A lot of cities have 24 transit service. It’s just that the overnight ridership is too low to justify the cost of running trains, so they substitute buses along the routes.

In all of the Americas, outside of NYC/Jersey City/Newark, the only 24-hour rail lines are:

In Chicago the Red and Blue El lines run all night.

In Philadelphia the Green Line (subway/surface trolleys) and the Red Line (subway to NJ) also run all night.

That’s it.

What I admire most about Streetsblog is that it is, hands down, the blog I read with the most intelligent and articulate reader comments. I continually enjoy reading the lively and reasoned debates that flourish in this forum; I learn a great deal from them, and appreciate that everyone can speak their mind and disagree with others’ opinions without fear of being attacked and insulted. Please don’t poison the well.

Zones 1 and 2 (basically the limits of the metro) combined are also significantly smaller than the area covered by the NYC subway.

You also have to look at the amount of state funding, which IIRC is much higher (as a percentage of farebox revenues) for the Paris Metro.

To be fair, the system in Paris is pretty affordable (a single fare is the equivalent of $2.48 but if you buy a ten-ticket booklet it’s $1.77, flat fare anywhere in the system like here), but like almost every city’s train system (as far as I know, it’s just NYC and Berlin, though if anyone knows of others I’d like to find out) it’s not open all night.

I agree with your general point, still, that we here in NYC get pretty good service for what we pay, I’m just pointing out that Paris isn’t up there with London in terms of an example of a transit system that can be really expensive to use.

Could it be that you have let some, however important, failures of the authority in the past cloud your view of what is, overall, excellent service at a fair price? Have you priced the services of comparable mass transit systems in other big cities, London, Paris, Tokyo and looked at those systems overall means of financial support?

I think it did apply, philosophically, but they only got as far in implementing it as the congestion pricing grants. If only Bush had fixated on de-subsidizing automobile infrastructure instead of invading Iraq, he could have accomplished something positive for America. But making driving more directly expensive in his first term, instead of disastrously invading a foreign land at a massive human cost, would probably have prevented his reelection. And later, oil would still have gone up in price, though less steeply, and he would have been regarded as wise for helping wean us off early. Oh well!

although i still want to see that money used wisely
i dont trust anyone associated with the MTA – labor or mgmt