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[quote user="cogloadreturns"] And....Sorry Sam but it can get a touch repetitive. Form my experience over here all major infrastructure projects require pump priming to one degree or another from the state. Whether direct or indirect the state plays a role which is crucial. However and this seems to be something which, with all due respect, you are not able to grasp. If the electorate of a country vote in a man/ party etc. on a platform which includes the building of said infrastructure in the knowledge that their taxpayers cash will be funelled in that direction then they have tactily complied in that programme. It is then for the representatives of that electorate to make sure that their money is not spent elsewhere. And it is up to that electorate then to keep a beady eye on their representatives. If you wish to return to a totally "private sector" non taxpaying solution; well not sure about the US but over here we may still be using donkeys. Hold on the Kings Highway required upkeep through local "taxation" - but in lieu as opposed to direct taxation....er....hold that for a minute..... Let me think of another solution......  [/quote] Most of the public transport infrastructure in this country was jump started, at least, with government(s) raised or backed funds.  One exception would be the eastern railroads, which were funded to a large extent by European capital.  The government(s) made the investment with the expectation that the users would pay for the cost of the infrastructure.  This has been largely true, although sometimes indirectly, with the exception of passenger rail since the inception of Amtrak.  And it is likely to be even more so with the implementation of high speed rail, whatever that means, as pointed out in a recently released GAO report. It is a nice political science theory to think that the electorate knows how transport infrastructure is funded.  In the U.S. very few people understand it, primarily because it is arcane and difficult to fathom.  It took me months to figure it out.  And I am a CPA.  Most of the people who post to these forums don't understand it.  Therefore, they and their fellow citizens are poorly equipped to hold their elected officials accountable for how the dollars are spent. I constantly run into people who have come back from Europe or Japan singing the praises of the trains that they rode whilst overseas.  They want to know why we don't have similar trains in the U.S.  When I explain the funding scheme to them, i.e. the taxpayer's pick-up a large part of the action, irrespective of whether they use the trains, their enthusiasm tends to wane.
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