[theluketaylor]

And public roads are free? The streets inside a city and highways connecting them are massively expensive and no one bats an eye. Even toll highways often don't really pay for themselves.

Transportation infrastructure of any mode is massively expensive and is undertaken to facilitate all sorts of economic activity. Public transportation being held to a standard of direct profit is something no other public infrastructure is expected to achieve.

[gottorf]

It was in response to GP's comment about the "US car tax"; I'm pointing out that no matter how someone gets around, there is going to be some kind of tax. I don't mean to imply that public roads are free.

But I do mean to imply that often times comparisons are made between car-centric cities and public transit-centric cities without any close attention to the actual costs involved, nor a sober cost-benefit analysis. It seems like it's usually categorical statements like "public transit is better and cars shouldn't exist" or "you'll pry the steering wheel from my cold, dead fingers".

> Public transportation being held to a standard of direct profit is something no other public infrastructure is expected to achieve.

Perhaps most people don't think about it, but even roads and bridges need to be profitable one way or another. There are many famous examples of "bridges to nowhere"-type public works projects throughout history where some massive infrastructure work was done in a place that won't use that level of infrastructure, usually through corruption. Everyone loses when that happens.

I guess public transit systems seem to be unfairly targeted for (as you said) "a standard of direct profit" because it's usually built and maintained by a centralized authority, vs. roads which are built and maintained by many different layers of government, with more diffuse paths of revenues and expenditures.