[MoreSEMI]

Just saying a bunch of places that have mass transport does not address his question if there are systems where massive subsidies aren’t involved in their creation. I do not know what the situation is in india, but in at least in europe many of the transport systems require massive subsidies. While japan in the meantime has privatized their system and runs very, the original creation was also state directed.

[unmole]

Why are economically viable and subsidised mutually exclusive? How massive are the subsidies when compared to the population served?

[MoreSEMI]

Not really OPs question.

But economically viable and subsided are mutually exclusive because when at that moment the question is not being asked wether the person consuming the good would pay the full price of the service. Economically viable does not mean an expert or technocrat gets to decide for you wether or not something it worth it. Deciding wether or not something is worth is fundamentally an individual’s decision. Of course the expert may say, “look, the cost of getting x amount of people from a to b is y times cheaper using this solution”. But that never takes into account if the people would have preferred a different mode of transport all together. For example, some may prefer the greater carrying flexibility of a car or the ride comfort of one. Of course that is not to say that automotive transport isn’t subsided and that the owners pay the full cost of ownership. The TLDR of it is that economically viable requires people to put money where their mouth is. Someone else CANNOT by definition make that decision unless you believe that some people have “correct” values and others don’t.