[this15testingg]

how does private ownership not mean that someone is entitled to control the benefits of an asset? isn't that the entire idea of capitalism?

in the context of public (emphasis on PUBLIC) infrastructure, how does pristine air quality, well paid jobs for workers with ironclad security, not upsetting anyone, strong regulatory controls not be considered in a "high quality product"? How could it be high quality without those? The idea that public infrastructure has to be profitable/a product instead of a public good is misguided and ignores the realities of the costs and requirements associated with such things.

would you say that the strong regulatory nature of air travel makes is low quality? if the NTSB/FHWA took car transportation as seriously as flying, I would imagine the US would not have 40,000 deaths a year just from driving. I don't understand how that amount of death (ignoring pollution, minor/serious injuries, personal cost, lost time, resources both monetary and material, etc) makes the US transport choices a "high quality" product.

[bluetomcat]

It's more of an American cultural trait. People are fearful and obsessed with safety. They can be vocal and overreacting for trivial stuff. They often act in a virtue-signalling manner and put stickers on their cars. Before anything gets done, millions of tweets and reddit comments have been written.

[vmfunction]

In US, safety is often tight to 'will we get sued for this' mentality that is associated with the corrupt legal system. This could also attributed to the over cost of building a train system in US vs other parts of the world.

[renhanxue]

Levy's research group calls this "adversarial legalism" and yes it does seem to be a contributing factor to high construction costs.