The private sector is not investing in public transit in NYC because IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO, not because it wouldn't if it could.
There used to be a lot of private sector public transit in NYC. Today there is none. That was not an inevitability!
Many cities around the world have extensive private sector public transit. E.g., Buenos Aires has privately-run public transit buses with amazing coverage of the city and surroundings. NYC's bus system is garbage by comparison to Buenos Aires'. The difference is that NYC's bus system is run by the city, while Buenos Aires' is run by private companies.
(It's always interesting to see what parts of the economy get socialized in different countries/cities. The public transit system was the easiest part of the private sector to socialize in the U.S., so that's what got socialized early. Elsewhere (e.g., in the UK) it was trains, telcos, medicine, etc. This allows us to compare results. It's never pretty, what results from socialization.)
Public transit in the U.S., and in NYC in particular, was very much a private sector function way back when. It seems unbelievable today that the private sector could build subways, but why should it be unbelievable? $19B is a lot of money for NYC, but it's a pittance compared to the capitalization of Apple or Amazon, or Elon Musk's ventures -- if only the private sector could do it, it absolutely would build a better transit system.
But the lesson has been learned: if you build something that cannot be moved, you will be highly vulnerable to takeover by the state.
Recall that the Baltimore Colts left the city in a hurry right before the governor of Maryland signed a bill appropriating the team...
You can't take a subway system with you should the city decide they want to own it instead of you, and you'll never be compensated the true value of the system you built no matter what the applicable Constitution(s) says.
Even if the private sector were now invited to invest in NYC public transit, without an ironclad guarantee that they won't get taken to the cleaners later, why should they?
But the point stands: if they were allowed to and not threatened with eventual state takeover, the private sector bloody well would invest in public transit, and it would do a far, far superior job by comparison to the state. We know that the private sector has, does, and will invest in public transit when they are allowed to and in locations where they reasonably believe their property will not be taken by the state.
If you wonder why Buenos Aires doesn't have a private sector subway system, the answer is obvious: the capital investment required for that is so much higher than for a bus system, that a private owner would stand to lose a lot more from a state takeover of their subway line than of their bus line, therefore no sane investor would invest in Bs.As.' subways. The same applies to NYC, except that in NYC the private sector is not allowed to run buses either...
You seem to have accepted the liberal mantra that some massive projects can only be run by the state. This is very, very wrong. How much evidence do we need before you and everyone else figure this out? Why would one believe that SpaceX is viable as a private company but subways are not? Elon Musk absolutely does not think this way. Yes, yes, Musk sure likes public subsidies, but I don't believe they are necessary for his ventures, and would much prefer that he not rely on them in any case, but even with subsidies his model is far superior to the state running those ventures outright.
I think the inefficiency of state controlled transit is worth discussing, but I think these examples are a bit cherrypicked and don't necessarily support claims like "[the private sector] would do a far, far superior job by comparison to the state." Unregulated private sector investing destroyed the traincar transit systems in the United States, and helped set a general national attitude towards cars vs transit that is not present in countries like Argentina. There are only a few privatized subways in the world, in Japan. Your argument waves away many of the realities of building and maintaining subterranean rail transit in a profitable private company. "If the private sector could do it" is a question staked on more than just government regulation.
Actually, in Argentina the use of long distance rail for mass passenger transit is increasing for the first time in years after the systems were nationalized.
Feel free to disregard what I've written if I, too, have accepted the liberal mantra. Issuing such a diagnosis poisons the discussion into an argument unnecessarily and suggests you're chanting a mantra of your own. Some of your examples are wildly picked and distant from the subject at hand, or downright confusing: What nationalized "telcos" in the UK are we comparing notes with? Can we use the highly regulated Korean ISP market as a substitute? Does it really support this point to crow that the US healthcare system is superior to socialized alternatives in European countries?
My use of "liberal mantra" as to one specific idea, is not an ad hominem, nor does it mean that I'm not a liberal, for example, or that I don't like liberals. It just means that that particular idea is typically championed by liberals (which I believe is true). I don't see what's offensive about that.
As to long distance rail, it's not public transit, but sure, let's discuss it. I've no idea what's going on in Argentina with long distance rail. One possibility is that the roads suck, so rail looks good by comparison -- I just wouldn't know. Long distance rail has a lot of competition (cars, planes) -- it doesn't look like a long-term winner to me, but if so, that would be true regardless of which sector is to invest in rail.
The UK nationalized the telephone system around the time of WWI, IIRC.
I did pick wildly: because I was illustrating that different countries/localities tend to make different choices as to what to socialize, and not much evidence is needed to see that this at least appears to be true. I listed some examples, but did not make an extensive study. I suspect local politics, and the ease or difficulty (socially, culturally, politically, practically) of taking over some industry or another are the main factors in the choice of what to socialize.
It really is astounding (to me) that in the U.S. it was public transit that was socialized -- everywhere you go in the U.S., the trains and buses are all state-run -- but much else was not socialized (e.g., healthcare). Telecommunications in the U.S. was -for a few decades- regulated to the point that it was not greatly different from being state-run, but healthcare, for example, was not, and neither was automobile manufacturing, and not even electric utilities (with few exceptions, such as the TVA). And it is astounding to me that Buenos Aires didn't socialize buses -- I don't know why, but perhaps it was because lots of nationalizations that happened in Argentina targeted foreign-owned businesses (always popular targets), while the bus operators must have been politically connected.
Also, I did not even remotely "crow that the US healthcare system is superior to socialized alternatives in European countries". I do think the private sector does better than the public sector at such things, but that doesn't mean that every instance of one sector doing some thing goes accordingly -- it's a generalization. Stop putting words in my writing. It seems that you feel attacked, but I don't know why -- maybe attacking an idea you hold is like attacking you? But it shouldn't be.
There used to be a lot of private sector public transit in NYC. Today there is none. That was not an inevitability!
Many cities around the world have extensive private sector public transit. E.g., Buenos Aires has privately-run public transit buses with amazing coverage of the city and surroundings. NYC's bus system is garbage by comparison to Buenos Aires'. The difference is that NYC's bus system is run by the city, while Buenos Aires' is run by private companies.
(It's always interesting to see what parts of the economy get socialized in different countries/cities. The public transit system was the easiest part of the private sector to socialize in the U.S., so that's what got socialized early. Elsewhere (e.g., in the UK) it was trains, telcos, medicine, etc. This allows us to compare results. It's never pretty, what results from socialization.)
Public transit in the U.S., and in NYC in particular, was very much a private sector function way back when. It seems unbelievable today that the private sector could build subways, but why should it be unbelievable? $19B is a lot of money for NYC, but it's a pittance compared to the capitalization of Apple or Amazon, or Elon Musk's ventures -- if only the private sector could do it, it absolutely would build a better transit system.
But the lesson has been learned: if you build something that cannot be moved, you will be highly vulnerable to takeover by the state.
Recall that the Baltimore Colts left the city in a hurry right before the governor of Maryland signed a bill appropriating the team...
You can't take a subway system with you should the city decide they want to own it instead of you, and you'll never be compensated the true value of the system you built no matter what the applicable Constitution(s) says.
Even if the private sector were now invited to invest in NYC public transit, without an ironclad guarantee that they won't get taken to the cleaners later, why should they?
But the point stands: if they were allowed to and not threatened with eventual state takeover, the private sector bloody well would invest in public transit, and it would do a far, far superior job by comparison to the state. We know that the private sector has, does, and will invest in public transit when they are allowed to and in locations where they reasonably believe their property will not be taken by the state.
If you wonder why Buenos Aires doesn't have a private sector subway system, the answer is obvious: the capital investment required for that is so much higher than for a bus system, that a private owner would stand to lose a lot more from a state takeover of their subway line than of their bus line, therefore no sane investor would invest in Bs.As.' subways. The same applies to NYC, except that in NYC the private sector is not allowed to run buses either...
You seem to have accepted the liberal mantra that some massive projects can only be run by the state. This is very, very wrong. How much evidence do we need before you and everyone else figure this out? Why would one believe that SpaceX is viable as a private company but subways are not? Elon Musk absolutely does not think this way. Yes, yes, Musk sure likes public subsidies, but I don't believe they are necessary for his ventures, and would much prefer that he not rely on them in any case, but even with subsidies his model is far superior to the state running those ventures outright.