

The initial investment can be very expensive, yes, but a good underground system or largely off-road overground system in a city can be profitable from reasonable fares because of the sheer quantity of passengers it can move per hour.
Once you get to the frequency where you don’t look up the timetable before you set off because there’ll be one along shortly and you get to the speed where you beat the traffic, you start winning passengers from cars and them everyone has a better commute.
But if there’s only a few per hour and they have to mix in with the traffic, public transport is worse than going by car, so people don’t use it en masse, so fares are high and it’s not great.






I think you two live in different counties and actually agree.