Most cities capped transit fares at one nickel when streetcars got started and the US was on the gold standard. These laws remained in effect even through massive inflation through two world wars, and usually didn't get repealed until the companies failed, the government took ownership of these services and then realized how much they cost.
I don't like to assume - but would I be more right to assume you're big into "cryptocurrencies" with crypto being in your username or more wrong?
I think the 70's gas rationing in the US was another example of where price controls absolutely stomped on consumers.
I'm not sure if there are any examples to the contrary, but there are surely people who benefit as, say, 'winning' a rent controlled apartment (but I wouldn't necessarily consider that those people were ever actually consumers in the market to begin with).
I think an evolution of government is necessary, likely where a relatively blank slate is needed to flush out the influence of regulatory capture - and most important where each political party comes forward to present their actual party platform that will update/remove what existing laws in place - basically a version controlled repo like Git facilitates. This way there will be an exact breakdown, exactly in the place of existing laws for the layperson et al to go through it in an easy UI/UX; along with commentary and conversation - similar to how the Genius.com allowing line-by-line threaded commentary.
The streetcars between Queens and Brooklyn got killed this way too, and not even replaced.
It's horrible. But public transit yo!
It's funny. In the U.S. the federal government doesn't get to nationalize industry thanks to the Steel Cases. The States don't do it either because they compete with each other. But the cities do do it, and what can they nationalize? Public transportation is what they have nationalized. In other countries it tends to be the inverse. So Buenos Aires has an amazing privately-run public transit (bus) system that is the envy of any American city, and that's because in Argentina they nationalize big companies, not piddly ones, because the politicians who can do it are at the federal level, and they "dream big".
I wish we could put all public transit in the U.S. in the private sector. Then finally we would have real public transit options.
Rail generally hasn’t failed in places that are dense enough to support it; Europe, East Asia, and even a few North American cities.
This is negated by its downsides:
- rail is supremely expensive
- rail is even more expensive to relocate
- therefore rail is fixed forever
- which means you can't alter routes to fit changing transit demand patterns
Rail is dead. Rail is a fetish. It's an exceedingly expensive fetish. It's malinvestment for anything other than cargo.
> Rail generally hasn’t failed in places that are dense enough to support it
But not most of the U.S., China, Africa, Russia, etc. Even places dense enough for rail would still be better off making better use of roads for busses.
China and Russia have a lot of railways and use them extensively. In fact China operates the world's largest high speed rail network at 45,000km, and 10,000km of urban rail transit. Russian Railways represents 2.5% of Russian GDP and the Moscow Metro is the 8th largest metro in the world and the 7th busiest.
Africa doesn't really have railways but it also doesn't really have roads because the state of African infrastructure is poor in general.