The best formula for public transit is the Rail plus Property business model. In Hong Kong, the MTR Corporation buys up land adjacent to a planned future station, then builds the station afterwards. Then makes money from renting out the properties adjacent to the station.
JR East in Japan operates in the same way: it makes the majority of its profit from the real estate, malls, and hotels it operates adjacent to its train stations.
Did it? I always assumed the US train boom aligned with shipping companies more than land at the destinations, which is why even today cargo gets priority over Amtrak.
Ah yes, the government has never completely botched prime real estate before, nor have they ever botched housing build projects.
Federal and state governments own large parcels of prime NYC, LA, SF, Chicago and other metro land, most of which is underutilized. As an example, they operate or sublease numerous surface level parking lots in those places.
The federal government owns a prime parcel on State Street in Chicago, prime real estate, that is completely abandoned. There are many examples of this.
Your solution is to place this responsibility into the hands of those who have shown complete and utter incompetence across successive administrations?
Yes. My solution is also been shown to work in countries like Switzerland [0], makes the areas around train stations way more livable and return the gains back to the entire populace. I'd even go so far and make the sourrounding area unsellable but leased out for 99 years. Perhaps it's also a mentality difference between EU and US. We guys in the old world aren't (in general) as hypercapitalists or distrustful/follow Reageanismns like “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.”
JR East in Japan operates in the same way: it makes the majority of its profit from the real estate, malls, and hotels it operates adjacent to its train stations.