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@floatybirb @thomasfuchs Having travelled a bit, maybe it's more important for public transport to be free if the society has no culture of public transport.

Japan's trains and buses can be private because people will catch them anyways. It's more convenient than owning a car most of the time. For a start, you've got to prove you have off-road parking for the car.

But in the US public transport has to compete with cars -- who don't pay for their externalities from parking to CO2 emissions. Reducing those externalities alone covers the provision of public transport from an economic point of view, the question is one of finance.