Rail requires an investment. There is an upfront cost followed by at least a century of return. These cities have been investing in their networks over time.
Look at Crossrail's per mile cost (for the new sections of track)...
The problem is that our required investment is multiples more for the same result. To use one of the examples above, Copenhagen is building a fully automated circle line subway underneath downtown for the same price it's costing Maryland to build 13 miles of non-grade-separated light rail through the suburbs.
Crossrail's per mile costs are still a fraction of New York's. Crossrail upgraded 40+ miles of above-ground track, redeveloped dozens of stations, renewed 20 bridges, and built a 15-mile segment of new track (13 of them in subways) for about $20 billion. And in just a decade of construction. Phase II of the Second Avenue subway, meanwhile, is costing $3.8 billion per mile. And just the first 4.5 miles of the 8.5 mile line will have taken 20 years to construct, not including the significant prior work that was done since the 1970s.
We can’t build things, which is why our infrastructure is shit pretty much across the board. My daughter’s school bought a failing golf course and turned it into athletic fields for students. It’s taken 8 years since the school first purchased the property to build a baseball field, a track, and some tennis courts. There was three separate law suits and it took almost 7 years just to start construction.
Public projects are even worse because of a law called NEPA. The law requires a detailed environmental study of pretty much every significant project, including new rail projects. Just putting together the environmental impact statement can take years. The median is 3.6 years and a quarter of projects take more than 6 years: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CEQ-EI.... Because these are all administrative decisions, there are numerous opportunities to file lawsuits, take appeals, etc., over pretty much any decision made in an EIS.
Any significant transit project can expect to spend at least a decade in planning, permitting, and litigation, with litigation continuing through construction. The environmental and administrative laws are so broadly worded, pretty much anyone can hold up a project for years using various pretextual reasons (water runoff, wetland management, threatened species, traffic management, etc.).
Contrast how France does things. In France, the government is a single organ—local governments are mere administrative subdivisions of the national government. Decisions get made, and whatever environmental review is needed is done, and once that is done, the legislature passes a law that preempts any other law, allowing the project to proceed without further legal challenges.
Also, I think Europeans for the most part aren’t antisocial tools. People in Chicago sued Ronald McDonald House Charities to stop building of housing for families of cancer patients being treated at Northwestern Hospital.
> So how are you guys able to build freeways and even homes if your construction costs are so high?
I mean, the US... Mostly doesn't, in the kind of city large enough for subways. Have you seen all the articles on how bad the housing situation is in places like LA, SF or NYC?
Look at Crossrail's per mile cost (for the new sections of track)...