Mayor Bloomberg: Private Ownership of Subway May Not Be Attractive

It seems that a bit of a history lesson is in order. For one thing the BMT never went bankrupt. The IRT did but only because it was forced to operate the elevated lines. Its subway division was quite profitable. The city forced the companies out of business by refusing to allow them to increase the nickel fare at the time. In spite of inflation the companies were forced to maintain a nickel fare from 1904 to 1940. How many other businesses does anyone know that can go without a price increase for 36 years?

The issues that forced the city takeover of the transit system are too complex to explain here in 2 paragraphs but suffice to say that the city did not take them over to save them. It took them over because it thought that they were profitable and wanted to keep the profit for itself. Instead government mismanagement and the politicization of the fare turned what was once a profit into an eternal deficit.

The MTA takes in (from the Subway alone) some $8M a weekday in fares. You don't think $40M a week to run a rail system is enough?

The system is featherbedded with so much union bullshit it's laughable. Privatizing the entire system would help: they could clean out the unneeded people (like the 2 guys asleep in the train during construction and 8 guys standing around doing nothing).

It needs to be run like a business: unprofitable stations would benefit from overly profitable stations-- that's the way it works.

kids, generally the advantage of privatization is that of competition. in infrastructure, unfortunately, competition generally makes no sense. notice how Verizon, Time Warner, Con Ed, etc. are all private corporations? notice how they all still fuck you? good. now lobby your state & federal government to adequately fund public transportation.

If the MTA were bought by a Chinese or Arabian based company, Lou Dobbs would have a heart attack.

Look at what happened in England: British rail got chopped up and sold off to private operators. one of them, Railtrack, did such a lousy job maintaining its assets that a series of disasters forced those in favor of privatization to rethink that concept.If you think the subway system is badly flawed now, wait until someone tries to squeeze costs out of it to eke out a profit.

The only profitable system is the MTR in Hong Kong, and they have a very interesting model where the stations are also shopping centers owned by the operating corporation. The MTR was given a lot of land by the government when they opened to develop, which they rely on for a profit.

There is no way any operating agency could make a profit on fares and advertising alone. Period. The MTA's revenue from advertising is relatively tiny, and would still be tiny if the whole system were covered in digital ads.

Privatization of the Tube in London has been a massive clusterf*ck. A one-way fare now costs $8 and the system still sucks, in some cases, even worse.

Profitable transit systems are a myth. They dont exist. No matter where you go in the world, trips are subsidized by the government.

If they cut out the union (who goes on strike a week before Christmas), the subway would be much cheaper.

If the subway system made full use of it's potential, it could make lots of money.

You have a captive audience of people. Why not put video or audio ads in the subway, and why not put ads on the outside of subway cars?

Why not put first class cars on each train, which cost more, but have nice wide seats, alcohol service, and no homless bums? You can easily charge an additional fare. Who enjoys being crushed in a subway car like a sardine anyway?

There are plenty of ways to become profitable. Maybe privitization would be a good idea for the subway system.

this is the stupidest idea yet. when are they going to go after the corrupt top levels of management at the mta?

pepsi times square! yes. do. it.

The center of capitalism against privatization... the irony of it...

An incredibly stupid idea, a guaranteed disaster.

You privatize the subway system and they'll start closing stations which cost more money to operate than they bring in, and there are plenty of stations that fit that category. The subway will no longer be run for the benefit of the public, but it will be run to ultimately make a profit. There are many downsides most people don't realize.

They'll start trimming the fat in more ways than one and then everyone will be back complaining far more than they are complaining now.

Sell the station names. If Pepsi is willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to have the Pepsi Times Square Station, do it.

Yeah, the subway system is very expensive to maintain. But I wonder if some of the problems--like rising costs of projects because they keep getting delayed-- might be avoided without the bureaucracy of dealing with the city and state. (Yes, it's wishful thinking!)

private ownership will allow the owners to not only open your bags in search... it will be much worse!

well... all that would happen is that the subway would cost you $5 per trip... and they'd have a huge cost to keep those 100+ year old rails up and running...

and what happens when they say we need to stop servicing queens or brooklyn because of track work for a month or two... (or we need to stop service to the bronx cause there is no profit)

Private ownership of the subways failed once and the city had to take over the two bankrupt companies the IRT and BMT in 1940.

Huh? Millions of people go through NYC everyday and use the subways combined with local residents. That's a lot of money. Where does all the money go?