Rapid transit

:This article is about high-capacity urban rail public transit systems. For lower-order systems, see tram, light rail, bus, and bus rapid transit.

Finance

Many early urban railways were originally constructed by private enterprise, either independently as in London, or under a government franchise as in Paris. Later, direct government control and ownership became the norm as corporations found it difficult to maintain profitability, although in recent years, this trend has been reversed to some extent with moves towards public-private partnership.

Related Topics:
Private enterprise - London - Franchise - Paris - Government - Public-private partnership

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Whatever its original financing, any metro system requires ongoing expenditure to maintain and replace its trains, tracks, tunnels, and other infrastructure. An under-financed system will become unreliable and unpleasant to use, and eventually unsafe, and thus will lose public support.

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In the United States, the lack of metro, subway, or other rapid transit systems except in a few of the larger cities has been attributed to the influence of the automotive industry and oil refining companies, which essentially used automobiles, buses, and advocacy of public road-funding to compete effectively against existing streetcar and trolley systems. These went into decline early in the twentieth century due to a variety of factors including public preference, government regulation, corporate influence and decline in ridership due to failure of the operators to maintain their facilities. (The decline of rapid transit outside of major metropolitan centers gave rise to the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy, a conspiracy theory that auto and oil interests directly engineered the dismantling of rapid transit. The actions of General Motors and their corporate allies embodied one notable factor, but certainly not the only one, in the decline of streetcar networks.)

Related Topics:
General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy - Conspiracy theory

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In Hong Kong, where land prices are high, new railway projects are financed by the development right of lands adjacent to the routes, depots and stations the government granted to the railway companies. Thanks to the high density of urban development and high ridership, railway operations are usually profitable.

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