and over again. It’s a penny wise, pound foolish mentality. We refuse to make long term investments in our infrastructure and just use bandaid solutions that end up costing much more.
Oh and the person in charge of selecting the escalators for BART was eventually hired by the escalator company. It’s a perfect example of everything wrong with public goods in America.
This reply seems to be a good illustration of the attitude described by its parent. The word they is telling.
I live in a city with one of the most cost-effective public transport systems. People in Tokyo tend to think of the railways as an extension of themself / their home / their city. Whereas I imagine most Americans tend to look at such systems from an external perspective: hence "they".
Oh and the person in charge of selecting the escalators for BART was eventually hired by the escalator company. It’s a perfect example of everything wrong with public goods in America.