They are strictly private enterprises and aren't subsidized. There was a national transport company that was subsidized, but it was slowly losing customers after communism fell in 1989 because it was inflexible and used big 40-person buses instead of small 20-person vans on every route. Now the national one was privatized and only runs very few long-distance routes in some parts of the country, most routes are handled by small companies that have a few vans each.
The city buses going inside the big cities are centralized and often subsidized tho.
> School Busses, not public transport,
School buses are a form of public transport, we have them too, but kids go to various schools - some to the nearest one, some to a bigger city further away (I commuted to a primary school 5 km away and then high school 40 minutes away - and mostly used regular buses) - it wouldn't make sense to restrict these buses to kids only and then have separate buses for other people. Why drive 10 people when you have 20 seats and enough potential customers to fill them?
> Nope, never. I prefer not to spat on, robbed, or other ways harassed.
Why is this accepted? If people spit at others in a mall or a cinema would you just accept that it's a thing, or would the society do sth to stop it? It's not rocket science - the driver just has to call police and drive to meet them at nearest stop. In 90s we had huge problems with crime (20% unemployment at one point so you can imagine) yet public transport wasn't any less safe than a mall or cinema - what was unsafe was walking in the wrong hood after dark ;)
>>They are strictly private enterprises and aren't subsidized.
I guess this is a deviation of definition, "public transport" in the US is government run, regulated, and subsidized by government. There are no private "public transport" in the form of local buses, trains, etc. They are either quasi government run (amtrak) or directly government run "Transportation Authority" often run by city or state governments.
Airlines are private though at this point HEAVILY subsidized as most airports are government run, and they get bailouts all the time...
I can not think of a single mass transportation system in the US that is not either directly owned by the government or HEAVILY subsidized by government
>There are no private "public transport" in the form of local buses, trains, etc.
That isn't strictly true. A number of (predominantly ethnic minority) communities are served by entirely privately-operated bus services, created mainly to fill gaps in publicly-subsidised services.
None of the universities with in a 100 mi of me have their own shuttle busses, they all utilize the local City Owned public buses they do not have their own bus network. they might rent some during a sporting event but it not "public transport" it would be ticketed event holders... Further almost if not all of the universities are "public" and should be consider quasi government as they have their own police dept's, and are heavily subsidized by the government
>>shuttles to industrial parks, megachurch parking shuttles, theme park transit.
none of these are public transportation, they may be "mass transportation" but they are not generally open to the general public, they are for the use of people going to or in those private properties, further most do not even travel on the public road system or pickup from "public" places, they are moving people from parking lots to entrances.
The state university I grew up near in NYS was serviced by a private bus system for more than a decade. I don't remember much about it other than the busses being painted blue and being full of college students.
The city buses going inside the big cities are centralized and often subsidized tho.
> School Busses, not public transport,
School buses are a form of public transport, we have them too, but kids go to various schools - some to the nearest one, some to a bigger city further away (I commuted to a primary school 5 km away and then high school 40 minutes away - and mostly used regular buses) - it wouldn't make sense to restrict these buses to kids only and then have separate buses for other people. Why drive 10 people when you have 20 seats and enough potential customers to fill them?
> Nope, never. I prefer not to spat on, robbed, or other ways harassed.
Why is this accepted? If people spit at others in a mall or a cinema would you just accept that it's a thing, or would the society do sth to stop it? It's not rocket science - the driver just has to call police and drive to meet them at nearest stop. In 90s we had huge problems with crime (20% unemployment at one point so you can imagine) yet public transport wasn't any less safe than a mall or cinema - what was unsafe was walking in the wrong hood after dark ;)