alt Hacker News> Lol as if you can't just look up the transit commission's budget. (Annual budget) ÷ (average daily ridership × 12 months per year) = $180 per month per rider at most (since the pool of riders is larger than the daily average).
The farebox recovery rate for NYC is 20%, which is higher than usual, actually. So you can just multiply the price by 5 for a rough estimate.
Or you can do it your way, the 2023 operating budget for MTA was $19.379B and the annual ridership was 1.15B (2023). It works out to about the same: ~$17 per trip or ~$500 per month. Figures are from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Transportation_Au...
Also, WTF are your car numbers? The average total expense for _new_ cars in the US is about $1000 per month ( https://www.way.com/blog/the-real-cost-of-car-ownership-in-t... ), and for used cars it's about $600.
But wait, there's more! This is not an honest comparison. Not at all. It completely misses the capital spending on transit. Just one mile of tunnel in Manhattan now costs more than 1500 miles of 6-lane freeway! Unfortunately, there is no easy way to estimate the total capital expense wasted on public transit.
So the _real_ numbers for transit and cars are not even close. And not in the favor of transit.
> Good. More apartments means cheaper rent.
Nope. More apartments mean more _expensive_ rent. This is an ironclad law of real real estate.
The ONLY way to reduce the housing costs is to decrease the city population.
> The cost of living is high because rent is expensive, obviously.
Yup. And the rent is high because...?
> You're just saying stuff now. Only 40% of jobs are located downtown in my city, and compared to the other cities I saw when I was poking around for this data, that's high.
The problem is the continuing enshittification. Look at the dynamics, check the average pay in areas that don't have direct access to the city cores and the average pay in Downtowns. The gap is exploding.
> Nope. More apartments mean more _expensive_ rent. This is an ironclad law of real real estate.
I don't know how to explain to you that an increase in supply results in the price of a good decreasing.
> Yup. And the rent is high because...?
High demand, low supply. Obviously.
> check the average pay in areas that don't have direct access to the city cores and the average pay in Downtowns
Yeah, because downtown office space costs more & goes disproportionately to higher-paying finance jobs. That has nothing to do with density—that's just finance bros wanting to work in the fanciest skyscrapers.
> The average total expense for _new_ cars in the US is about $1000 per month
Your source refers to cars generally: "As of 2025, the average annual cost of owning a car in the U.S. has reached approximately $12,297, translating to about $1,025 per month." Even with your $500/month figure, transit is still much cheaper. And that $500 isn't just distributed among riders—drivers pay some of it too, as they should, since every person on the subway is person not driving on the road, reducing the need for road infrastructure maintenance & expansion.
> Just one mile of tunnel in Manhattan now costs more than 1500 miles of 6-lane freeway!
Again, Manhattan is unique. I don't know why you keep referring back to it as if its problems are easily generalizable. They put their trash on the street in bags because they don't have room for dumpsters. Also, yes, that's why LRTs are popular—no tunnel required.